August 26; Day 5
Cortez, Colorado to Amarillo, Texas

“Amarillo by morning,” oh wait, we don’t want to get there by morning, we need to be there before evening!

Today we were planning on seeing Mesa Verde and the cliff dwellings, but because of the time crunch and the amount of time it takes to get to them from the park entrance, we decided to bypass this plan (we really wouldn’t be able to spend the appropriate amount of time to really enjoy the sites) and head on to Amarillo.

Because we didn’t have any touristy type of stops planned, we just drove and enjoyed the landscape of New Mexico…until it was time to stop for a break.

When we needed this vital stop, it just so happened that there was a nearby casino. Casinos are good stops for us as my husband collects casino chips. The first casino we stopped at (yes, we stopped more than once) we got their players card and were given $20 to play with we were also given t-shirts with the casino’s logo. My husband played and left with about $40 and I left with about $20. Not long after this stop we came to the Route 66 Casino, which became a must stop for chips and the collection. Here they didn’t give us money to play with when we signed up for their players card, instead they gave us each water bottles, a deck of cards and a pair of dice. Off my husband went to play a game and get his requisite chips for the collection and I headed to the slots to try my luck while I waited. My husband unfortunately lost his previous winnings, but I left with $60 of their money!

Because we didn’t want to be on the road too late, we quickly left and continued to our stop at the Best Western in Amarillo.