Day 5 was a long on driving and no so much on attractions - but the attractions we did stop for were pretty awesome so it was a really good day. At it's hottest, though, it was 104 degrees with a brutal hot wind coming at us while we were at Cadillac Ranch in Texas.
First of all, my apologies on the delay in continuing this story, but we've had a series of internet problems / arriving too late to do anything but sleep nights.
We drove a nice piece of Route 66 through Oklahoma, but the signs weren't as good as the previous states and we got a tad lost. Driving through corn fields and cattle grazing land, not for the first time, wondering where we went wrong. It was fun though, and a beautiful blue skies day. Once we got back on track we crossed the bright yellow pony bridge that you see above.
Our next stop was a Route 66 museum in Clinton Oklahoma which led you through the decades of Route 66 from beginning to end. There were lots of informational things to read, full displays to represent each era, music you could listen to and lots of memorabilia as well. It was a fun little stop and a great museum.
Not long after we stopped at another Route 66 Museum but we decided to just walk around the outdoor "cowtown" instead of the museum inside. One thing we noticed first was the GIANT Route 66 sign guiding us into the parking lot.
The "Cowtown" was just like an old western town with store fronts and an open ice cream parlor. There were also a few large Kachina Dolls outside. Around this time the heat became ridiculous. We hopped the highway all the way to Texas and next stopped at Cadillac Ranch near Amarillo.
Cadillac Ranch is similar to Carhenge in Nebraska, but the cars are in a row instead of in a Stonehenge formation. They are also heavily graffitied by the crowds that come to see them. It's a pretty cool sight, walking down a path in a huge wheat field and arriving at this row of cars. At 104 degrees with a hot hot wind, we didn't stay too terribly long but I think I got some great photos and I'm really glad we went.
As we passed from Texas to New Mexico we started to see mountains in the distance, an exciting thing after so much flat farm land and desert. We drove through Tucumcari - a town that used to be a hot spot on Route 66 but is now a bit rundown. Their motto is Tucumcari Tonight! and there are some great hotel signs and unique buildings to take photos of. I think I got some great shots here as well and I'm excited to really look at them when I get home.
From Tucumcari we drove through more desert and up to Santa Fe New Mexico. We rode into town just as the sun was setting and the view was beautiful. I wish we could have spent more time there, but unfortunately we had to keep moving. I think that is the first place we stopped that I consciously thought "I should come back here sometime". One thing that amazed us both was a double decker TRAIN that passed by when we were at a red light. I was so baffled I didn't know what to think of it, but upon later thought - damn that's cool!
We set up our plan for the next day and crashed for the night. Stay tuned, another post coming right up!
