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Welcome to day three! This morning we woke up around 8am had a nice breakfast and headed out. Our first stop of the day was in Erick, Oklahoma where we visited the National Route 99 Museum. After the museum we headed over to the Sandhills Curiousity Shop. Formerly the City Meat Market, the Curiousity Shop is known as the oldest brick building in Erick. It is now the home of Harley and Annabelle, "The Mediocre Music Makers" . The entire outside of the building is covered with old signs, dating way back.
The inside is another story. Harley and Annabelle, are what i call pack rats, they have hundreds of signs and Route 66 memorabilia as well as hundreds maybe even thousands of old record albums. The Sandhills Curiousity Shop is not advertised but it is one of the most well-known and entertaining spots on Route 66. It has even been featured in the Pixar and Disney animated film "Cars." The shop was really cool and harley and annabelle were nice and well...very hyper. They sang us their 30-second version of "Get your kicks on Route 66" with a little twist. After Erick we left the
state of Oklahoma and headed for Texas. Just inside the Texas state line was Shamrock, a small town home of the U Drop Inn. In Mclean, TX there is the Devil's Rope Museum. It is the largest barbwire museum in the world. We decided to skip it. Alanreed came next, it is ghost town except for one house that looked like someone was living in it. Just outside Alanreed was an 1890 cemetary. Next came Groom, TX. Groom housed the leaning water tower and the tallest cross in the western hemisphere, or so the book said. Actually the tallest cross in the Western Hemisphere is in Effingham IL. Past that was BUg Ranch which pays homage to Amarillo's Cadillac Ranch. Bug Ranch consists of 5 graffitied VW bugs buried nose first in the dirt . Later in Amarillo, we saw Cadillac Ranch, which is 10 graffitied Cadillacs buried nose first in the dirt in the middle of an empty field. Dad and I parked the car on the side of the road and walked up to the Cadillacs, as we were looking around a family came up to us and asked if we wanted to
leave our name there. They gave us a can of black spray paint and we graffitied our names on the cars reading "Sarah & Dad." On the way back to the car we passed the paint onto another family. AFter Cadillac Ranch we hopped on I-40 and headed to Adrian, TX the midpoint of Route 66. We were planning on eating at the Midpoint Cafe, but when we got there it was already closed. In Adrian there is a sign stating that Adrian is the midpoint .There was no one around at the time but Dad and I wanted a picture with the both of us next to the sign, so i set my timer on my camera and put on top of the car, unfortunatly my timer only timed for 10 seconds and i had never used the timer before. I hit the button but didnt see the timer running until i had 7 seconds left, so i took off across the street to the sign. The camera went off but it got my butt instead of my face (i hadnt quite made it to the sign). Just in the nick of time, a couple drove up
and took our picture. After Adrian we headed to Glenrio, the last town in Texas before New Mexico. There was supposed to have a sign that said on one side "Last Motel in Texas" and on the other side it says "First Motel in Texas." The sign was still there reading Motel and Cafe, but the First and Last motel was busted out. AFter Glenrio we were forced to get back on I-40 becuase the roads from Glenrio, TX to San Jon, NM were all dirt and gravel. We decided to take I-40 all the way to Tucumcari, NM where we are staying the night. Its about 6pm right now and We are eating at A&W as I am typing. We were planning on staying at the Blue Swallow Motel becuase the books say its really nice and well kept. We drove up to it and it looked as if people had rented out the place to live in as apartments so we are staying at the Hamptons Inn.There was supposed to be a Drive-In here in Tucumcari, but it hasnt been operating for over a decade. Tonight we are planning on just taking it easy.
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MM
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Katie just walked on my keyboard so I don't know what happened to what I just wrote. I love the totem pole. Many pictures but nothing like yours AND the Bug Ranch. We are all right there with you in spirit! Can't wait to read the next chapter!!! Love MM