Day 2 on the road

You may not want to follow by date until I'm caught up with my posts from the last few days.  

Just wanted to let you know, I have updated the post for April 13th to include pictures of my post named "Time to move on".

Today, April 17th, we started out early again, at 7 o'clock.  We are leaving Albuquerque, NM, heading for Amarillo, TX, about 300 miles east on I-40.  About 5 hours based on my driving.  Had breakfast and we were on our way at 9:15. 

We stopped in Moriarty, NM at about 10 o'clock to fill up knowing it was a long way before we could gas up again.  It is a beautiful morning, sunshine and warm with a breeze of course.

We got about 7 miles down the road and I could see black smoke billowing ahead.  Not good!  Then everything came to a halt.  We were in a work zone and half mile down the road, everyone was merging to the left.  I guess the merge failed for someone.  It was 10:20.

It wasn't long before three or four fire trucks came.  Police came and an ambulance.  The ambulance left some time later heading back to Moriarty with its lights and siren blaring.

Trucks using the crossover to go back west to Moriarty.

There is an emergency crossover about 10 vehicles ahead.  Trucks from behind me and in front pulled up and crossed over.  Due to traffic going west, they would wait for a clear spot and bolt in slow motion.  It was a possible accident waiting to happen.

After two hours of patiently waiting, I decided to break the law and use the crossover.  Followed a truck and we both bolted when we had an opening and made it without horns blaring.

Made the exit and there was a policeman directing those using old route 66 to bypass the wreckage.  He was directing them at a stop sign to turn right, so I just jumped in behind and it wasn't more than a half hour we were back on I-40 moving along.  If I hadn't been so curious to find out what happened, I would have done it much sooner.

I rearranged my plans to make it to Amarillo, TX and called it a day at 3 o'clock at a rest area about 25 miles west of Tucumcari, NM.

Hopefully, tomorrow is a better day.  Thanks for stopping by.