We leave about 8:00am from Tucumcari driving east on I-40. Our plan is to drive to Elk City, OK where we plan to stay at 66 to Go, a Harvest Host site. For $60 a year, as a Harvest Host member, you have access to overnight park at over 2,000 restaurants, museums, farms, wineries, breweries, and much more. Not a bad deal since most campgrounds are around $35 for a State Park and upwards of $40 – 50 for a private campground with full hook-ups. HH sites are typically dry camping with no hook-ups but what they do offer is a unique local experience sampling local wares and generating revenue for their community by bringing tourism to it. There is a website where you can look for sites, make reservations, and read other reviews about the host. We did not use it on the way but were determined to on the way back, and we are here tonight at our first of many.
The interstate first took us through a small part of New Mexico before heading into the panhandle of Texas. Here there are thousands of wind turbines as far as the eye can see on the distant horizon. They must power millions of homes and businesses, it’s quite a sight to see. It’s flat as a pancake here with next to no trees, with large ranches and irrigation systems and we wonder what they grow here. This is definitely big sky country since there is nothing but the land spreading out to the horizon.
While enroute, we stop at the first rest area we come to in Texas Panhandle near the Gray County sign. This rest area is the Taj Mahal of all rest areas in our travels, and I venture to say, the entire US. From sliding glass entry doors to marble stalls, terrazzo floors, tiled walls, to hot water instantly out of the faucets, and so clean you could eat off the floors – this is an amazing facility, if only all rest areas to be remade in its exact likeness!
We reach Oklahoma around 2:00pm, crossing another time zone from MST to CST. Elk City is a small town just to the inside of the state line and the Harvest Host is located on the outskirts of the town. We park in the gravel area adjacent to the restaurant and use the LevelMatePro to find a level spot so the refrigerator can work. Other than putting the feet down on the camper, we are fully set-up and hungry – good thing the Harvest Host is a restaurant! We each enjoy a pizza, one gluten-free and one traditional, it is great. For dessert, they have dozens of flavors of frozen custards, I chose Butter Pecan and Ron, Strawberry. It’s delicious.
Tomorrow we will travel east on I-40 towards Arkansas. Originally, we wanted to head northeast from Oklahoma City to Tulsa and then into Missouri, but the weather is not cooperating. The roads in starting in Texas and continuing into Oklahoma are some of the bests we’ve travelled, and it makes traveling so much easier and less stressful. Fingers crossed that tomorrow’s travels will be as pleasant.
2025 Airstream Travels 