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!