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boring country side Day 11 – Wednesday, 5/30/18 Santa Fe, NM – Oklahoma City, OK Mileage: 562 miles
Okay, with all the brown from the day before, maybe our minds browned out, but as we left out of Santa Fe, Claire started doing dive by shootings!! Now, before you think we’ve become part of a hardened gang, she was doing her shootings with her camera. Since there wasn’t anywhere for Pam to pull over in the heavy traffic, Claire said she was going to do “drive by shootings” of Santa Fe on the way out! One of things she missed, but we’re not sure how since it was so big, was a tennis court park with around 40 tennis courts. Susan said, “I’ll bet it is really fun to play tennis in 114
o temperatures!” Santa Fe and the suburbs also are big on their solar farms. Again, Claire didn’t get a picture of all the huge solar panels. Exactly what are you shooting, Claire????
Oh, we’re heading back to Las Vegas again. Since when is Las Vegas on the way from Santa Fe to Oklahoma City? How confusing it was with all these big signs for Las Vegas but nothing about
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it changes a little it was Las Vegas, NM. This new road took us out in the middle of the countryside where we were finally into more hospitable land – we could set up a farm here or something and survive if needed. Out in this remote land we saw a sign for New Mexico Girls Ranch. We figured that the guys must be at some “Dude Ranch” and speculated that the dudes and the girls probably left their ranches in search of the others only to find empty ranches! The scenery brought back memories of old western ranches in movies and TV shows, so you know what happened next, we went into musical mode . . . theme songs from “The Magnificent Seven” and Pam’s young kid version of “Bonanza” Ba-na-na-na Na-na-na Na-na-na Na-na-naza” were are favorites through this area! Through this region we did see a school bus crossing, but never saw any homes – where are the people and the roads? How far would the school bus have to go just to pick up the kids? Would it have to start at 3 am? There was just flatland with a few rolling hills around filled with low grasses, bush-like trees, and
the occasional taller tree.
After miles and miles of western-movie land, the land suddenly became bleak. Now, it was completely flat, not even trees or bushes. Miles of this and we came upon a house with some junk around and two abandoned homes – prime property out here! There aren’t even animals out here – they’re smart enough to stay back in the more livable areas. Way off in the distance, we saw a little “bolcano-looking” mountain (Ellen) and a “farting deer crossing sign”. Believe me, we were looking for anything to entertain us out there. This went on for a hundred miles or more and Claire used all this boring drive to get in a half day of work in the back seat while not missing a thing.
Eventually, we turned on I-40 and had 481 miles to go, but could go all the way to Wilmington, NC if we wanted (we don’t). When we saw a chance to get on “Route 66” several times during the day, we took the chance hoping for a change in scenery. Especially through some of the more famous stretches to view the retro things, it was a blast from the
past, but not what we expected. In Tucumcari we did see a Payless Inns that was completely burned down and can understand why you pay less there. Before these short Route 66 parts, we were planning to do the entire Route 66 for a future trip; nixed that idea!
Wow! Real farms, although still flat, and a small airport, too! Were we coming into civilization? Suddenly, a zillion bugs hit our windshield (so glad we got those windshield wipers fixed and new wiper fluid). On the only hill around, Susan counted at least 81 cell towers. Everywhere we stopped today for gas and/or pitstops they have postcards. Susan’s out of luck getting a New Mexico postcard.
Texas!!! We entered the panhandle of Texas and started coming up with song titles that had anything to do with Texas – All My Exes Live in Texas, Yellow Rose of Texas, Deep in the Heart of Texas, Amarillo by Morning, Dallas (Theme Song), Red River Valley, Streets of Laredo, etc. That’s strange, the sign said that the Texas Visitor Center is not until exit 76. We thought, “Seriously, we’re going to have to drive 76 miles into North Texas before we
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Cadillac Ranch can get any information about Texas?” There must not be much going on in Texas either. Then, “Surprise, Surprise” - All this empty land in what we all thought of as the “Big Oil State” was being used for the largest windfarm(s) we’ve ever seen all combined together. Windmills as far as the eye could see deep on one side of the road and were there for nearly 30 minutes of driving at 80 mph! (There’s a math problem here for those of you who want to figure the miles of windmills we saw). Susan said in that one section, there had to be tens of thousands of windmills. It was beyond belief. Who knew Big Oil Texas was hiding all this wind power up in the northwest corner! After looking it up, Claire said that Texas leads the nation in wind production and supplies nearly 12% of their electrical needs by wind! So shocking!
Soon, we saw cotton fields and a bunch of cows (now when we say a bunch, we’re talking as almost as many as the windmills). They really do everything BIG in Texas. Next, we stopped at Cadillac Ranch where 10 old Cadillacs are half-buried
in a field and now covered in spray paint. It was a nice break from the same old scenery and then we were off again. Funny sign on highway, “Got WEED – If You Get Busted Call …… Law Firm!” Weed is apparently a problem around here. Those people have some wind blowing around in their heads. And, those lawyers . . . they’re some credible firm, aren’t they? After passing more wind farms, we stopped at “Slug Bug Ranch” – a VW Bug version of Cadillac Ranch to make pictures and stretch our legs.
A surprise outside of Groom, TX was a giant 19-story cross near the interstate. We took the exit and around the cross there were 14 stations depicting Christ’s final days on Earth through burial. Statues at each station, along with a replica of the empty tomb, and an exact replica of the Shroud of Turin made this an extremely inspirational stop. We took a shadow picture in the shadow of the cross.
Whoa! Windmills were on both sides of the road and the middle of road. It looked like we were going to hit one, but the road turned right before the windmill.
We had switched to Central Time, but the wind must have messed with the air, because Susan’s phone kept going to Pacific Time???? Maybe the wind was swirling around in Dorothy (our GPS) and our heads, too, because we kept all going to places that weren’t there or missing turn-offs and drove a lot of unplanned back countryside. Dorothy even tried to kill us by taking down a “Do Not Enter” road going the other way!!! And she even messed us up on directions to the restaurant (which by the way was the best we’ve had all trip), but certainly saved us through all the major interchanges in Oklahoma City to our hotel and to see the Capitol.
Oklahoma, true to its name, is windy. And, yes, we sang, “Oklahoma, where the wind comes sweeping down the plains” as we entered the state. Other than the first few miles, Oklahoma offered us a nice change of scenery – green at last! On some of our detours through the end of Texas and halfway through Oklahoma, we saw the “Leaning ‘Water’ Tower of Groom”, a retro service station “Lucille’s”, drove over the “Pony Bridge”, and drove down an old section
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hotel on Route 66 of Route 66 with grass in growing up through the road. Oklahoma City, however, is apparently where every major interstate and highway crosses and we moved from one-to-another-to another-to-another-to another . . . more times than we could count. Thank you, Dorothy, even though you did try to kill us earlier.
The hotel we stayed in was a Hyatt House and it was great. There were 2 double beds and a pull out sofa and it was huge.
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Barbara
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I feel your pain or West Texas, no all of TX, sucks
Susan lived in west TX for slightly less than a year. The height of sartorial splendor is a giant belt buckle. There at tons of highly conservative billboards. Did you see them or were you lucky enough to miss them? Did you see the Blue Swallow Inn on Rte 66 in Tucumcari? We stayed there. No points but a real chance to live in the past. This motel has been preserved but not upgraded. So much fun. Happy traveling! We All of TX is far, far right. Did you see any of the famous xxx is your savior...repent billboards? Scary, though I think