Winter Road Trip Day 4: Springfield MO to Holbrook AZ

We got on the road early and made a quick stop for supplies at a Wal Mart in Springfield MO. It was Christmas Eve, so we wanted to have food to eat dinner in the car because restaurants might be closing early for the holiday.

We drove and drove and drove some more. We had lunch at a local fast food Mexican restaurant in Tulsa OK, and then got back on the road.

The terrain transitioned into farmland and then into grazing land. We saw great blue herons, peregrine falcons, and even a pair of bald eagles as we passed wetlands in the Oklahoma plains.

We didn't have time for any tourist activities, but we did take a few pictures along the road in the Texas Panhandle.

We saw a lot of run-down farms and businesses.

This water tower was doing its own "Leaning Tower of Pisa" impression.

At one rest stop we saw a pond that was absolutely full of ducks, geese, and some swans.

Note the barbed wire, one of the inventions credited with advancing the settling of the West. There was an exhibit on barbed wire at one of the Texas rest stops. It was originally advertised as "Thin as air, strong as whiskey, and cheap as dirt!".

When we approached the pond, the birds took flight spectacularly.

Here's a shot of the nearby farmhouse.

And here I am with the farm in the background.

And here is a view of the highway looking east.

We ate dinner in the car as planned and drove late into the night, finally arriving in our hotel in Holbrook around midnight local time (after setting the clocks back to cross into Mountain time). We went directly to bed, with plans to sleep in on Christmas morning.