NY to AZ, Day Two

So today started early. I woke up at 6am (central time) which is damn early for me. Partly the excitement of the trip, partly the convenient location of budget inn in relation to the highway on/off ramp. I already mentioned how the faucet didn't work, but luckily the shower was functioning, so I got washed and dressed and on the road before 7. I was still too far for my in-car navigation to calculate the full trip to Phoenix, so I chose a midway point, Amarillo, TX. The distance to Amarillo was just over 1000 miles; more than the 750 I drove yesterday. Indiana was pretty much entirely farmland as far as I could see from the highway. Then on to Illinois.
I was well south of Chicago so all I saw of IL was also farms. Soon enough I got to St.Louis, MO. The arch was pretty cool, plus the city looked quite nice. It was the nicest city I drove past so far. After STL things got pretty repetitive. I was surprised by the slightly hilly terrain of the rest of MO. I thought the Midwest was all flat but as you can see it has nice rolling hills.

Getting into Oklahoma was a nice milestone. I noticed that the license plates no longer carry the slogan, "Oklahoma is OK." I guess they were tired of all the shit they were getting for that. I'm not sure the new slogan is any less humorous. "Native America." Now I understand that this probably has to do with the large number of Native Americans living in OK, but when you think about it, isn't all of America, Native America? And really, wouldn't the original 13 colonies be the most Native America?

When I got into Texas tonight I started seeing these really bright flashes in the sky that I thought were fireworks or something. It was hard to see because they were obscured by some clouds. As I got closer could see that this was a lightning storm. This was pretty weird for me because these bolts of lightning were really bright and quite frequent, but I heard no thunder and there was no rain. That's why it took my so long to identify what was going on. Turns out these lightning storms are pretty common here, and they are usually accompanied by hail and dust storms. Kind of strange when it's in the 80's.

So I made it to Amarillo, TX, and I'm in a much nicer hotel tonight, a Best Western. The room is huge and it's worth the $60. Plus the included internet is a nice change. To send my last email I stopped at a Best Western along the way and sat in the parking lot to grab the wireless internet.

I now have just under 800 miles to go till Phoenix. Looks like I'll be able to make it tomorrow evening. Since I'm ahead of schedule I might stop to do some sightseeing tomorrow.