A windy drive home and a huge cross

Since we had heavy winds the first day out it was only right that we had heavy winds on the last day. Other that the wind while crossing New Mexico on our way west we had really nice weather for the whole trip. That all changed Sunday night while we were sitting in Teacumcari. The winds came up really strong. So the winds were still blowing really strong as we pulled out this morning. Fortunately, the wind was coming straight out of the west so it was pushing us which was a great help to the fuel mileage. We enjoyed that good tail wind until about Elk City, Oklahoma. (That's about 100 miles from home.) At that point the wind shifted to coming directly from the south which meant it was hitting us broadside. Even slowing down to 55 it was hard to keep the rig on the road. I had to stop a couple of times because our awnings appeared to be coming loose. The third time we stopped I put a bungee cord around one of the arms to the awning over the door to keep it from being ripped off. At El Reno, about 30 miles from home, we finally gave up and pulled off the interstate and took old route 66 the rest of the way in. By doing that we could safely drive at 40 miles per hour. We finally did make it in around 5:00 pm but I was worn out from fighting that wind.

But, there was a highlight to the day. Some years ago the folks around Groom, Texas, built a huge cross along I-40. Over the years they have added many sculptures around the cross. These represent the thirteen Stage of the Cross that represent Jesus' road to cruxifiction. We have seen this many times but decided to stop for a close up look. These folks have done a tremendous job with this and I would recommend anyone going through that area to stop and look, regardless of your religious beliefs. To give you an idea of how big this cross is, the sculptures around the base are life size figures.

Here is one of the images of one of the stations of the cross. They also have built a replica of the empty tomb with the "stone rolled away".