Day Two:
Today started even earlier than yesterday; up by 6 and out of the room by 7 to go to breakfast…ate at an original Route 66 diner on the outskirts of Oklahoma City near the Canadian River.
As with yesterday, this was a pretty heavy day of travel although not as far as yesterday's undertaking…my plan was to travel over to Amarillo and pick up the route at exactly where we left off in 2007 at the "Cadillac Ranch"…now in case any of you are wondering, this is not a house if ill-repute; it's 10 Cadillac automobiles buried to their dashboards "pointing' West…an art experiment in the middle of a Texas field!
Before getting to Amarillo, I couldn't help but make a couple of excursions off I-40 to stop in Clinton, Ok and then Elk City, Ok to revisit a couple of Route 66 icons.
It seems slightly cooler today although temps were still in the low 90's and it was bright and sunny although it looked as if there were some heavy rains south of the interstate.
I made it to the Cadillac Ranch just to the West of Amarillo and then picked up Route 66 from that point…along much of Texas, Route 66 is frontage road mostly following the I-40; that's because, in part, much of I-40 in Texas sits right on top of what was Route 66. However, there are some old alignments of the route with original pavement (and sometimes, original dirt of sections that were never paved)!
I stopped for a late lunch at the "Mid-Point Cafe" in Adrian, TX…the exact mid-point on Route 66 between Chicago and Santa Monica. The food was good but the home-made Coconut Cream pie was the real highlight - this was the real deal; nothing machine processed when it comes to their pies! The Mid-Point Cafe best point however are the people who own it/run it…extremely friendly and truly happy to have you as a customer; exactly the way good roadside diners were before the McDonald's Burger Kings and Wendy's took over! By the way, the Mid-Point Cafe was the inspiration for "Flo's V8 Cafe" in the Disney Pixar movie "Cars".
A lot of the Texas panhandle is somewhat uninteresting as far as landscapes go although there are exceptions…things get noticeably more interesting when you cross the border into New Mexico…it's easy to see why so many "Western" movies have been filmed in New Mexico…wind chiseled ridges and towering pieces of land seem to sprout up out of flat land.
Today's destination was the Blue Swallow Motel; a Route 66 original - each room comes with a garage and inside the garage are murals (and murals on much of the outside walls of the building as well. The Blue Swallow neon sign alone is worth the cost of the room. The room is definitely "old fashioned"…small but completely refurbished…everything works including the A/C and the 1938 rotary phone on the desk by the bed.
This is not a place for those who like modern comfort but if you want to see how it was back in the day, this is the place to be.
Stats for today - 7 hrs/16 minutes of driving for a total of 420.9 miles. Average MPG/MPH for today was 23.9/57.1 respectively.
Tomorrow it's on to Albuquerque, New Mexico!
Midpoint Cafe: http://www.midpointroute66cafe.com/
Blue Swallow Motel: http://blueswallowmotel.com/
My Day Two Pictures
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