KIT™ Day 9, Tucumcari Tonight!

Last night, with weather bearing down on us, we decided to stay in and eat comfort food at the Marriott Courtyard "Bistro", which was actually not bad.  They had a selection of a few beers (how can you go wrong when they have Sierra Nevada :o), and I had a Quesadilla and Wings, and Beth had a tuna sandwich.  We were both tired and made a fairly early night of it, right around midnight.  

We then made our way out of Amarillo on SW 6th Street, which was full of antique shops, restaurants, and other fun things.  It must have been hopping back in the day.  These shots are of an old Sinclair station, don't you just love the little Sinclair guy?









Just a little bit west of Amarillo, we made a slight detour to see the Cadillac Ranch.  Cadillac Ranch is a public art installation and sculpture.  It was created in 1974 by three artist who were part of the art group Ant Farm (commissioned by Stanley Marsh 3).  The sculpture consists of ten vintage (1949-1963) Cadillacs half-buried nose first in the ground, at an angle corresponding to that of the Great Pyramid of Giza in Egypt.  On interesting point is that the Cadillac Ranch is not actually on Route 66, but is just a short side trip away.  The Cadillac Ranch is easily visible from Hwy 40, but the original Route 66 was to the North.


Our next experience today was traveling through Wildorado, with a Stockyard extraordinaire.  No pictures because there was no way we were stopping!!!  So I will put a few more of the Cadillac Ranch pictures here (can you tell that this was my favorite part of the day?  They repaint the cars every now and then, but also encourage graffiti, which is what makes it public art).

The drive between Bushland and Vega pretty much just let us experience the flatness that is paramount for this part of Texas.  At one point  Beth stated that she was "looking to see if she could see the curve of the earth".  One of the things we saw was another windfarm, I love seeing these, it give me hope that we will eventually wean ourselves off of oil.

Once we got to Vega, we came across a restored gas station brand that we had not experienced before.  It was Magnolia Petroleum Company station built in 1924, a Texas based brand until they were bought out in 1934 by Mobilgas (which is a precursor to Mobil, which is now part of ExxonMobil).  I loved the fact that gas was originally pumped manually from barrels, and later from gravity flow pumps.


We had lunch in Vega at the Boot Hill Saloon and Grill.  It was not bad, our meals were served in a mini-bucket, but we stopped after two beers, after all - there is only so much country music we can take.  We did affirm that so far on this trip that Missouri has the best pulled-pork, and Texas has the best burgers (Angus beef baby!).

 We then headed to Adrian, TX where we hit a milestone for our trip.  Adrian is home to the MidPoint Cafe, but before we talk about that, we have to show some pictures from the Bent Door Midway Station.  The name is from the unique architecture, and as you can see, the door really is bent.  There were some really cool artifacts inside the building, an old slide projector and an precursor (apparently a favorite word of mine tonight) to the JukeBox.  As you have probably ascertained by now, the MidPoint Cafe is the half-way point on Route 66.  This is hard to fathom since we had already hit five of the eight states to this point, and would soon enter our sixth.  So you can imagine you are going to get lots of New Mexico, Arizona, and California pictures and information for the second half of our trip.  The midpoint, as shown on the sign, is 1139 miles from Chicago, and the same from Los Angeles/Santa Monica.  Just to give you and idea of our trip, we have traveled more than 1600 miles on the route, so our side-trips, back tracks, and spurs have added about 500 miles.

After Adrian, we had to get on the main Highway 40 (interstate) for 18 miles to get to Glenrio, which straddles the border between Texas and New Mexico.  But before we got on the interstate, we did travel on for another mile to see the abandoned Shell Station that represented the last bit of civilization before the trek to Glenrio.  During this stretch of the trip, we did start to notice the change in terrain from absolute flatness to mesa's (most were bigger than a butte, but not so large to be a plateau). 

The time spent today on the interstate was about 18 miles, but that was offset by the fact that we took an original road spur that was 18 miles of dirt road.  Glenrio was a sad little place, almost a ghost town.  As you can see from the picture with the Post Office Mailboxes, there are at a maximum 15 people still living there, and that is only if the boxes are still being used.  

Our sojourn down the 18 miles of dirt road truly gave us a feel for this part of the state.  The temperature eventually ended up in the 90-95 range, and it was very dusty even after the rains last night (did not need to worry about mud, the roads were hard pan and any moisture there had already evaporated).  We were even able to fine some remnants of the CRI&P, the Chicago, Rock Island, and Pacific railroad (say it out and it sounds like crying "P").

This next picture is put up specially for Jack over at Shipslog, it shows the insides of a gas pump.  I know he has been enjoying the service station photos, so this one is special for him.  This one was shot at San Jon, NM.








Next up was, Tucumcari, where we are staying Tonight :o)  Beth is in googie heaven, lots of old motels (one of which we are staying in, the Blue Swallow, built in 1939) and neon signs (unfortunately, they are not as spectacular as they once were due to a storm that went through in 2007).  After touring the daytime main street we headed over to the Mesalands Dinosaur Museum to get some Dino shots for great nephew Liam.  Then we checked into our Motel, and after some relaxation time, headed out to get some neon shots and a bite to eat at the Pow Wow Restaurant and Lizard Lounge, where the served up these wonderful Margaritas.








For more details regarding Cadillac Ranch, Glenrio, and the Blue Swallow, head over to my brides blog (Nutwood Junction) and enjoy!!!


The rest of this entry is for Liam, so feel free to skip.  The Mesalands community college here in the area has a bronzing capability, and through sponsorship from local patrons, are able to create some amazing likenesses.  Just a saber tooth tiger tooth took 40 hours to recreate, so imagine how long it took for the entire creatures.

 Dinomusaur
 Texas, NM, AZ

 Desmatosachus Haplocerus
Tx, NM, AZ

 Camarasaurus skull

Trovosaurus
Western US

 Triceratops
Western US

 Acrocanthosaurus
NM, TX, OK

 Struthiomimus
Feathered Dinosaur, or Bird?
Western North America

 Tyrannosaurus Rex skull

Smilodon
Western US
1 Million to 8000 years ago

Betharosaurus

KIT™ Day 8

The first couple of pictures are actually from yesterday, I forgot to include them.  We first encountered a huge colony of Swallows outside of Foss, OK, and we had to stop and snap some pictures.  It was not as harrowing as our encounter with the Osprey, but there were so many birds I was afraid they were going to fly through the open windows on the car.  Over the next hour or so, we came across other colonies, it was amazing to experience.




This morning, since the Best Western we were staying in did not have a workout facility, I decided to really get my kicks on Route 66 and went for a 30 minute run.  I was able to get a picture of this oil rig at the entrance to downtown Elk City.

After leaving Elk City, we headed into Sayre, and even though there was one or two googie shoots for Beth, there was not really much going on.  Once we got beyond the city, there were some long stretches of the original road to our right, but they were not well maintained and we could not drive them.  Here is a shot of one of the stretches.

When we reached Erick, I was struck by the motels and their car ports, we actually turned around so I could get a shot of these since we saw several of this architectural style, that we have not seen yet on our travels.  There is even a Mustang in one of the car ports, but it is not for sale :o)

Today we entered our fifth state when we crossed over into Texas.  It was amazing to see how over the stretch of 50 miles the terrain changed from hay and wheat fields to scrub grass and ranching.

One of our first stops in Texas was Shamrock, where the U Drop Inn has been restored.  It was previously a Conoco gas station and cafe, with really cool neon.  Today, it serves as the Shamrock Chamber of Commerce.  The building was designed by architect J.C. Berry and is some great art deco style.  After snapping our pictures of this great icon of the Mother Road, we searched for a place to have a bite, and after searching all four points of the compass, ended up right a cross the street from the U Drop Inn at Vern's Steakhouse.  We learned that every thing really is bigger in Texas when we ordered our beers. We had the chopped sirloin and it was great, they certainly do know how to do beef here.

In McLean, we were pleasantly surprised when we decided to The Devil's Rope/Old Route 66 Museum.  We almost did not stop because Devil's Rope is barbed wire, and we were not sure that we really wanted to see that.  But as we have experienced, whenever we say we are not sure, we say we should because who knows when we will pass this way again.  It was amazing how much floor space they had filled up with the history and different patents out there for barbed wire.  Turns out that all the bigger ranches had their own barbed wire design and their own way of connecting new sections as they expanded.  Who knew that barbed wire was so complicated?  They also had a pretty good Route 66 section (better than the National Museum in Elk City).  They also had a couple of Burma Shave displays, these are fun and on the road are spaced several hundred feet apart so you can read as you go.

Also in McLean, in the downtown section, we were able to see this restored Phillips 66 station, the first one built in Texas.  The station was built in the 1920's and was operated for 50+ years. 

Once we got outside of McLean, we decided to traverse some original Route 66 dirt roads, sections of the road that were never paved.  This gave use a real feel for the topography of the area.  

The last shots I have for you today are of a restored 1930 "66" Super Services Station from Alanreed Texas.

KIT™ Day 7

We started our day today with our workout (love it when we stay at a place with exercise equipment) and then headed downtown Oklahoma City (OKC) to Robinson and 4th street.  We parked and walked over to the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building Memorial site.  This is where 168 people lost their lives, and thousands more were impacted beyond words, on April 19, 1995.  Seeing the chairs and the reflecting pool was very moving.  The tree that you see pictured is dubbed the "Survivor Tree", an American Elm, that survived the blast.  There were 16 structures in the surrounding area that had to be demolished and rebuilt due to the strength of the blast.  You can see how strong that tree really is.  


The Gates of Time, marking the entrances from both ends of the memorial were also very poignant.  The closest one is "901" representing the minute before the blast and the innocence of those near by (especially the children in the daycare area), and the farthest one is "903" representing innocence lost...  The message on the wall was painted by one of the first to respond.





Next we moved on to Yukon (the home of Garth Brooks) where we saw these grain elevators.  Grain elevators are one of the items that have been highlighted in our guidebook, so I felt I would be remiss if not having at least one picture (especially as we head to the SouthWest).  This one with the neon sign on top seemed like an excellent choice.  


Yukon is also one of the main points on the old Chisholm Trail, so the opportunity to get the Standard sign in front of this old station building, and also the marker for the Chisholm trail was photo opportunity I just could not pass up.

We were able to do some pretty long runs of the original (1930's) Portland Concrete road today, and this stretch was some of the earliest and most spectacular, outside of El Reno.  The buzzard you see sitting in the road was disturbed by a passing truck and we spent 5-10 minutes watching it fly in the strong winds we had today (25 to 35 mph), trying to get back to what ever it was that was so interesting on the road.  The buzzard would get airborne and try and fly toward the road, and then get swept by a gust backwards, and it would then seek an updraft to get back over the road, and when trying to land would get gusted backward again.  It was quite humorous to watch.

As we were headed to Hinton, and took one of the side spurs of older road, we came to an intersection and had to sit there as three oversize trucks went by along with their escorts.  Each truck had a windmill blade, and they were longer than two normal sized semi-trailers.  We then passed over the Pony Bridge, built in 1933, consisting of 38 "pony" trusses (pony in this context meaning small).  I was even lucky enough to get a shot of a Mustang going over the Pony Bridge :o)


At the far side, we saw a sign that we were entering the Wichita-Caddo-Delaware Tribal Jurisdiction.

A bit further on our journey today we stopped at Lucille's just outside of Hydro, OK.  Built in 1929, it was purchased in 1941 by Lucille and Carl Hamons.  The raised three children in the rooms behind the station, and Lucille ran the business for 59 years.  She must have been an amazing person.

Between Weatherford and Clinton, we came across the point where those large windmill blades must have been destined for.  We had seen a huge wind farm in Illinois, and were even closer to the machines than previously.  Here are a couple of shots to put it in perspective.  The towers are several hundred feet tall, so you do not realize how big the blades are.  The wind had died down just enough that most of the machines were in operation, it was a sight to see (if the wind is to strong, the blades will be locked out to protect the bearings and the windings from excessive speed).


Our next adventure, and one of my favorites for the day was finding the ruins of Kobel's Place.  The station was abandoned, and I loved seeing where the pumps used to be, the concrete getting broken up by the huge oak tree roots, and the remains of the gas station, cafe, and bus station inside the buildings (sink, fridge, cash register, etc.).  What the bed springs had to do with the original business I cannot say, but I am sure there are stories to be told.

We ended our day in Elk City where the National Route 66 museum is located.  We arrived late in the day but were able to squeeze in a tour.  Based on some of the other things we saw on the road, we were a little disappointed with the displays and the lack of passion from the people working there.  Just goes to show that doing what you love, with passion, is remarkable and memorable.  Lessons there for all of us, and I know we will be focused on finding that passion for our remaining stops.