It's 9 a.m. Sunday in Denton, Texas. The temperature is about 70 degrees - rising toward 80 - and the humidity is 93. I feel like I need another shower already.

It took Pat and me two days to get here. We left Thursday at about 4 p.m. Pacific and arrived Saturday, at about 4:30 Pacific, resting in Twin Falls, Idaho and Albuquerque, NM.

We made the type of trip both of us made as kids with our families. We call them baloney vacations.

You start at the local Safeway with a loaf of bread and a pack of bologna. When you run out you look for another Safeway.

Pat and I are upscale now. Our first meal was at a restaurant. Yeah, McDonald's at Wildhorse.

Then we went back to the old ways. We stopped at a grocery named Fresh Market in Provo.

But Pat refused to go all of the way back. So I agreed to chopped ham instead of bologna. And we got a veggie tray.

The travel was a bit unnerving in the Blue Mountains. A snow storm hit as we were climbing.

We moved right along at 60 mph the first 10 miles. Then we slowed to 50, then 40 and finally to about 25.

I started to get nervous. I didn't want to have to put on chains. Then there was a divine intervention. Pat put in a Christmas CD.

The very first song had a magnificent soprano with orchestra doing the Ave Maria. I relaxed completely. The scene outside the car transformed from ominous to cathedral-like.

The storm ended at LaGrande. But we woke up to a new one at Twin Falls. It followed us into Utah but ended well short of Salt Lake City.

The only weather challenges after that were occasional high winds that rocked the car.

The highlight of the trip was a visit to Tucumcari, NM. We stopped for gas just to say we'd been on Route 66 and in Tucumcari. The wind was blowing so hard it opened the car doors for us.

You could say we got our kicks. But we didn't see Mater or Lightning McQueen.

Pat bought a souvenir t-shirt that was all about Route 66 and included a '58 Corvette. I tried to get the station attendant to sing the song "Tucumcari".

"I've never heard the song," he said laughing.

So, I sang, "Nine more miles to Tucumcari," which was all I remembered of the song.

"Nope. Never heard that song," he said.

About that moment, another customer walked up and asked: "Is it always windy like this?"

"No," the attendant said laughing. "It's usually windier."

This morning I had my son-in-law look up the "Tucumcari song". It was recorded in 1959 by Jimmie Rodgers, a pop singer from Camas, Washington.

The attendant was right. He couldn't have heard it, at least not my version. It starts off with "Twelve more miles to Tucumcari."