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| The Comet Restaurant. Self-proclaimed as the best Mexican food in town! I'll pass, thank you very much! (click any image to enlarge) All images made with a Fujifilm X100VI from JPEG files |
The first place to which we detoured was Santa Rosa, New Mexico. I think Santa Rosa is best known for the Blue Hole. The Blue Hole is a beautiful little crystal clear lake in the middle of the desert. You can read more about it here.
It was in Santa Rosa, while cruising on the main road through town that I spotted the Comet Restaurant (above). Really? A tiny building with no windows at the back of a parking lot. That was different. It certainly was worth stopping and making a couple of exposures.
Next door was the Comet II restaurant. Also, a mere shell of a building. A little fancier with what looked like a drive-in canopied parking area—and lots of windows! I thought the design of the canopy was interesting.Both must have been popular some decades ago.
As we drove on the historic route through town, up ahead I spotted an orange building with blue trim. The colors were very unusual. The Sunset Motel. Another mandatory stop.
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| I'm thinking this is the "new and improved" Comet II restaurant! I noticed one big improvement. They've added windows! Lol. |
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| I saw the color of this motel as we drove by and knew that I needed to make some images for my "Just for the Color" ongoing project. The more I looked at it, the more I was fascinated with the old place. I don't know if anyone stays just overnight. I suspect the rooms are rented by the month as low cost housing. I may be wrong, however, |
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| I love symmetry! |
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| These patterned decorative cement blocks caught my eye. I love the color scheme! |
After Santa Rosa, we continued east. There is one town that I knew I wanted to cruise through—Tucumcari, New Mexico. I've been there three times before and always found very interesting things to photograph along Historic Route 66.
There is one interesting anomaly about Tucumcari. One of those giant wind turbines you see peppered across the countryside is located right in town. A wind turbine in and of itself in the flat desert plains isn't so unusual but the community college there is where people come to learn how to work on them. It is the home of the North American Wind Research and Training Center at Mesalands Community College. This cutting edge wind turbine training center is located in a small town, merely a blip on the map, out in the middle of nowhere in far eastern New Mexico. I figure a politician or someone important that either represents Tucumcari or is from Tucumcari, secured funding for it to be located there. Otherwise, why would you locate such a training center in what is a semi-ghost town with a population of 5280 and decreasing with each census.
We next stopped for the night in Amarillo, Texas. The clear blue skies we had experienced the first two and a half weeks of our road trip now turned to partly cloudy. Bad weather ahead as we drove toward Oklahoma.
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| Tucumcari, New Mexico has many, many photo opportunities along Historic Route 66. I was last through there in 2022, which was the last time I did the entirety of Route 66. I've planned to do it again this fall. This building was there last time but it certainly wasn't pink! I'm trying to think of any reason for the owners to paint everything pink? Hot pink at that! |
We next stopped for the night in Amarillo, Texas. The clear blue skies we had experienced the first two and a half weeks of our road trip now turned to partly cloudy. Bad weather ahead as we drove toward Oklahoma.
I didn't make any photos in Amarillo on this trip but for illustration sake I'm including a couple from one of my previous road trips to better understand the narrative.
Amarillo, in my mind, is famous for two things. The famous Cadillac Ranch is located just west of town and the Big Texan restaurant is located in Amarillo as well. You can read more about what the Cadillac Ranch is and its history here. It is kind of fascinating. By the way, you can now buy spray paint at the Cadillac Ranch. A guy has a truck and trailer set up to sell spray paint to visitors. People pay for the paint, spray a bit of it on the half-buried Cadillacs, then throw the rest of the paint away. It used to be a big mess but the last time I visited with spray paint cans littering the ground by the dozens. Whomever maintains it now put a lot of trash barrels out for the paint cans rather than having the mess of hundreds strewn about the premises.
The Big Texan restaurant is more than a restaurant. It is a destination. It is, of course a very nice restaurant but it also has shops, games, a bakery and other activities inside. It is most famous for being the place where you can get a free 72 oz. (just over 2kg) steak, plus a roll, shrimp cocktail appetizer, baked potato, and a salad—for free! You just have to eat it in an hour. You also get to eat it live on the Internet from a raised table in the center of the restaurant. As of last Monday, July 7, 2025 (when I'm writing this), 98,027 individuals have tried and 10,504 have succeeded. The success rate seems to be about 10%. If you pass through Amarillo, give it a try!
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| The famous Cadillac Ranch outside of Amarillo, Texas. In case you wanted to know what it looks like. This photo and the one below were both made in 2013. This one with a Nikon D800E |
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| Think how thin a layer of paint is. Now, consider the paint on these cars are as much as an inch (2.5cm) thick! |
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| This image and the one below were also made in 2013 with an Olympus E-M5 |
After a nice steak dinner at the Big Texan, my wife and we spent a pleasant night in Amarillo, then continued our journey east toward Oklahoma—with a keen eye on the weather. :-(
Thanks for looking. Enjoy!
Dennis A. Mook
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