Day 4+ - We're Here!!

We arrived, after 1800+ miles, in Albuquerque about 11:45 AM on Friday.  The ole Penske did great, with the possible exception of the less than 13 MPG (with the windows up).

My nephew, Mike, and his son Ty (pictures to come) were here to greet us as we backed the truck up to their garage with the loot.  They have a beautiful home in a wonderful neighborhood in NW Albuquerque.  After a brief visit, we were unloaded by 2:00 PM and off to a nice lunch at Village Inn.

On something we failed to post:  One of the more interesting characters we met on our trip was our waitress in Tucumcari, NM, on our final night on the road (not what you think).  She is a young community college student who left Michigan with her horse to come to Tucumcari to study rodeo.  She is a barrel racer and goat tier (go figure on that one).  She will be graduating this month and be on the rodeo circuit shortly if she can get her money lined up.  She did a good job waitressing.

Back to our current blog:  On the way from Tucumcari, on I-40 Dennis' wants on this trip were completed.  A guy from Iowa passed us like we were sitting still pulling a 1950 John Deere B restored back to new condition.  Our Penske lost the draft at 75 MPH and we thought we'd lost him - we were needing a picture, but a few miles later when we pulled in to a truck stop in Santa Rosa, NM, there he was still fueling.  So we made acquantence, and took a picture to fullfill Dennis' Christmas wish.

One of Ty's first questions of Grandpa (Dennis) was "where's your girl?"  Hmmmm....good question.  But after a little more investigation it became clear that Ty was asking about Kay, Grandpa's wife.
After the good lunch we had play time with Cocomo the dog, who's energy is unending.  Amber, who was the only one among the whole bunch that was working, finally made it home about 6:30 PM on a Friday evening.  After some visiting, we went to the local Applebee's for dinner.

Everyone sort of slept in on Saturday.  Amber prepared a great back east breakfast (redneck) of eggs, fried potatoes, biscuits, with jelly, and the best coffee since we left home (Beth would have even liked it) - Mmmmmm, mmmmmm.  Even though we had the truck until Monday, we decided it would be a good time to return it, so we declared victory and took it back. 

Nadine, our GPS (I know, it's just wrong to name your GPS), had been a trusty companion on our trip, and she did her job one last time to get us to the Penske return center.  We had developed a positive relationship with the truck, and sort of hated to part ways (Dennis was definitely misty eyed).

We'll add some more family pictures later.  Currently, it's time for Ty to get Grandpa to take him to see Santa Claus and for Uncle Harry to catch up on some football.

Score:  Dennis 2,  Harry 2 - Going in to overtime.......