No, I am not getting lazy. I decided to compress the past two days into one post for a couple of reasons. First, Texas and Oklahoma just aren’t as exciting (at least from the road) as the previous Southwestern states. Second, the riding has been pretty bad through these states and I am getting a bit worn down. Especially today, through the first half of Oklahoma. There was a constant side wind blowing across the interstate of at least 50kph, gusting up to about 80kph…this made riding even a 900lb Harley pretty challenging, at 75mph. With the amount of traffic there was, it became downright scary, trying to stay in my lane as cars travelling faster were passing…ugh.
Okay then, enough complaining about that. Yesterday we left Santa Fe, and headed back down to route 66, which, at least through most of Texas and Oklahoma, is almost non-existent. The parts that do exist are usually either small sections through towns, to draw people down their main strips and into shops, or there may be longer sections that basically run parallel to the interstate. So we mostly stuck to the interstate since we could blast through at 80 rather than 55 🙂
Some of the small towns that we passed through were pretty bleak – the old Route 66 motels and restaurants long deserted with the lack of traffic. For some reason they still exist as ghosts – the signs and buildings are usually intact, but weathered and run down, like much of small town USA. They make for some interesting photos though, and I’ve included a few at the bottom.
One of the last places we visited in New Mexico was a town called Tucumcari, which had lots of neat old places, including the Blue Swallow Motel, which I’ve included pictures of. Made for a nice break. After that it was over the border into Texas, and we shortly hit Adrian, home of the Midpoint Cafe, which is halfway from LA to Chicago. We got there at 4:20, and the cafe had already closed. However, there had been a large ‘gang’ of French bikers (presumably from France) and they’d just left when the owner of the cafe came out and gave us a “Bon Voyage!”. I said, Hey, we’re not French! He laughed and said he’d thought we were part of the group, and then offered to let us in to the gift shop anyway, so that was really nice (I got another sticker for my helmet 😉
After that it was pretty much a battle against the crosswind until we pulled into Amarillo, Texas. About 5 miles west of Amarillo is the famous Cadillac Ranch, and we made the obligatory stop for some pics, though we hadn’t gotten any spray paint. Oh well, anything painted on there would quickly be painted over – there were at least 10 people there with multiple spray bomb cans 🙂
We stayed at the absolute worst motel of the trip in Amarillo, but after a call this morning to Wyndam Customer Service, it’s unlikely we’ll have to pay for it, so that’s okay. Not all was lost in Amarillo though – we went for a nice dinner at a local steakhouse and a much needed long walk afterwards, so all in all it was quite nice, though Amarillo itself is not somewhere I would likely return if I could help it…just not much going on there at all, y’all!
We slept in late this morning and didn’t get on the road until around 10:30, just in time for the wind to pick up 🙁 A few miles East of Amarillo, someone decided to make joke about the cadillac ranch, and you can see below what it was. After that, it was mostly just hard miles with the relentless crosswinds, and several rest stops along the way to recover my nerves. One town we stopped in (I think it was Texola, Oklahoma) advertised a cafe and I thought it might be nice to stop for a drink…well, the whole town was basically deserted and looked like a real bonafide ghost town. It was kinda spooky, and when we got to the cafe, it said it was open, but the door was locked. I looked inside the window and it seemed more like a house. There were a couple cars parked outside too, so I dunno what was going on. I was imagining that the people inside were just saying “shhh boy..maybe they’ll go away if’n they don’t here nuthin'” or something to that effect. Anyway, we quickly got on our way and then made a stop at an interstate gas station.
Anyway, a couple hours later and we’re at the hotel in Oklahoma City, and it already feels like a paradise hotel, compared to the previous day’s stay…but more on that tomorrow!
Peace out.
Byron
