West Texas Oasis: Amarillo

Traveling east on I-40 you pass from New Mexico into Texas and before you know it, you hit Amarillo. No "Welcome to".... no "Howdy, Y'all". Just "Amarillo". Even the folks here say this is not a destination, but a one night stand on the road to someplace more interesting.

This is strip mall hell. Every franchise known to man is here, making me think that Amarillo is some sort of test market.

But oddly enough here in the start of the Baptist bible belt, Catholics can still hold their own. Whatever they're holding.

Even with the Baptists holding sway, thank God this is not a dry city or county. And as we mentioned in the previous blog entry, if you want a steak anywhere from six to seventy-two ounces, here's where you'll find it. By the way, the "Big Texan" restaurant has that heavily promoted 72-ounce steak which is free if you can eat in an hour. Makes you want to hurl just thinking about it.

On the walls of the Texas Roadhouse where we ate, pictures of a bunch of gay guys line the walls. But we suspect this is one of those white wine country singers who's never experienced an ounce of pain in his privileged life. One of those "all hat, no cattle" gay blades.

But if you're from a non-smoking state, like most of us are these days, you'll experience pain in Amarillo restaurants where smoking is allowed. What a crazy state. With a wacky governor with an anti-Obama bias. But don't they know Obama smokes?

This shot was a mistake but I couldn't take it out so on we go...

One of the two redeeming qualities we found in Amarillo was our RV resort called the "Oasis" just west of the city limits. An almost unbelievably good deal at $20 a night, with a concierge, a limo service, free laundry facilities and huge, well-maintained spaces.

I highly recommend it. Heck, it's worth buying an RV just to come here.

But the best thing about the Oasis is that right next to it, where we were able to let Daisy off her leash, is a spot called "Cadillac Ranch".

Cadillac Ranch gets its name from the rancher who, once he wore out his Cadillacs, planted them nose-down into the ground. Eventually, about a dozen of them all in a row. People stop and armed with cans of spray paint apply graffiti over other graffiti. The whole thing's something of a mess but ...it's Amarillo.

Daisy was not at all impressed by cars in the ground but rather some fresh cow pies on the ground. That's our dog.

Another shot of Daisy among the discarded paint cans. It's all about the dog.

Amarillo's other saving grace is not even in Amarillo but about thirty miles south. Palo Duro Canyon State Park was formed when over the course of millions of years the land eroded and sculpted this gorge in west Texas. That's what most people accept as the truth. Unless, of course, you're one of the many local born-again believers who claim that all of this took place over the last eight-to-ten-thousand years when man and dinosaurs co-existed. And man hunted the huge reptiles to extinction, not for food but for fun. Early man. What a guy. Yes, these yahoos actually believe such nonsense.

Confession: Even progressive Sedona has a band of creationists. A well-organized and seemingly well-funded "church" that claims the earth is no more than ten-thousand or so years old. And that modern man and T-rex co-existed. There's also a Sedona cult that says that Jesus came to earth on a spaceship and celestial aliens walk among us. So Amarillans aren't so out-of-this-world when it comes to this sort of thing.

According to the literature, Palo Duro is touted as the second largest canyon in North America, second only to the Grand Canyon. But compared to the Grand Canyon, Palo Duro, while somewhat impressive, is just a hole in the ground.

However, it does have a flock of wild turkeys which are hard to see in the Grand Canyon. (But then my sister in eastern Washington has wild turkeys in her backyard. They're not uncommon. In fact, so common was the wild turkey in colonial times that Ben Franklin suggested it be our "national bird", not the bald eagle.)

So now that we have completely dissed Amarillo, and as the sun sets in the west, Daisy bids you adieu and hopes you will continue to follow our ridiculous musings as we continue onto our next stop, the city and state of my father's birth, Prague, Oklahoma...settled by Czechs who called it "Prague" (prawg) but the locals pronounce it "Praig", as in long "A".

You know, if the higher-ups in the Recreational Vehicle Industry Association (who helped to sponsor our PBS RV-based travel show) ever read this, they're likely to take us out with a roadside bomb. But what the hell, if you can't have a little fun along the road to nowhere, then you might as well stay at home, watch daytime TV, and beef up.

The OLD 66

It's not enough that we have to listen to big rigs idling all night long next to most RV parks. We also have to avoid them on the highway. A speeding monster truck can create enough suction to flip a trailer, especially if it's windy. So when and where we can, we take the so-called "road less traveled". In this case, a thirty-mile stretch of Old 66 in far eastern New Mexico. Only problem was, we discovered this was a stretch built in the early 1920s and never paved. So it was pretty much in its original condition. Dusty, dirty and no place to turn around. We were committed. There's not a soul to be seen along the way but at one time this was the only way to travel east and west between Tucumcari and Amarillo. Ghostly reminders of what once was.

We crossed over old wooden bridges with eight-and-ten ton load limits. And believe me, you have to quickly calculate your weight (we come in at four-to-five tons). But still you wonder if this thing is going to hold up.

Free-range cattle watch the occasional idiots like ourselves who choose to take this adventure-filled side trip.

But believe me, it's worth the ruts in the road to get off the busy, high-speed interstate with nothing but billboards, modern franchises and lots 'o traffic. You don't learn a hell of a lot that way. And remember, it's not the destination. It's the journey.

The picture above, by the way, is an roadside "motor hotel" from the 1920s or '30s. I was poking around taking photos until I discovered that someone is actually living in one of the units. Maybe a squatter like a modern-day dust bowler. This oldest part of Route 66 was the ribbon of highway that took refugees from the Dust Bowl in Oklahoma and Texas west to the promised land of California. My Dad's family traveled this highway from Prague, Oklahoma to Shanghai, China. (In the 1940s my Dad escaped the confines of the family farm and joined the Marine Corps. Served in Asia during and after World War II.)

This is where you would have filled up the old jalopy back when gas was probably less than twenty cents a gallon. Look between the two trees, far off in the distance. You can see the top of a big rig traveling I-40, the highway that sent these little places into oblivion.

The inside of the old filling station has been trashed. The roof has caved in and the elements have taken over.

Remember the old bucket seats? Someone who knows cars can probably identify where this type came from. Beats me.

After thirty miles of sucking dust into the trailer (and into our lungs), we veered back onto I-40...

...in the direction of Amarillo, where fundamentalist preachers scream across radio stations, begging for money, condemning every sin under the sun (mostly liberal, of course) but gluttony here is still a virtue. Oh, and you can still smoke in restaurants. How enlightened these clowns are. This place, "The Fabulous Texan" is a well-known monument to overindulgence. If you can eat one of its 72-ounce steaks in one hour, you get it for free. It'll cost you nothing but it will probably kill you. Yee-hah.

Tucumcari, Land of Legend

I suppose what we have liked the best so far on this trip from Sedona up to Flagstaff and then east on I-40 is that the interstate follows old Route 66. You're beckoned by all sorts of historic billboards to take this exit or that and get off one mother-of-a-speeding interstate to follow what's called the "Mother Road". Then take a slow jaunt of what remains of the old Route 66.

We followed the signs about a mile north of I-40 to Tucumcari, New Mexico. This small town has certainly seen better days since the interstate passed it by. Still , it's worth taking a day to explore what our parents and grandparents would have seen if they had taken this same trip in the 30s, 40s, 50s and early 60s.

Making the most of what they have left, Tucumcarians says their town's name is derived from two young Apache lovers -- male and female, by the way -- one killed in battle and the other, distraught, who took her own life. There you go: Tucum and Kari. And if you buy that legend, I've got a great little motel I can sell ya. (It's that place near the very end of this blog. Comes with color TV.)

Don't know why this jet is here. It's parked behind the local history museum.

Anyway, Tucumcari tries to make the most of Route 66 history.

Several of its old motels are still open for business and look decent enough.

Had a great lunch at a place called "Del's". The most popular restaurant in town and a fixture on 66 since the 1950s. Two movie location trucks were parked in the lot. Wonder what's being shot nearby....Hmmm...

Tucumcari bills itself as "the town of murals". There are probably half a dozen throughout town and I was astounded that they haven't been defaced. At least not yet. Go figure.

Being "American-owned" is a big deal as you travel across the U.S. these days. Tucumcari is no different. A youngish couple bought and refurbished this little place. Room for two: around thirty bucks. A bargain. Check it out online. Looks pretty nice on the inside.

This place, on the other hand, hasn't fared as well. I'd say that more than forty percent of the hotels and cafes in Tucumcari have closed their doors due to lack of business. Still, you have to hand it to the folks who are trying to keep the spirit of 66 alive.

While we are livin' large in the new, bling-bling Lance 2285, imagine traveling 'cross country in one of these vintage trailers.

Actually, it looks like fun.

The motel I have for sale. Maybe I can get some TARP money for it.

Daisy getting her ticks, er...kicks, on old Route 66.

We've outfitted the rig with all sorts of 66 stuff but here's the best of all: potholders hand-made by our very talented friend Linda in Sacramento. Thank you, Linda! They really come in handy when I actually cook once or twice a week.

Route 66

Talk about timing. We slipped out of Sedona in our new trailer on March 6th thinking that the weather wouldn't be too bad. Wrong again. Hit a snowstorm in Grants, New Mexico. At least we were down and locked at an RV park.

Ladies and Gentlemen, the all new, 2010 Lance 2285 -- fancier and five feet longer than our old 17-foot Springdale.

The inside view from the bedroom to the combo living/dining room/kitchen.

While Paul made sure that our pipes didn't freeze, Daisy and I enjoyed dinner delivered right to the trailer. The Grants, NM KOA offers this service from time-to-time. I like it!

Our route on this two-month disaster-in-the-making: a straight shot east along I-40, the old Route 66, America's "Mother Road". You meet a lot of characters along the way, like "the Taco Kid" in Tucumcari.

The map recommended stopping in Tucumcari, so we did. Interesting place. One of those used-up, bypassed-by-the-interstate sorts of small towns. But good people, 50 percent of whom are on some sort of public assistance. You have to remember up until the development of the interstate system in the late '50s and early '60s, these towns were alive and kicking. More about that in our next blog entry.

And then, of course, you see a lot of this along the route. They thought they would be alive and kicking in 2010. Instead, the half-gov and doddering old McCain are trying to figure out what the hell happened, much like the burned-out towns along the old Route 66.

Right off the bat, we were attacked by Indians in Arizona. Actually, this is an old Route 66 attraction called "Twin Arrows" which is right down the road from "Two Guns". It's stuff like this that makes travel across this great land a great adventure.

Of course, Daisy says, "Shit. Can't we go anywhere without me having to get a bath first? Whatever happened to the waterless wash? Dry cleaning. Clothes get it. Why can't I?" (note the tongue sticking out)

Ladies and Gentlemen, the Lance 2285. With slider. And a dusting of snow on the picnic table.

Ever wonder what it's like to RV in the snow? Well, wonder no more. It's damn cold.