Healthvues

They weren’t kidding when they said the wind comes whipping down the plain! It was cold, rainy and very windy when we awoke and started out. The flat landscape offers no buffers to break up the wind, so the trailer acted as our sail yet again. We were getting bounced around pretty well. Actually, it was a very strong headwind – don’t know if you’ve looked at a utility trailer lately, but they’re not exactly aerodynamic.

For those who know me (‘drew), being on the actual Route 66 puts me in pig heaven. Aside from the historical aspects of the road, being in a place of living history is very cool. We began to see and touch the actual places I’ve been reading about in books and seeing in videos: the old gas stations, Lucille’s (been selling gas since 1941), the Rt.66 Drive In (abandoned), the leaning water tower… For much of OK and TX, Route 66 serves as the frontage road for I-40, so we were able to follow it for quite a while. Its distinctive orange-tan concrete is in stark contrast to the superhighway. Our first official Route 66 stop was Clinton, OK where the Oklahoma Route 66 museum is located. We figured we’d find things to help plan our stops. You could tell you were on the old highway almost immediately – abandoned, run-down motels and diners with their rusted neon signs out front. Sad in one respect, but very retro cool in another. After the museum we ate in that famous Rt. 66 dining experience: Subway.

It is COLD out here – and FLAT. It’s hard to imagine travelers in the 1930’s making it out here in their “primitive” cars, let alone imagining trying to get across this place in a covered wagon. Our next stop was Shamrock, TX – a short section of 66 that was a major refueling stop. There were the usual rusting old places, but the chamber of commerce has restored a classic art deco Conoco gas station to its original magnificent glory. I could live in this place! (The structure, not the town.) Our goal today was to push through to Amarillo, TX to Tucumcari, NM – another major stop on the old 66, originally boasting 3000 motel rooms, gas stations galore and curio shops. But more on that later. We never expected to spend the night in Amarillo…

Amarillo is home to a few famous Rt. 66 attractions, including the Cadillac Ranch. You may have heard about it – those line of Cadillacs stuck into a field at an angle. We found it just as darkness was settling in, but I (‘drew) was the only one would venture out of the comfort of the Suburban, into the blizzard and across the 300 yards of bumpy, muddy, cowpie encrusted field to the cars. It was a struggle, but most worthwhile things in life are. It was very eerie, standing there in this field, in the freezing dark, right next to these cars. Almost a religious experience. Almost – but for the smell of cow and the feeling that I was being watched, it would prove to be a highlight of my cross country trek (those who know me will understand – for those who don’t, this may give them pause to get to know me!).

Amarillo can be a fine place to spend the night after all….We thought that maybe we would push on thru to Tucumcari, NM, but our faithful (?) Suburban had other plans yet again….As we pulled into Amarillo with our sights set on having a very fun, but tacky dining experience at The Big Texan, a very famous Rte 66 eatery that boasts a free 72 oz steak with all the fixin’s if you can eat it in less than an hour (yes, people do it – they have a white board listing those who do, and it’s surprisingly full – they even have a head table, like that you’d find at a wedding, with a large digital clock set to 60:00, read to go), we hit horizontal snow with a wind chill of 10 degrees…. So much for leaving that all behind in Syracuse…Okay, you guys can stop laughing at us…. Or not….Anyways, we have a great dinner at The Big Texan complete with a strolling cowboy trio serenade singing “On The Road Again” and when we leave to find our hotel room (as of yet unbooked) the Suburban that has been whinier than a 3 ½ year old on this trip with all of its breakdowns and warning lights, Krakatoa blew - now it decides it needs an new alternator….. We are mildly panicked knowing that as we drive away in this blizzard in Texas that we have very little time to secure accommodations for the night before we lose complete battery power….We all watch the idiot light on the dash as we creep along, which begs the question “who are the real idiots here?” This sort of turns out to be a blessing in disguise. The storm turned worse and they actually closed I-40 down the road a ways. Imagine being out in the middle of the desert, in pitch black darkness, with no lights and battery power, in a gale-blizzard. Not pretty – so that’s the silver lining – that we were forced to decide to stop overnight anyway. Unsure of how long we may have to enjoy Amarillo’s hospitality with a car in the shop for an unknown amount of time, Anne and Mary feel the need to suck it up and visit Walmart supercenter once again (we’ve spent way too much time there over the past few days) to stock up for the, as of yet unknown, hotel room….After securing enough sufficient food and alcohol (duh!) purchases to survive a couple day drought, we move on…..The good news is, if you ever need a great hotel, we found it….Homewood Suites, ( a Hilton prop) was wonderful in every respect of the word….We checked in, called AAA and had an appt for first thing in the morning to have the truck towed…..Ahhhhh, so we sleep and wait for the ball to drop, yet again, on the climbing costs of driving cross country with a (?) roadworthy Suburban…..

Lesson #3: Three words: AAA, AAA, AAA

This entry was posted on Saturday, December 15th, 2007 at 1:53 pm and is filed under Westward Expansion. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.