Day 2.25: Oklahoma City, OK to Santa Fe, NM

Abe convinced Arielle to wake up at 7:30am so that we could have breakfast with Helene before hitting the road at 9am. Helene had already prepared a lavish feast for us. Since she was born in Brooklyn before spending her high school years in San Antonio, we knew that she knew good bagels, so we asked if the bagels she had bought compared. She described them as very poor – “a roll with a hole” – but we found them to be considerably better than expected. We departed, promising to return to this lovely home as a dusting of snow bid us goodbye, and set out on the long drive to our last westernmost destination.

Passing a road sign for Garth Brooks Blvd, Arielle was shocked that Abe asked to clarify that he was a musician? We also saw an advertisement for The Big Texan Free 72-oz Steak and had to Google it – you can read all about it yourself. We will not be doing it. Abe continued working on this very blog while Arielle listened to Big Little Lies while she was driving, and we accidentally missed the sign when we entered Texas but Abe managed to get a shot of another sign just past that.

Arielle wasn’t hungry yet so Abe found an exit that had a Domino’s Pizza which he randomly got a craving for and a Subway since Arielle is not a fan of Domino’s. It turns out that, while Abe was ordering, she was both got hungry and decided to try Domino’s, which she found “perfectly adequate,” in her own words. Though there wasn’t any birthday deal for Arielle (more on that below), we did get an amazing deal, paying $7.99 for a three-topping large pizza instead of the $10.99 for a medium. This is one chain we can now appreciate and may visit again on our travels. We made a quick stop outside Amarillo at the famous Cadillac Ranch, though the smell of the spraypaint was more than enough to inspire us to quickly leave.

We crossed into New Mexico and stopped at the visitor center, before continuing on to the much-advertised Clines Corners, a rest stop that pales in comparison to the likes of Wall Drug and even most rest stops. We made great time getting to Santa Fe, passing some unmelted snow along the way, arriving at the Hyatt Place around 5:45pm. It was a very nice hotel but we were disappointed to see that the hot tub wasn’t working. When we walked into the hotel room, Arielle was delighted to see a surprise from her a parents – a vase with purple and orange flowers, a card, and an adorable emoji balloon sitting on the desk.

We got some work done in the hotel and then left to drive about ten minutes to Annapurna’s World Vegetarian Café, a small casual vegetarian restaurant that Arielle immediately commented smelled very healthy. We got the World Chips appetizer, which was an assortment of fried taro, cassava and plantain chips with pico de gallo and black beans, which were quite spicy, but Abe very much enjoyed it. Arielle got the ABLT and was shocked to discover that the bacon was made out of seaweed. Abe got the cauliflower tacos, sauce on the side of course. The best possible gift that Abe could have given Arielle for her birthday was to share her food since normally he’s repulsed by the condiments or dressings it includes. This time, her ABLT, which Abe did say had too much “L” with quite the large protruding lettuce leaf, and the lack of dressing, since she didn’t like the cilantro-lime sauce, made it more appealing to Abe, and so he ate most of it, while Arielle took his cauliflower tacos but decided after two bites that she was done. We were both impressed with the veggie bacon, which Arielle described as tasting like a veggie hot dog. Arielle wasn’t entirely satisfied by her meal but knew that dessert was coming so she wanted to save space.

Since Arielle is a leap day baby and only gets a real birthday every four years, her tradition has been to have Baskin Robbins Mint Chocolate Chip ice cream at 11:59pm on February 28th. There were three Baskin Robbins within a few miles, and so went to one and used her free birthday scoop to get Abe some World Class Chocolate, while Arielle bought a double scoop of Mint Chocolate Chip that they could share later. Arielle was even more excited this year because it was her Baskin Robbins birthday (31) and she felt like she had waited her entire life to celebrate it.

We were ecstatic to discover that there was a freezer in our fridge so we could wait to have the ice cream until the prescribed time. We spent a few minutes at the pool – Abe went in, Arielle didn’t – and Arielle got a few phone calls from friends and family. We watched an episode of TV that ended just in time for us to celebrate Arielle’s non-birthday with the ice cream, and then went right to bed.

Approximate number of miles covered: 542

Day 2.24: Hot Springs, AR to Oklahoma City, OK

We hadn’t planned to get up in time for breakfast but since we were up to try to leave we went down right before it closed. It was even more disappointing than the day before, though Abe did like the biscuit quite a bit. We found our car untouched in the mostly empty garage down the street, loaded up, and hit the road. We expected to be getting back on the highway but instead took the Route 7 Scenic Byway for about 60 miles through the Ouchita National Forest. We saw a sign that said “Next 3.5 miles - very crooked and steep,” and were perplexed because most of the road was about that windy (and the use of word crooked seemed odd). We saw a bunch of abandoned, shelled-out homes and buildings along the side of the road through our tour of rural Arkansas. Eventually, we got back to Interstate 40 and drove until we crossed into Oklahoma (state #43 for Arielle), where we saw signs about state law to not “impede the left lane,” and stopped just at the next exit in Roland.

We ate at the 4 Star Diner, on a road actually called “Paw Paw Rd,” where we asked about the “chocolate gravy” and were given a “sample” by the waitress of what is essentially delicious and hot chocolate pudding over two biscuits, and she didn’t even charge us! Obviously, we ate the whole thing. Abe was intrigued by the veal cutlet, which the waitress said not to get because it was frozen, but moreso by the side options, pictured below, which included peaches and jello. He opted instead for the French toast, which was delicious, and Arielle enjoyed her grilled cheese. She got hashbrowns on the side which we shared and both loved. The whole meal cost $16 including tip! This is a highly recommended stop for those crossing the border between Arkansas and Oklahoma.

We drove a few more miles to the welcome center, which featured a chandelier seemingly made out of antlers.

We had spoken to our host in Oklahoma City, who had warned of 20-degree temperatures and black ice on the roads, and within 30 minutes of leaving Roland, the temperature had indeed dropped from 61 degrees to 31 degrees. More frighteningly, as we approached Oklahoma City, the windshield started to ice over and got bad enough that we pulled off at a travel stop to try to get an ice scraper, which they didn’t have.

Stopping for a few minutes made it better, and while it did start to ice over a bit more, it didn’t get as bad as we continued the remaining twenty minutes or so into the city. Special shout-out to Dave for being on the phone with us as it happened and trying to safely and calmly coach us through it. We arrived at the Oklahoma City National Memorial and Museum at around 4:30pm, exiting the car to frigid temperatures and pulling out coats and gloves we hadn’t used since being in Utah a month earlier. We walked through the meaningful monument that Abe had visited twice before while touring with USY on Wheels only to find that the museum, which advertised online as selling its last ticket at 5pm before closing at 6pm, was completely locked and unstaffed. A security guard showed up a few minutes later and told us that the museum had closed at 3pm because of the cold and icy weather, so we wouldn’t have been able to go in even if we had gotten there a bit earlier. We spent a few minutes touring the outside memorial before heading back to our car, and planned to come back to the museum in the future.

We drove about twenty minutes to the home of Helene, who Arielle and Abe had met at the Kavod V’Nichum Jewish Funeral and Burial Conference in Bethesda last June. She was an incredible host, letting us help prepare some sides for a delicious salmon dinner she made. The food was topped only by the presentation, which included chilled salad plates, baked apples for dessert, and a plate of assorted cookies which we assumed were store-bought because they were so beautiful and perfect but which she had made herself.

We enjoyed a lovely evening together, and Arielle was delighted by Helene’s suggestion that she take a bath, something she had been yearning to do since seeing the bathhouses the day before. It was relaxing and a wonderful way to close out a homey experience.

Approximate number of miles covered: 317