Day 8 - are we to Albaturkey yet?

editorial note: no pictures in this post. (you wouldn't want them anyway)

sorry for the late post. we drove from corona, ca (just east of LA) to Albuquerque, NM on Saturday. google maps says that's about 760 miles. i know it was too long - and we have to do the same on sunday.

we wanted to make it to santa rosa, nm, but that didn't happen. when we hit albuquerque, i pulled off at the first "hotel cluster" and made a bad choice. i pulled into the super 8 (they are hit-and-miss on quality) and got a room. the room was non-smoking, but that doesn't do much good unless the whole "wing" or floor of a hotel is non-smoking. the hallway just reeked of stale cigarettes. the room smelled weird (i now think it was dog pee), and we found dog food on the floor between the bedside table and the bed. it was terrible - but we just fought through and went straight to bed.

i tried to watch a little CNN to see if there was any news on the mine accident in Utah, but was too sleepy, and it was keeping the kids up. when i turned off the tv, jaden said he could see a face in the tv. that's all it took to scare the monkey and i had to lay down with him to calm him down. an hour later i finally got to get back in bed (after he was asleep) and got to sleep myself.

i slept longer than i wanted to and we didn't get out until just after 7am. we have 623 miles to go today yet - and the stretch from amarillo to home is killer - usually 6 hours or so i think. that's probably worse than driving in the desert, but i'm not sure.

as i type this, we're nearing the texas border. yeah. i'm glad to be getting closer to home, but not looking forward to what that means. this has been one of my favorite vacations. it's right up there with montana (but not quite). having the kids on a long road trip has actually been fun. we've been able to bond alot and have (i think) lots of fun. not knowing where we would end up at the end of the day is fun - and lets us relax a whole lot more than having a set schedule. maybe this means the eastern half of "the mother road" is in our future. i hope so.

i'll post when we get home. rheanna says we have bananas on our banana tree. that's exciting! maybe we'll have fried plantains this week. :)

live from exit 369, i-40 eastbound, in New Mexico, this is jerOmey signing off. catch ya later.