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Published: June 25th 2015
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Today was ghost town day, it got very redneck and a little weird.....
Mandie had noticed that we had passed a pretty cool site last night about 30 miles back east on the I40 called the v-dub slug bug ranch. It is another representation of the artwork like the Cadillac Ranch (mentioned later) but with vw's instead! In many ways this site is worth going to more than its predecessor as there are less tourists and its a bit less mainstream.
Back down the I40 just past Amarillo, we then visited the Cadillac ranch which is very similar but packed with families and kids. However a little kid was nice enough to give us the remnants of his spray paint can which I then attempted to use to write MANDAN on one of the cars. I'm no graffiti artist and this didn't turn out well!
Unfortunately the rest of route today was mostly on the I40 as the old road had either been tarmac'd over or is private property and dirt tracks. About 25 miles further on between a town called Wildorado and Vega where we did manage to get off back to the lonely road. Suddenly the
radio received copious interference which we could only describe as lots of voices speaking at one over layers of static. We first thought it was some strange thing they were playing on the station however after about 30 seconds the station resumed again half way through the next song. Cruising down a lonely highway surrounded by just miles and miles of flat arid land on the edge of New Mexico not far from Roswell I can only assume it was aliens.
We finally reached the small town of Vega where there was another vintage gas pump called Magnolia, which was meant to be nearby the "shoe tree" location. We however couldn't find it. The landscape however was starting to get a little less flat and a bit more green mixed between the dusty red colour of the small mountains.
Next was the Midpoint milestone in a small town called Adrian where the midpoint café is located. This is meant to be the exact midpoint of the route 66 1139miles from Chicago. We had however hit more like 1400 miles so far though. We had a lovely lunch in the café and got the standard pictures even though and
Asian couple decided to lie in the road over it on and off for about 45 mins!
A few more towns down the road we got to a fascinating Ghost town once named Glenrio which lies right on the Texas/New Mexico border. We got some very creepy shots of old abandoned buildings that have been empty and derelict for decades. We said goodbye to Texas and headed west down the old road even though it was warned not to in my guide book. Then things got weirder....
We soon regretted taking this dirt road as I could only go about 20-25 to keep control of the Jeep and we seemed to be disappearing further and further away from the I40 and any civilisation. I nearly turned back but the Indiana Jones in me was committed and knew wed pull back out of it about 20 miles on. We passed some very questionable buildings and very remote locations like odd mounds in the distance surrounded by scrap cars with a huge wooden cross inserted between, that were straight out of a horror movie. We were convinced that if we stopped and took pictures that we would be kidnapped, interfered
with and never seen again, hence no pics!
We eventually broke out back onto the main road, unclenched and resumed the last section through more less scary abandoned towns down to Tucumcari where we stopped again for a few more pics and then cracked on for the last leg onto our hotel in Santa Rosa. PHEW!
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Tony Austin
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Roswell and beyond. . .
It must have been quite tempting to head off (be pulled?) to Roswell, though I can see on the map it's about 100 miles. But now I see the turn off to it is at Santa Rosa, woah! It goes through a town called Vaughn to get there, it says here. Is it getting really hot yet, or is it cooler the further up (into the mountainous regions) you're going? Looks like there are some peaks coming up (including Mt Taylor) between Albuquerque and Gallup and then past a range called Mogollon Rim, which sounds like outta 'Lord of the Rings'!