The Great American Road Trip III; Day 7

Palo Duro Canyon State Park in Texas. (click to enlarge)

After a good night's sleep, we drove south to the Palo Duro Canyon State Park.  Palo Duro is billed as the second largest canyon in the United States.  Being this was a Sunday morning on the Memorial Day weekend, we thought it would be really crowded.  It wasn't.  

I thought visually the park was underwhelming.  Being billed as the second largest canyon in the U.S., I thought it would be rather spectacular.  However, the canyon derives its size, seemingly, from its length and not depth.  There is a road that tours through the canyon and we drove in several miles but then grew tired of the same type of scenery as we saw everywhere else.  So we turned around and left.  

One short note about the park.  If you like to hike, there are a lot of hiking trails.  Also, there is a campground in the bottom land next to a small creek but the signs say to watch for flooding after heavy rains.  Not sure I would want to do that!

We then drove back to Amarillo and decided to eat lunch in the famous "Big Texan" restaurant, home of the Free 72 oz. steak--if you can eat it and all of the accoutrements within an hour.  Many people have done it but I decided on a hamburger without a bun.  It was pretty good.  It is quite the tourist attraction but I thought the food was good.

We then drove a little west of Amarillo along I-40 to the famous "Cadillac Ranch."  The Cadillac Ranch is a series of old Cadillac automobiles that have been 'planted' in a field at an angle, all lined up in a row.  It was originally conceived and created in 1974 by Chip Lord, Hudson Marquez and Doug Michels.  However, it has become very, very popular and the thing to do is use spray paint on the vehicles, writing whatever you desire, then throw the spray cans onto the ground.  It has become really, really ugly.  That was my third time there and we found a guy actually selling spray paint from a trailer out by the roadway.  I guess what the painters don't realize is that they paint their desire and about 30 minutes after they have left, others paint over their work.  I bet each vehicle weighs 3 times as much as when they were on the road due to the hundreds or even thousands of layers of paint on them.  One positive thing, however, is they now have several large trashcans nearby for painters to deposit their cans.  All were full to the brim.  But there are fewer on the grounds around the cars.

Again, the wind was almost unbearable.  It was about 99 degrees F when we visited the ranch and we estimated the wind was out of the south at a sustained 40mph!  I would have hated to be a pioneer and had to walk across that land with that kind of wind.  We are, indeed, fortunate to be able to get into an air conditioned car.

After watching this family struggle trying to take their own photo for posterity, I offered to take 
a couple for them.  They are from Ireland and are having a great time traveling along Route 66
and the United States.  (click to enlarge)

Before leaving Texas we stopped in Adrian, Texas, the official half-way point between Chicago and Los Angeles.  The little town is surrounded by hundreds of wind turbines as the wind, again, seems to always blow hard.  There is a sign and many people like to take selfies in front of the sign.  Across the street from the sign is the Half Way Café.  Interesting and crowded little stop.  It is nice to know we are more than halfway in our journey.

From there, we continued west, stopped in Russell's Truck Stop, Restaurant and Automobile Museum just inside the New Mexico state line.  Finally, we drove on to Tucumcari, New Mexico where we would spend the night.

Interestingly enough, it was difficult to find as restaurant in which to have dinner on a Sunday holiday weekend.  We did finally eat at the Tee Pee Restaurant and Lizard Lounge (yes, that is correct).  The food was ordinary, at best.

Tomorrow we spend the morning photographing the old hotels, signs, buildings and vehicles in Tucumcari before we continue our Route 66 journey west.

Join me over at my website, https://www.dennismook.com.  

Thanks for looking. Enjoy!  

Dennis A. Mook  

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