After an active few days in Hot Springs Village, it was time to begin our push toward Zion National Park, where we would be meeting the kids in a few days. But first, we had to get there!
There are approximately 1,400 miles of America between Arkansas and Utah.
Almost all of that is on one highway, good old I-40.
However, before we could reach I-40, we enjoyed one of our favorite twisty little roads that runs mostly north-south through Arkansas, highway 7. This road has long been one of our favorite roads while we are staying in HSV. It is a windy, twisty, well-paved road that leads us north from the village all the way up to I-40 (and beyond).
As an old, Arkansas biker once quipped, while we were chatting at a gas station probably 15 years ago, Arkansas can afford to make the roads smooth, they just can’t afford to make them straight. And we love the twisty roads.
Once we hit I-40, that was it for turns for the next three days, so we were going to soak ’em up!
Here is an artist’s rendering of I-40, which will be our home for the majority of the push west:
_______________________________________________________________________________
LOL! Not many turns.
In fact, here was our view for a good chunk of the day after we crossed into Oklahoma:
There were, however, plenty of tooth busting, cabinet jarring, butt-flattening bumps along the road (Please do better, Oklahoma!). We’ve submitted a good stretch of Oklahoma I-40 to the 2026 Worst Roads list, accompanied with a picture of all of our bathroom vanity items strewn on the floor of the bathroom. I did accidentally forget to tell Ben that his hairbrush and the base of the Airstream toilet have officially met now. The brush and the toilet seemed to be fast friends by the time I noticed the brush had escaped the cabinet. At least his toothbrush, the bag of flossers and his deodorant flew in the sink and they didn’t follow their friend, the brush.Nothing to be done about it but to plow ahead and possibly stop at a Walgreens or CVS and pickup a few spare toothbrushes and hair brushes, just in case .
On the positive side, we celebrated our 28th anniversary in beautiful Yukon, OK, just a few quiet steps off of I-40. We had a wonderful taco dinner and had the best company we could ask for, each other!
We are also enjoying the new(er) airstream.
Good layout, great bathroom, fantastic shower that we can actually stand all the way up in. What more could you ask for? It’s comfortable and most stuff works! We just don’t talk about all the stuff that doesn’t work or all the things we have no clue how to work. The newer Airstreams are nice, but if you get easily overwhelmed by electronics, good luck!
RV’s all are pretty much all made with the lightest, cheapest stuff you can buy and they get the absolute snot beat out of them on the road, so you need to be prepared to do some maintenance on long trips. So far, so good!
We stopped in Tucumcari, NM on the next night, which had a great roadside attraction advertisement right by our campground!
I mean, world’s largest pistachio?!?!?!? Holy Pistachio! YUM! Sign us up! This is EXACTLY the type of stuff we’ll go at least an extra 20 miles out of our way to see. We’re almost giddy!
We hurry on down the frontage road, excited to get checked into the KOA, get set up and go find this awesome attraction. As we check into this particular KOA, we happen to notice that there isn’t anything exciting to do at this campground, so “Plan Pistachio” is ON for this evening.
We get down to business and get all checked in at the desk and then we excitedly inquire about the world’s largest pistachio and in which direction we need to go.
It’s at this moment that we realize, due to the clerk’s lip twitch and eye spasm, that we aren’t going to like what she’s about to tell us. We’re completely deflated to learn that our giant nut is a FOUR HOUR drive to the south.
Who actually puts a full size billboard on a middle of nowhere frontage road for an attraction that’s like 250 miles away? UUUGGGHHHHH! That’s way more than 20 miles out of our way. Sigh. Do not sign us up!
We’ll have to find something else to entertain us in Tucumcari, for sure. Maybe we’ll see if there’s a world’s largest salt and pepper shaker collection or a world’s smallest parking spot or something nearby.
We already drove past Cadillac Ranch (Worlds dumbest bunch of Cadillacs parked on end) back in Amarillo, TX. We’ve already seen this attraction, so we left a rather large parking spot open for someone else who really wanted to see it.
Now we’re really on the hunt for the next largest, or smallest, or anything “est” attraction that’s actually along the route.
Our next stop, Flagstaff, AZ. It is a long, 500 mile haul from Tucumcari, but it’s worth it to get us one stop closer to Zion. Tomorrow, we hop back on I-40 for another 500 miles and hope to get to Flagstaff by dinnertime!
TaterTotTales 