Road Notes 2

Three highlights from our return to Albuquerque last Thursday from Clinton, Oklahoma. And you just thought blogs were supposed to be utterly immediate....
1. The east side of Amarillo sports a billboard that may advertise the Ute Lake up-scale retirement / second home development near Logan which is near Tucumcari. The copy was, "Golf. Boat. Live. Ute Lake." Googling around, I find nothing about the development. I have an inquiry in. More later, I hope.
2. Around Santa Rosa we passed a couple of new looking overpassed flanked around the base with what appears to be planter boxes, big ones built of concrete. A sizable tumbleweed was growing from one of the boxes. Such additions to overpasses offer yet another idea of extras that can disappear as the state confronts economic reality. The cost of developing the plantings and then maintaining them would have to be amazing. I assume the water would be trucked to the overpass.
3. Just east of Moriarty we passed a McCain/Palin "Straight Talk Express" RV that was also heading west. A cell-phone report to our friend Mark Bralley established that the McCain campaign has leased a fleet of such vehicles and shuffles them events around each region.
For gas used on our trip, the purchase history started October 7 at Costco in Albuquerque. The price was $3.08/gallon. Today's purchase, also at Costco, was for $2.34/gallon. The highest price gas on the trip as purchased October 13 at a Shell station (The Shell station) in Paxton, Nebraska) for $3.43. There was a tie for second highest price—$3.29/gallon. The purchases were October 12 at a Chevron in Las Vegas, NM, and a Phillips 66 in Newkirk, NM.
The lowest price gas, $2.29/gallon, was purchased October 22 in enid, Oklahoma, from Shell. The second lowest price, $2.34/gallon, was found October 22 at a Conoco in Emporia, Kansas.