Day Seven

Day Seven ending location: Muskogee, OK
Total miles driven as of Day Seven: 3525

What a day of driving. I drove just about 900 miles (902 to be exact) from Denver to Muskogee. This map shows roughly the route I traveled. There were a couple of snafus like the closing of the highway due to a bad accident. I also tried to go up to Pike’s Peak, but found that it would have taken me two hours to drive up and back and I wanted to get some serious distance so that I could make it to Memphis by the 4th.

Once I left Colorado Springs, there really wasn’t all that much to see on the road. The countryside looked very different from the mountainous region I had been driving in, but it’s amazing how far you can see in the plains. For those of you who have watched Food, Inc. I saw a bunch of factory farms just totally overloaded with cattle. I didn’t really expect to see so many of those farms just right off the main highway, but I guess there isn’t really any need to hide what everyone in the area already knows. It appears that these farms (and the giant Tyson foods factory) are major employers in Kansas.

I stopped in Rocky Ford (Colorado) for Mexican food and watched the second half of the Spain – Paraguay game. Oh my goodness what a game. I walked in just in time to see Paraguay awarded a penalty kick (and then get blocked)! Then Spain got awarded one and scored, but had it called back and then the re-kick was blocked. I wanted to see it go to penalty kicks, but David Villa knocked one home after hitting three posts. In all my experience of playing soccer, EVERY shot I’ve seen off the post comes out.

I totally forgot to mention Joaquin's "accident" at the gas station. I was re-fueling and went inside to get a couple of refreshments. While doing so, a woman came in somewhat frantic, "Sir! Sir! The pump wasn't shutting off!" Apparently, the auto-release on the pump didn't go and a bunch of extra gas spilled down the side of the car and onto the ground. Yeesh. I cleaned Joaquin up a bit, crossed my fingers, and started the car hoping that it wouldn't blow up.

It didn't.






I got to Dodge City by 8:04pm (damn time change). The historic downtown area closed at 8pm so I just missed being all old-timey and all that. So sad. I managed to get some chicken wings there and a blue moon for under $10.

Aside from that, I pretty much just kept driving all the way to Muskogee. I was going to stop in Tulsa, but I was still pretty awake and figured I’d get as far as I could. Muskogee was the next stop and that’s where I ended.