A toad just pooped two feet to my left

Today was a day of commute, primarily.

We got up late and hit the road as fast as possible. We drove for only a few miles before we had to stop at Stewart's Petrified Wood. Stewart's is sandwiched by two other petrified wood brokers, the Rock Factory and Painted Rock Indian Center, but it stands out because it is full of dinosaurs. Homemade dinosaurs. I believe that Charles Stewart is one of America's greatest entrepreneurs. Also at Stewarts is a flock (a herd?) of ostriches. You may feed them or purchase their eggs, with which Stewart will supply some free recipes.

Charles is getting on in the years, though, and today when we stopped by the store was being run by his son. He greeted everyone who walked through the door in this manner: "have you been to the petrified forests before?"
"no" comes the reply
"well, let me give you your free piece of petrified wood"

We looked around and asked some questions, and the man knows his rocks. I took a bunch of pictures and Trefor and I each purchased some desert glass. His is larger and beautifully colored and mine is small and looks like it has a blue Apatosaurus inside of it.

We got back on the road (historic Route 66) and drove until we saw some Indian Trading Posts. We looked in a couple. They have some nice jewelry and a lot of kitschy junk.

After a while of driving, I was starting to get hungry and I saw a sign on the side of the road that said "Buffet $7.99: two for one on Mondays, Tuesdays, and Wednesdays". I immediately pulled off and into the Route 66 Casino where Trefor and I both joined the Players' Club (free) which entitled us to not only use the buffet, but we each got a card with five dollars worth of gambling money on it, and a hat. Beautiful. I suggested we just cash out the five dollars and get a free buffet but Trefor thought that we probably couldn't, so we each wasted our five in a slot machine then we ate at the buffet, which had many more vegetarian options than the one we hit in Las Vegas. Trefor dropped another five real dollars to show his support for the casino, and then we took off.

The rest of the drive was relatively uneventful, but it included our cruising across the entire state of New Mexico which is unbelievably gorgeous. Everything is pale red, blue, or green and the rocks are in absurd formations. It might be my favorite thing we've driven through so far.

Now we are in Amarillo, Texas in another campground which is on a street full of strip clubs. Las Vegas just won't leave us.