2022: Route 66 and Beyond, Day Eleven

Up and at ’em! Kinda sad to leave this spot, it was such a treasure. But we had plans in town before hitting the road, and some stormy weather was blowing in from the west (this was our first cloudy day the entire trip!). So after a little time relaxing out front, we packed up the car.

Moose and I ran down to the office one last time for some grab coffees, granola bars, and gift-shop swag. Before we took off, the owners waved us over to say good-bye, and sent us off with some hand stamps. Bad ass.

Ignore that poor child’s raggedy ass nails, it’s been a long trip.

First off, we needed a real breakfast. We were also distinctly aware of the fact that this would be our final meal featuring New Mexico chile (wah!). Loretta’s was highly hyped for their breakfast, so it was the obvious choice.

The decor was a mix of American Pride and Jesus, so Scottie agreed to have his picture taken so I could get some of it in the picture. No judgement! Just marveling at it.

This was a tiny mom-n-pop type joint, and the staff were super nice and helpful. Linus ordered a la carte because “nothing else sounds good”, and ended up with… a normal breakfast plate.

Scott, Pete, and I went the New Mexican breakfast route. Pete wasn’t too hungry after gobbling down those granola bars, so we shared a plate of breakfast tacos served with a healthy side of freshly roasted green chile. As the Good Lord intended.

A la carte: two eggs, bacon, hashbrowns, and a giant tortilla.

The giant tortilla ended up being his favorite part.

Breakfast over, it was time to head down the road to the Mesalands Community College Dinosaur Museum. This is a paleontology- and geology-based museum, full of specimens from local dig sites. It’s well kept and very hands-on, which was great with the kids (lots to touch!). And it certainly didn’t take itself too seriously, either.

This fella is the first thing you see when you step into the museum…

I would kill for a print of that.

First up was the ROCKS, and a few fossilized critters.

After the geology area, you round the corner into the meat and potatoes, baby: dinosaurs.

They had a small “dig site” area for the kids, filled with crushed walnut shells. They found all sorts of treasures, including pair of eyeglasses. We turned them in later at the gift shop area (turns out: the woman running the gift shop lost those exact eyeglasses earlier in the day, when she was cleaning up walnut shells before the museum opened).

Linus asked me to take a picture of him recreating one of his favorite scenes from Jurassic Park.

My favorite display. It’s like he’s excited to see me and comin’ in for a big, warm embrace.

And this is what you see at the end: a wee velociraptor, delighted by his portrait.

The gift shop had some interesting stuff inside!

We picked up a few small trinkets, I wish they had a book by that dino artist though.

We drove through tiny but mighty Tucumcari, and made one last stop before heading out.

Teepee Curios time, baby. Lovin’ the hellk.

Teepee Curios was built in the 1940s, originally a Gulf gas station. When the route was widened, the building lost its pumps but found a new life as a curios shop. It’s pretty famous on the route so we were excited to get to check it out.

The only shot I got of the interior. I was too busy shopping!

Goodies procured and packed safely in the trunk, we again hit the road.

Now, I failed to mention earlier: it was Peter’s birthday, officially a teenager! I asked him how he wanted to celebrate, and: he just wanted to get to Amarillo and hang. Find our hotel, swim a bit in the pool, relax, and have a nice steak dinner. That, we could do.

Tucumcari is a little over half an hour’s drive to the Texas border. The topography changed real fast, from desert to flat grazing lands. We were officially in rancher territory. Also I am happy to report: from the time we hit Tucumcari onwards to the end of the trip: no more Check Engine lights, no engine shutters, not one problem, none. THE WEIRDEST THING. But I’m not complaining!

The problem we experienced, instead, was all poor Peter. The start of teenagerhood was not treating him kindly. At one point I heard him groan and gasp, then I turned to see him cupping his hand over his face. Taking his hands down, blood was pouring from his nose. He grimaced, and his mouth was blood-filled too, red teeth and all. What in the world. I feel bad because I think the shock on my face, turning around to see that, really scared the poor guy. He was gasping for air and I could not calm him down, not with any of my usual tricks.

The bleeding was still going strong, even after trying the techniques they tell you for bloody noses. And again, we were in the middle of nowhere. A few minutes later we entered Glenrio, right after crossing the border, and we were lucky enough to happen upon a gas station.

I hustled Pete inside, still with hands cupped to his face, to use the restroom, but we were informed the bathrooms were closed because they didn’t have water, which was common in those parts apparently? Er… No bathrooms, none of the usual gas station sinks, no nothing. This would not be so strange, except: they were still somehow slinging hot food in there. The staff saw me stare at the backroom line prepping food for a moment and explained that they run the back purely on jugs of water. Talk about surviving on the bare bones, man.

So Pete and I did a quick scan of the aisles, grabbed some (criminally overpriced) baby wipes, a roll of paper towels, and bottled water. Then we fled to the picnic tables outside to inspect the nose situation and clean the poor kid up. (I also let him pick out any candy/chips/soda inside that his heart desired because: happy birthday, bubs.) By then the bleeding had subsided, which was a relief. If it kept going, who knows where we’d find a place to get him looked at… After he was all cleaned up and in the car, we kept a’driving. I still have that strangely-branded pack of baby wipes in the car, too. Bloody nose souvenirs.

Another half an hour, and we hit Adrian, which is best known for being the Midpoint of Route 66 – neatly halfway between Chicago and Santa Monica. Got a few shots of the line in the road. There’s a little cafe and motel there as well. The cafe is known for fantastic pie, but no one was hungry so we missed out on that.

Back on the road.

OMG, FOOD COWS.

Another half an hour and we were already on the outskirts of Amarillo, and at arguably the most famous art installation on the Route – Cadillac Ranch.

We were going to get spray paint on our way out of Albuquerque or Tucumcari, so we’d be ready to add our mark. And then we forgot. Well, these people are smarter than us, because they had a little trailer parked at the entrance selling (amongst the many souvenirs and maps): cans of spray paint. LOL. We did not get any spray paint because to be honest: anything you spray is covered up within a few minutes by another visitor. But we did get some stickers to remember the stop.

Call it cheesy or campy or tacky or whatever you want, but it’s definitely a place worth a stop. We walked around and checked out the cars and people-watched for a spell.

Check out all that paint, yo. It was here that poor Pete encountered his second injury of the day: he was walking inside one of the cars and bashed his skull on some of that drippy hardened paint. Whoops. Got a nice little goose egg from that.

KORN.

I mean we spent a good 15-20 minutes there, but that was more than enough. Off we go again.

This dude was just down the road from Cadillac Ranch and I mean, HOW COULD I NOT STOP TO TAKE A PICTURE OF THIS VERY TEXAS MUFFLER MAN.

Scottie waitin’ on me to take my pictures.

We headed on into Amarillo proper, and on to our home for the night:

Yeah no, not kidding. We stayed at the Big Texan, home of the World Famous 72 oz. Steak. They have a small row of motel rooms they rent out through airbnb, and I was able to snag one.

We were in one of those brown ones, upper level.

I am not the biggest fan of Texas (or at least the current iteration of Texas), but I gotta give Texans some credit in that they are darn proud of where they live. Signs of Texas are everywhere.

The little touches here really got me. Like the ranch branding in the walkways.

Our room was, as you can imagine, Texas themed. Tin walls, barrel tables, saloon doors to the bathroom area, an accent wall that was wallpapered in a rancher theme… And more. Oh, and there was a big basket on the console FULL of Tootsie Rolls. The kids went nuts on that.

They asked you to sign the inside of the door. That’s a first!

After some time getting settled in our room, we decided Pete’s requested swim time was in order.

Naturally: it was a Texas-shaped pool.

I didn’t take a lot of pictures at the pool. Orrrr actually, let me re-phrase that: there were a few other people at the pool and they seemed self-conscious seeing my camera, so I didn’t process any pics that they were somewhere in the background. So this is what you get.

After a nice swim on a hot-as-balls day (whew, Texas, your heat doesn’t mess around), we retreated back to the comfort of our air-conditioned room to rinse off and get dressed and… think about dinner.

This was the point in our trip where we started losing steam. Right here, in our motel room in Amarillo. Everyone was tired and not much in the mood to explore much, more like we were ready for some shameless goblin-mode. The kids continued to Hoover all the Tootsie Rolls while lounging and watching Spongebob. Scott was camped out on a bed glued to his phone.

(Close up of bathroom saloon doors.)

I was a little stir-crazy, so I offered to go down to scout out the restaurant ahead of dinner. Uh, guys – this place is a bonkers tourist trap of madness. It reminded me of a Bass Pro Shop, strangely. There was an arcade area to play shooting games, a large gift shop, a fudge shop, a bakery, two bars, and the restaurant proper. There were also areas explaining the history of the Big Texan, and of course: as you enter, there was the shrine to their famous 72 oz steak, inside a replica covered wagon (naturally). If you were coming for the steak here’s what you gotta eat within an hour to get your steak dinner free of charge:

Not just the steak, friends. But also shrimp, salad, baked potato, rolls.

Oh yeah, babes. Gristle and fat, too.

Eventually the fam was all together, dressed, un-goblin-ed, and in the building. The boys played shoot-em-up in the arcade, Scottie grabbed us beers at one of the bars ($8 for a pint, ouch), and we watched some Dalai Lama admire the 72-oz-steak shrine.

Somehow, we were able to score a booth (instead of one of the many huge communal tables at the center of the room).

Look, salad! I think that was the first salad I ate in at least a week. It tasted so good, too, I remember greatly appreciating that crunchy, fresh plate of veg.

The kids meals were “served in a cowboy hat” (they were just handing them to you beside the plate, though). Cute! The kids meals here didn’t mess around. Pete got a steak with his, and Linus got the “Roy Rogers (breaded steak bites).

I got fried okra as my steak side; 100% recommend should you ever stop here.

Okay it’s hard to see in the busy, busy picture but: that guy in the center in the ballcap? He’s at the raised stage, taking on the 72-oz steak challenge; he’s got 48 more minutes on the clock (as you can see as well). Pete went and watched him for a minute and talked to him, sending some encouraging words. Pete was totally mesmerized by the entire thing.

After the meal we spent a good chunk of time wandering around checking out the rest of the place, including (shocker) some quality time in the gift shop. We also took Pete to the bakery to pick out a birthday treat. Then off we went, back to our room for the night.

Teens, man.

Scott and I also had a margarita to finish off our dinner; this led to us getting into full party mode back in our room, and we staged Bob to swing all Miley Cyrus/wrecking ball style. Us middle-age folks go hard.

Don’t worry though, very soon we were back to goblin mode.

I did get a few things prepped; while the evening was clear and gorgeous, I knew that some hairy weather was due to blow in. I wanted to get the trunk/front seats organized, and as much stuff back into the car as possible before the next day. And I hoped for the best for the group of bikers also staying at the motel that night (it was really hard not to go out there with my impressive mom-stash of plastic grocery-store bags and cover all the bike seats).

Good night, Amarillo.

And happy birthday, sweet Pete. We’re sure lucky to have you in our lives.

Day Eleven Stats:

The Mileage: 115 miles

The Towns!. Tucumcari, NM to Amarillo, TX

Dwellings: The Big Texan.

Attractions: Mesalands Dinosaur Museum

Roadside Oddities: Cadillac Ranch!

Meeper Count: T-Floofer 3000, a dino from the Mesalands museum, as well as Tex, a longhorn from the Big Texan.

Stuff To Do That We Missed: In Amarillo: the 6th Street Historic District; American Quarter Horse Hall of Fame (I really wanted to go to this museum but we ran out of time!); Youngblood’s Cafe is supposed to be pretty solid, too.

Foooooooood: Breakfast: Loretta’s (so good!); Lunch: car snacks; Dinner: The Big Texan