Got Our Kicks on Route 66

Wednesday morning, we got up and hit the road early because we had lots of planned stops on Route 66 between Oklahoma City and Albuquerque that day. Our first stop was a Route 66 museum a little ways west of Oklahoma City. Clinton, Oklahoma, is a tiny town quietly resting on its Route 66 laurels. There's not much to the town, but the museum and the nostalgic memorabilia are fabulous. Two little old ladies run the museum, and for $4, you get access to hundreds of relics, music selections, and bits of history organized by decade from the 1920s (beginning of the U.S. highway system) to the 1970s (when I-40 became the preferred cross-country highway and Route 66 went into decline). It was a great way to start our jaunt on this historic highway. (But I won't lie - we took I-40 most of the way and exited to Route 66 for the landmarks!)

After the museum, our first stop was the U-Drop Inn in Shamrock, Texas. It looked pretty cool at the museum, but seeing it in real life didn't add much. This was a gas station and cafe that opened in the 1930s (and remained open until the late '90s), and was known for its architecture. Still, we're glad we stopped.

On the way to the next landmark, we decided to pull over at a rest stop to take advantage of some Texas scenery. The winds were so strong, though (45 mph... and this was apparently a calm day), that we didn't stay for very long. Note the giant and fancy rest stop... they don't make 'em like this in North Carolina!

Our next landmark was the Leaning Tower of Texas. This was apparently created as an advertising gimmick by a gas station owner - set at an angle on purpose. It's in Groom, Tx, but he labeled it with his last name: Britten, U.S.A.

From here, we took a bit of a detour through White Deer, Tx, to see a huge field of giant windmills. This was in the middle of nowhere, but it was pretty cool to be on a road like this... Tom was dying to find a dirt road like the one at the end of the movie Castaway where you can stand in the intersection and not see any cars or people in any direction. The windmills were neat, too. :-)

From the windmills, we headed for Palo Duro Canyon, the second largest canyon in the U.S. The Grand Canyon steals all the thunder, but we'd heard good things about this park from friends and our trusty 1,000 Places book, so we took a detour from our Route 66 jaunt to check it out. Unfortunately as we neared the canyon, we noticed a gigantic smoke cloud coming from the area... we proceeded, hoping the fire was far enough south to not affect our plans. Unfortunately, when we pulled up to the entrance, we saw this pink sign:

And to help convey our utter disappointment:

After this let down, we turned our sights toward Cadillac Ranch. If you don't know where you're going, you'll definitely fly right past this on I-40. The "ranch" is just a line of 10 old Cadillacs stuck halfway in the ground in the middle of a giant field. They've become a spray paint canvas for tourists from around the world, and Tom and I added a bit of graffiti of our own. It seems silly that something like this would be so fascinating, but it is. An explanation of how it got here and the mystique around it is here.

 From Cadillac Ranch, we headed for Midpoint Cafe, a restaurant located exactly halfway between Chicago and L.A. I had my heart set on a milkshake from this iconic diner, but apparently they close at 4pm every day, and we got there at 5:30. Sigh. Two strikes today! At least we still did get to see a lot of really neat points of interest along our drive. And the lady who runs the cafe did let me come in and take a few pics (I think she lives in the back part??)

After the Midpoint Cafe stop, we crossed the border into New Mexico and headed to Albuquerque for the night.

Up next: Albuquerque, Sandia mountain, and Santa Fe!

Thunder and Tornadoes in Oklahoma

We left Texas on Monday morning and headed north to Oklahoma City. The drive is a little over six hours, and we got into town in late afternoon. We decided to head straight downtown, and our first stop was the Oklahoma City bombing memorial. They really did such a wonderful job with this - it's beautiful and unique, and it really captures and honors the tragedy and every life lost. There are two towering entrances to the memorial - one at each end. One says 9:01, the other 9:03. The bombing happened at 9:02am on April 19, 1995, so the memorial is in effect encompassed in that minute.

In a few of the photos below, you can see rows of chairs. Each chair represents a life that was lost (big chairs for adults, little chairs for children; 168 total). The giant tree pictured is the "survivor tree" because it withstood the attack while buildings and trees around it were destroyed. A full explanation of the components of the memorial can be found here.

After the memorial, we headed to a section of city called Bricktown, right by the Oklahoma City Thunder basketball arena. It just so happens that there was an NBA playoff game that night in town, so the streets were alive with Thunder and Maverick fans alike. Our moods very quickly changed from somber and reflective to energized and competitive (competitive because I wanted OKC to win, and Tom wanted Dallas to win). Bricktown is a newish development of restaurants and bars along a (manmade?) river that's also within walking distance of the basketball arena and a minor league baseball stadium.

We walked around for a bit and then decided to have dinner and watch the first half at Bricktown Brewery. They have a bunch of local brews, so we got a "sampler" that gave a little taste of five different local beers. As we were watching the game, we noticed that cameras kept showing giant crowds outside the arena, so we walked over at halftime to see it in person. We were glad we made the switch - and now we knew why the bars and restaurants had emptied out. Everyone was at the arena! We stayed until almost the end, but since it looked like the Thunder was going to win and there was lightening and the threat of thunderstorms, we headed to our hotel early. Turns out Dallas came back and won in overtime...

The view outside the arena: free live entertainment and big-screen views of the game!

Tuesday morning we decided to take it easy and run some errands. We planned to leave Oklahoma City after we ate lunch, but we learned that the area was under a tornado watch all afternoon. Locals were leaving work and calling family members, schools were closing, and it appeared that this was a more major watch than others... as we were processing all of this and trying to figure out what to do, weather forecasters announced that an F5 tornado had developed and touched down in exactly the direction we would've been traveling had we headed on to our next destination... not knowing what else to do, we headed southeast because the storm cells that were spawning tornadoes were coming from the southwest and heading northeast... unfortunately, the storms ran from as far south as Dallas to north of OKC. There was no way to outrun it and no way to know when another tornado would develop.

A second F4 tornado developed in the same path behind the behemoth twister, and a third F3 developed south of those. We got stuck in-between the two paths, but luckily as we were driving on the congested highways and getting more and more terrified by the weather forecasters' descriptions and warnings, we decided to pull off the road in Moore (south of OKC) and ride out the storms in a big movie theater. This is the areas largest theater, and lots of cars were in the parking lot, so we figured that not only would this be a sturdy place to take cover, there would be people used to this kind of thing inside, and the theater workers would probably be organized. We talked to a police officer outside who said it was a good place to take cover, so we headed in. Everyone had to sit along the walls of an interior hallway, and at one point they had to turn the power off. While we weren't in the direct path of any of the tornadoes, we got quite a bit of rain, wind, and hail, and we spent nearly three hours taking cover. Some of the locals said they hadn't had tornadoes this bad in nearly 12 years. Of course we were in town the day they hit. Fun fact: tornadoes hit Oklahoma City more than any other city in the U.S.

Pictures below: two from inside the theater as we waited for the tornadoes to pass, one from outside the theater after the fact, one from our iPhone weather app before we lost service, an AP photo of the F5 as it approached I-40.

Once everything was over and we realized we (and our car) were fine, it was actually kind of cool to have had this authentic Oklahoma experience... we came outside to a sunny sky (!) and headed to our hotel exhausted. (I have to include a little disclaimer: I was far more terrified than Tom... he was only slightly uneasy.) :-) WHAT. A. DAY.

Wednesday morning, we got the heck out of tornado central and headed west! Up next: a day traveling Route 66.

Everything's Bigger in Texas

Saturday morning, we got up and drove into downtown San Antonio. We decided to start our morning walking along the historic River Walk - this is a 13-mile path that follows the San Antonio River and weaves throughout the city (map below).

There are restaurants and stores all along the River, and every square inch is cultivated with trees, flowers, bushes, mosaics, and more. It's quite beautiful!

We must have walked over 8 miles today, because we covered the vast majority of the River Walk. It was brilliant of San Antonio to invest in this attraction, because it's great for boosting tourism (and I'd guess local morale as well) since people love water. Everyone flocks to the riverfront restaurants and bars, and numerous hotels are waterfront as well. There's a little shopping village that even has an outdoor stage and terraced grass seating with the river running through it!

You can enter and exit the River Walk at numerous spots, so while we explored San Antonio below street level most of the day, we came up to check out the mall, the Alamo, and a little center city square.

The mall is a giant multi-level structure with stores geared mostly toward tourists. There was a great high school jazz band playing in an outdoor area of the mall, too. We didn't spend much time here, but it was a nice respite from the heat and humidity. San Antonio is usually pretty dry, but our friends who live nearby said it had been unusually hot and muggy lately. We were caked in sweat by the end of the day.

The Alamo was right off the River Walk as well, and it's free to the public for exploration. Only two original structures remain, but San Antonio has done a great job of restoring things and providing a very informational self-guided tour. Tom and I were anxious to learn the history behind the "Remember the Alamo!" cry. In short, Mexican president Antonio Lopez de Santa Anna attacked the Alamo in 1836 - a 13-day siege which ended in utter defeat of the "Texians." All but two Texians defending the Alamo were killed, and the few who surrendered were executed. A few months later, the Texians attacked Santa Anna's camp, shouting, "Remember the Alamo!" Even though they were outnumbered, they defeated Santa Anna's troops in just 18 minutes. So now you know. We were intrigued. Six different flags have flown over Texas (including its own as an independent country) - it's no wonder they want to secede again. :-)

After the Alamo, we walked back along the River Walk and got lunch at a Tex-Mex place called Acenar (Spanish for water mill). It was DELICIOUS. And they brought out a guacamole cart to make it fresh for us (with double the avocado compared to NYC restaurants). Yummm.....

We ate so much at lunch that we just walked around in a food coma for a bit and then started our trip north toward Austin. We have college friends who live in Round Rock, a suburb of Austin, so we drove to their place to spend a few days. They had free tickets to a minor league baseball game, and we headed to the Round Rock Express stadium to check it out. Josh Hamilton, a MLB Texas Ranger, was recovering from an injury and playing for the Express, so we got to see him whack a homerun in his last minor league game before heading back to the big leagues. We also got a taste of a great Texas beer called Shiner. We didn't stay at the game long, though - there were threats of tornadoes and major storms just north of us. Even though there was a lot of lightening in the sky, officials didn't cancel the game, but we left anyway. And discovered our new favorite Tex-Mex restaurant: Chuy's. Amazing.

The next day, we had lunch at Salt Lick, a popular Texas BBQ restaurant (but their BBQ is beef, not pork). They have lots of sides and fixins, too, and we had a good meal. We topped it off with some donuts from Round Rock Donuts, and I swear - I've never had a donut so delicious. We got normal-sized donuts, but they have a Texas-sized donut that's the size of six regular donuts combined.

Then, we went to downtown Austin with our friends and their 5-year-old daughter. We walked around the state capital building (which, you guessed it, is BIGGER than the U.S. capitol building). We also drove around the downtown area and the University of Texas campus.

We were still so full from the BBQ and donuts that we headed back to their house, saw a puppet show performance, ate breakfast for dinner, and called it a night. Monday morning, Tom and I headed north to Oklahoma City (and got lunch at another Chuy's along the way).

Oh, and this post isn't complete without a few pics of our friends' cute kid:

Up next: Thunder and Tornadoes...