Route 66: Elk City to Amarillo

We woke up to a beautiful morning after the dark, threatening skies last night. We had breakfast at another American joint called Big Splash Burgers, where they had the Big Kahuna challenge on offer: six cheeseburgers (each with 2 slices of cheese, 2 slices of bacon, and a 1/3 lb burger patty) meaning about 2.5 kg of meat and a whole loaf of Texas Toast; plus a combination of curly fries and regular fries. All for 70 USD and a 50 minute time limit to finish everything!

We kept driving past scrubby trees, eroded gullies, more corn fields or simply open rangeland. Noticed lots of swallows around bridges as they had nests under them. Lots of windmills on both sides of the road. Paul prompted us to see the FedEx logo (and once seen we couldn’t unsee it). Texas is the only state that we went through where they had truck rest areas. But for most of this day we drove parallel to the interstate going under or over it quite a few times.

Our first target for the day was crossing the Texas border after driving on a beautiful old section of the old R66 under tree arches. We stopped in Shamrock, where they had a hailstorm the previous night (and couldn’t miss the ominous presence of the Storm Chasers car in the carpark). We met 88 year old Hazel at the Conoco gas station (beautiful Art Deco style with the ubiquitous neon decorations) who showed us the diner where Elvis allegedly had a meal once.

Next destination was the barbed wire (Devil’s rope) museum in McLean, which was amazing, wouldn’t have thought there can be so many types of barbed wire! Apparently it used to be a ladies undergarment factory before the building was turned into a museum.

After we left McLean the landscape changed to spiky plants, arid land, and prairie grass covering the hills.

We stopped at the Bug Ranch to see the five painted bugs. We’ve heard that they might not be there for much longer, they’re being moved to a new location.

Lunch was at the Big Texan, where we saw a rattlesnake as well (on display, unfortunately not wild). There was the chance for another food challenge here, the 72 oz (2 kg) steak.

Other attractions on the way were the “leaning tower of Groom”, which is a water tower that was built like this to attract attention, as well as the largest cross in Western hemisphere (190 feet tall).

Even Australian wine bottles are big in US – 1.5litres!

Our final stop for the day was Amarillo. We walked along the 6^th Street (or historic Route 66), where we saw Lile Art Gallery belonging to a guy called “croc” Lyle who makes and sells jewellery out of the dry paint on the painted Cadillacs. Lots of murals adorned the buildings.

Our accommodation was near Starlight Canyon, at Starlight Canyon B&B. We had some visitors at the gate – a deer and two fawns – and also a woodpecker checked on us while having dinner.

A short video with today’s roads can be seen here.