Monday, May 3rd - Sayre OK to Amarillo TX
After discussing recovery strategy with a client who had a disk crash and who had neglected to make a backup the night before :(
.. we got off to an 8:45a start today from the AmericInn in Sayre, OK (highly recommended):
.. to back-track fourteen miles to Elk City in order to tour their Route 66 Museum. Today the cars looked great (thanks again, Buzz!):
The Elk City Museum is as nice or nicer than the one just down the road in Clinton that we visited yesterday except that the Elk City Museum complex consists of several museums, all connected -- not just Route 66 stuff.
Of course we began with the Route 66 museum:
(I really like the way they tilted this sign to get your attention)
(This wall is made up of squared-off T-Shirts all arranged in the shape of Oklahoma>
(This exhibit exemplifies the Joad family in "Grapes of Wrath"; that's Henry Fonda in the chair)
(All Oklahoma license tags arranged in the shape of the state)
Here's something else I'd never seen before. This is a "motor home" (I guess one of the earliest "RV"s) from the 30s. This one was used by Mae West as her dressing room when on the road making films. Talk about traveling in style:
Some of the other museums ring a central square:
Each building had rooms themed for the contents:
(This case holds the gown, sash, tiara and other items from Susan Powell, Miss America, 1981)
An upstairs room in one of the houses held a collection donated by the Beutler family. These are famous local celebrities who operate a local rodeo and are heavily into ranching. There were a group of suitcases in hand-tooled leather; the tooling includes the names of the owners:
One of the ten Beutler children, Lynn, apparently worked with Hollywood studios providing horses and technical advice. There were dozens of photos of Lynn with movie stars. Here he is on the left with another unidentified man. Oh, and in the center, Marilyn Monroe:
Gael particularly enjoyed seeing the quilt room where dozens of quilts were displayed:
We were about to go inside the Opera House (part of the town museum):
.. when we noticed through the glass that there were mannikins seated in there for a show or for some kind of town meeting. It was astounding how life-like they looked. Until one turned around and glared at me. Apparently there was a real town meeting going on in there and they were actual humans. Ouch!
In Erick, OK we had a couple of items in our "wish list". We were going to tour the 100th Meridian Museum and the Roger Miller Museum. Before getting to the intersection where both of these are located, we spotted a number of motor courts that had been abandoned; here's an example:
We found our two museums, all right. Right where they were supposed to be. Both closed:
Sigh... but we motored West and, still in Erick, we encountered this still-operating motor court:
We crossed the state line into the great State of Texas and made our way to Shamrock. Coming into town we saw this:
(At least part of this sign is quite old)
The centerpiece of our trip into Shamrock was to visit the Tower Conoco Station and the U-Drop-In restaurant alongside. Alas, both were closed for renovation:
(Tommy here was working on the neon)
As luck would have it, the Gift Shop was open and Doris was happy to tell us all about the renovation going on. She doesn't have an end-date target. We asked her for advice about where to have lunch and she gave us a suggestion. We asked if it was good and she said, "Well, I eat there." Good enough.
This is Doris' recommendation:
.. and this is us waiting for lunch:
Our recommendation? Pass Mitchell's Family Restaurant up....
She also told us how to find the post office (Gael needed to mail a package). It turned out to be right next door to the Pioneer West Museum. This little Museum was another real find:
Inside was the entire post office from Zybach, TX:
The building used to be a hotel and each room had been dedicated to showing a different facet of life early in the century:
(This lady was one of two who were gardening when we drove up and generously opened the museum for us)
When the building was a hotel (with ten guest rooms on the second floor) there was a two-hole privy at the end of the hall shared by all. Notice that they were apparently prepared for children ... and notice the Sears catalogue:
While we were enjoying this gem of a museum, Gael decided to sit in the car and update her journal. She'd gotten two lines into it when a young Marine tapped on the window. They talked about the car for the entire time we were in the museum:
Heading on down the Mother Road to McLean, TX we found another mural:
(Just couldn't pass up a Corvette on a mural..)
In McLean, the planned things to do included a visit to the Devil's Rope Museum. Dunno if you're into barbed wire but there are hundreds of different types of barbed wire and this museum purports to have nearly all of them.
And, the Devil's Rope Museum shares a building with yet another Route 66 Museum.
But, alas, both were closed until Wednesday (it could just be us...):
(Those two balls that look like topiary trees are made of barbed wire)
McLean had more to offer:
.. but mostly they're known for this tiny restored Phillips 66 station:
Not to be outdone by McLean's restored Phillips 66 station, the next town down the line, Alanreed, has it's own restored Texaco station:
On the way to the next town I saw this forlorn little house:
Outside Britten, TX we came alongside the famous "Leaning Tower of Texas":
The Britten water tower was deliberately installed this way to encourage tourists to drive into town to say, "Hey, didja know your water tower is about to fall over?" -- and then maybe buy something.
Along the road we saw signs about the "Largest Cross in the Western Hemisphere" and it wasn't long before we saw it on the horizon:
As we got closer to Groom, TX:
.. it became clear that the claim was true. This cross is 190' high and the arms are 110' wide. It weighs 1250 tons (that's 2.5 MILLION pounds) and it's been standing here since July 20, 1995. Nearby are recreations of Jesus' crucifixion and resurrection. Also on the grounds is a reproduction of the Shroud of Turin.
Next we took a nine-mile off-66 excursion to see the Square House Museum in Panhandle, TX:
We were almost "museum-ed out" for the day so we probably didn't do this one justice. The most significant difference about this museum is the accurate full-size reproduction of an "Pioneer Dugout" home. Sadly, neither Jackie or I got a usable picture of that, but here's the plaque describing it:
This is a multi-building museum with excellent exhibits.
(Gael loved this wedding gown)
Here's the lady who admitted us to the museum signing Buzz & Jackie's book. They've carried this book for the week and had everyone we encountered along the Road sign it or write a little something (good idea!):
Making our way back to Route 66 our next stop was at the Bug Ranch:
The famous Cadillac Ranch (which we'll visit tomorrow) has Cadillacs buried in the ground to about half their length at a 45 degree angle. OK; it's art.
The Bug Ranch people have done a similar thing (but not so deeply) with:
After the Bug Ranch we boogied on down Route 66 to our overnight stop in Amarillo, the Big Texan Motel. One of the reasons is the adjacent Big Texan Steak House, home of the 72oz steak:
If you can eat the steak (with sides) in an hour, it's free. If not, $50.00. They've been beaten more than 6,000 times. And the eater has lost many, many more times than that! We didn't try.
But we did go there for dinner:
Here's how we were greeted:
Here's the inside of the restaurant:
..and you can see we're still having a great time!
The hotel looks like a series of small hotels with a color theme; very cleverly done:
The rooms are interesting:
.. but we think we'll have a great nights sleep here. And on to Tucumcari, NM tomorrow!
If you find typos or other errors on these pages, please click to
. I can't always respond to the emails promptly but I do receive them.
Another great day -- and much, much more to come...
Watch for more tomorrow, Day #8 on the Mother Road!
|