Kicks: Day Nine (A ghost town and a living legend)

After a good workout this morning, we left Amarillo in the rearview mirror and once again headed west. Old 66 through the west side of Amarillo is a neat little artsy area, and it would be fun to spend more time there! I liked Amarillo quite a bit, more than any other city I’ve been to in Texas (although San Antonio is pretty cool, too). I hear that Austin is really a happenin’ place, but I haven’t been there yet.

Not too far out of town is Cadillac Ranch, an art installation that has been around for 40-some years. If you’ve never heard of it, it’s ten old Cadillacs buried nose-first in the ground. It sits in the middle of a field that is used for some sort of agriculture...it was plowed, but nothing was growing yet, so I don’t know what ends up there. It’s a bizarre juxtaposition of rural and urban, and what makes it even better is that it is participatory. Visitors are encouraged to add graffiti to the cars, and the ground is littered with cans of spray paint. (I hope someone picks them up and disposes of them properly every so often!) I found it oddly charming, and I left there with a smile on my face.

I’m not going to touch on everything we did today, just a couple more things that I found especially noteworthy. (For a further description of our day, visit Ken’s blog.)

One of the things I was looking forward to the most was seeing Glenrio, Texas. If you know anything about Glenrio, Texas, that will probably seem a little strange, but if you know anything about me, it won’t be strange at all! It is essentially a ghost town that straddles the Texas-New Mexico state line. It never had a ton of residents (maybe 30 or so), but those who resided there made a decent living by taking care of travelers on Route 66. There were a couple of small motels, service stations, and a diner. Glenrio was bypassed by I-40 in the early ‘70s, and the town quickly died. I believe there may be one or two residents left, because there was a barking dog near one of the structures, and it was posted with signs saying “Private Property” and “Dog on Premises” and other such warnings. Why anyone would choose to stay in such a place is beyond me. It was desolate and depressing, and almost spooky. The main picture here is the former Texas Longhorn Motel. One the way heading west, the sign read “Last Motel in Texas.” On the way heading east, it said, “First Motel in Texas.” Only a few letters are left on the eastbound side now.

		Glenrio, Texas VIEW SLIDE SHOW DOWNLOAD ALL

I remember Shane telling me about his experience visiting Glenrio several years ago. He visited at dusk, and said that several dogs started howling as he walked around. He said it was a very eerie experience, and although we visited in the middle of the afternoon, with hot temperatures and the sun shining, it was still an eerie experience. The wind was very brisk, and there was very little noise other than the wind through the trees. The interstate was a distant whisper, and the lone barking dog quieted down once we went past him. I don’t even recall hearing any insects, and remember a deep silence, other than the wind. I took quite a few pictures, as well as a short video.



We took the Dirt 66 option south of Glenrio rather than the paved route, and I’m glad we did. It was in great shape—hardpack and gravel—and we had no problems. It took us past another ghost town, Endee, where all that remains are ruins of houses and other buildings. It is no longer considered a town. We saw the remains of an old railroad which was torn up some time ago, the Chicago Rock Island & Pacific. It was known by its acronym, CRI & P, and discussed as the Cry & Pee. I’m happy to say that I did neither! It was a fascinating trip down old 66 (formerly paved, but torn up to reduce maintenance costs), 18 miles from Glenrio to San Jon.

We left forlorn Glenrio and the former Endee behind us and headed towards a happier nostalgic place, Tucumcari, New Mexico. Tucumcari is known for its slogan (“Tucumcari Tonight!”) and its strip of old motels and service stations. Many old signs remain, but most have lost their neon or don’t bother turning it on. I was in seventh heaven with all the old motels and signs, but I was nearing ecstasy as we checked into the Blue Swallow Motel, probably the most famous of all the old motels on Route 66.

Blue Swallow 1 VIEW SLIDE SHOW DOWNLOAD ALL

This is a true beauty, built in 1939. The owner from 1958 to 1998, Lillian Redman, passed away a while back, and a couple from Michigan bought it and began renovating it. We chatted for a while with Kevin, and he was very helpful and kind and you could tell that he is enthusiastic about the motel. He showed us the room (we’re in Cabin Five), and told us that while they’ve updated things like the bed, towels, and other such amenities (including free wifi), they’ve done their best to maintain the integrity of the original motel. The tile on the floor and in the shower in the bathroom are original; the overhead light fixtures are original, as are the bases of the lamps by the bed. Some of the windows are original, and guess what? There is a screenless window in the shower that I get to open up when I shower tomorrow morning!

The room keys are real keys, not key cards, and have the big keychain (you can buy them in the office, and yes, I’ll be getting a Cabin Five keychain!). The phone is also original, and it’s one of those heavy black desk phones...with a rotary dial! And it works! It doesn’t make the cool clicking sound I remember from old phones, but that sucker is heavy. It’s the real deal. This might sound silly, but I am fascinated by the little niche in the shower for the soap. Isn’t that cool??

Blue Swallow 2 VIEW SLIDE SHOW DOWNLOAD ALL

The most amazing thing about the Blue Swallow is the sign. It’s one of the loveliest on the Route, and the entire motel is lit up with neon. When I asked about other signage in town, the owner said that the Blue Swallow probably has more neon than all the rest of the places in town combined. After checking it out after the sun went down, I would have to agree.

The large canopy sign is extensively lit, including the blue swallow at the top that blinks on and off; there is neon around the office, and around the roofline of the entire court motel; there are neon swallows over each of the garage bays. (I didn’t realize that the Blue Swallow had garage bays. Most are used by the owners for other things and are not available for parking now.)

For those seeking luxury and roominess, such a motel is not for you. For those who would like to experience a little of what it was like to head west several decades ago and stay in a small motor court like the Blue Swallow, you will love it. It is super clean, about as close to authentic as you can get, the owners are friendly, helpful, and obviously are enthused about bringing the Blue Swallow back to prominence as one of THE places to stay on the Road, and it has a charm that has survived for over 70 years.

Well done, Blue Swallow. Long may you run.

Kicks: Day Eight (Wired)

After once again not getting enough sleep—I find that I’m a little wound up in the evening as I write about things and start reading about the next day—we got up at a decent time (thanks to the alarm clock) and Ken headed out for a run on Route 66 while I stayed back and got cleaned up. I feel no guilt for skipping a workout this morning...the place we stayed at didn’t have a workout area, and I don’t run. Tomorrow, for sure!

We headed out of Elk City, and with apologies to Elk Citians, I wasn’t sorry to leave that town behind. I really shouldn’t make a judgment based on one visit, but it just didn’t strike me as a charming town at all. Although I’m not going to go as heavy on the sign pictures as I did yesterday, the Western Motel in Sayre, Oklahoma has a gorgeous sign, and I couldn’t resist posting it as the first picture!


Believe me, it's taking everything in my power to not post endless googie pictures. I am just fascinated by these old signs, but I realize that not everyone shares my fascination. I have no idea why not, because they're just so COOL! I'll probably have to post at least one more signage entry...oh, who am I kidding. We'll be spending two nights in Albuquerque, which has an abundance of awesome signage, so you'll probably get a couple more. A few. Several...I don't know, but these are super cool signs!



Hext had some really cool stretches of “ghost” road that are closed off and supposedly scheduled to become bike trails. That hasn’t happened yet, and these are just stretches of old highway that run alongside the current highway. Sometimes you can drive these stretches for a bit, but they were pretty heavily encroached upon by trees and vegetation, so we didn’t attempt it. It was neat to see it running alongside, though!

Erick, OK VIEW SLIDE SHOW DOWNLOAD ALL

Erick, Oklahoma had a couple of cool old motels, including the West Winds (although I couldn’t decipher it until I looked at the picture this evening). Note the bucking bronco at the top, ridden by a ghostly cowboy. There would have been neon on there (see the holes?), and there is still some remaining on the rest of the sign. I also noticed a Mustang back in the weeds, and they must get a lot of people driving by and asking to buy it if they had to paint “this is not for sale” on the windshield!

U-Drop Inn VIEW SLIDE SHOW DOWNLOAD ALL

We crossed over into Texas at Texola (a lot of old gas stations there, and mostly deserted...it had a definite ghost town feel to it) and headed towards Shamrock. The highlight here is the U-Drop Inn and Tower Cafe, an Art Deco delight built in 1936. The Tower Station was a filling station, and the other part of it was a restaurant. It has been preserved and restored, and houses the Chamber of Commerce and a gift shop/welcome center. It’s too bad we weren’t around to see the neon lit up at night, because it’s truly one of the more beautiful buildings on Route 66. The sweet little Texas lady in the gift shop couldn’t have been nicer, and I felt very welcomed in Texas!

After grabbing a bite to eat at Vern’s Steakhouse in Shamrock (Great chopped sirloin with sauteed mushrooms and onions, ice cold Dos Equis...but what was up with that bowl o’ gravy? I tried a taste of it and it was yummy, but who eats a bowl of gravy?), we headed on to McLean.

McLean, Texas VIEW SLIDE SHOW DOWNLOAD ALL

McLean had a really nice restored Phillips 66 station, the first Phillips built in Texas (in the 1920s). Super cute little station, and it’s so nice to see these little places being preserved! But what was even more special was the Devil’s Rope Museum. I had read about this in the past, and I’ll admit that part of stopping there was for the kitsch value and to get a picture of the balls of barbed wire and the “Tribute to barbed wire” sign. (If you haven’t figured it out yet, “devil’s rope” is a term for barbed wire.) Well, shame on me and hush my mouth for thinking it was just kitsch, because it turned out to be pretty darned interesting! Although I didn’t linger over the barbed wire exhibit, I enjoyed learning that each ranch had its own specific barbed wire, and many of these were patented. There were numerous examples of barbed wire, including the triangle, ridged triangle, spur, sawtooth, and others that I can’t recall now. Hundreds of variations! I was also fascinated by the different brands, because for some reason, when I was a kid, I learned about how to read the symbols of ranches: the Lazy N, the Bar 7, that sort of thing. Honestly, it was surprisingly fascinating!

I also enjoyed their Dust Bowl exhibit. It consisted pretty much of just photographs, but they were some that I hadn’t seen before. Although I had read a book about it several years ago, these pictures graphically showed the extreme devastation of these storms. It’s one thing to read about “dust storms during the ‘30s,” but quite another to see houses almost buried in sand. As someone who grew up in the Midwest, it’s almost incomprehensible to me because we’re usually pretty green and lush during the summer.

They also had a room dedicated to Texas Route 66, and they had some really nice information and artifacts, including a giant cobra from the old Regal Reptile Ranch (long since bulldozed) in Alanreed. Heavy on history and information, and I recommend the Devil’s Rope Museum to anyone doing 66. The lady there was also super nice and we enjoyed chatting with her!

Alanreed, Texas VIEW SLIDE SHOW DOWNLOAD ALL

South of McLean, we took a dirt road alignment of 66 over to Alanreed. It was really in pretty decent shape for a dirt road (and MAN, that is some red dirt in Oklahoma and Texas...I thought Georgia was the reddest dirt around!), and the guidebook navigated us successfully through these circa 1926-1932 era legs of 66. Where we came out from the dirt road to rejoin paved 66 sat another restored filling station, the 66 Super Service Station. It dates to the early ‘30s, and has been beautifully restored! I was even able to shoot a couple of pictures through the windows and get a shot of the interior (if that one seems a little blurry, it’s because I shot it through a dusty window).

Then it was on to our destination for the evening, Amarillo. Route 66 enters the city on the north side, far from downtown; the original strip is a glut of old motels, although very few googie signs have been preserved. There are some along this strip, but most of them are not in great shape. Still, it’s great to see some of the structures still standing, and I hope that this rather rundown area can get some TLC and spruce things up a little bit (although I’m not going to hold my breath).

Due to inclement weather, we stayed in tonight, which bums me out because it would have been fun to take a little stroll in downtown Amarillo. Tomorrow we’ll make our way to New Mexico (I’m oddly excited to see the almost ghost town of Glenrio on the Texas-New Mexico border) and spend the night in Tucumcari, at the best-known motel on Route 66, the fabulous Blue Swallow. I’m psyched!

Now for a few postcards and an earlier evening, so we can get in a good workout in the morning and then hit the road. One more motel picture for the Road (see what I did there?), the Cowboy Motel in Amarillo. Note the nifty atomic starbursts on the side, and check out those pantaloons!

One step forward, two steps back

Today I took a step forward and started trying to book the motels that I most want to stay at on our trip. Got the Munger Moss in Lebanon, Missouri booked online (although they’ll need to contact me for credit card info), got an email out to the Wigwam Motel in Holbrook, Arizona, and what was most important (because everybody wants to stay there), the Blue Swallow Motel in Tucumcari, New Mexico. The Blue Swallow sign is one of the most beautiful on the road (in my opinion), and the motel has been renovated and does great business. As I said, it’s probably one of the best—if not THE best—known motels on Route 66. I’m thrilled that I was able to book it!

What a shame that the Coral Court Motel in St. Louis is long gone. That would have been such a cool place to stay. At least they preserved one unit, and Shane and I got to see it at the Museum of Transportation in St. Louis.

Completely different subject...I said I wasn’t going to write constantly about getting ready for our trip!

Yesterday, I watched “Meet the Press,” as I always do on Sundays. Because it was Easter Sunday, they had a roundtable discussion about religion and politics. (The clip is about 30 minutes, so be warned if you want to watch it.) A good idea, because the wall is eroding. However, not a one of the people was there to discuss the secular viewpoint, which is that you are perfectly free to practice your religion as long as you don’t inject your religion into politics.

Let me make something perfectly clear. That does not mean, as Rick Santorum asserted, that people of faith need to stay out of politics. That is simply not true, and that is not what is happening. The oath of office directs our elected officials to uphold the Constitution, not the Bible or any other religious text. While your faith may shape your outlook and form some of your policies or decision-making processes, you don’t legislate because of the Bible. Prime example: opposing same-sex marriage because “the Bible says so” just doesn’t cut it. That is simply not a valid argument. The Bible also says to not wear mixed fabrics, but I’m betting there are plenty of poly-cotton blends in the church pew on any given Sunday.

Anyway, they have this discussion. There were some good points made, but virtually all of it was from a religious viewpoint, including some of the panelists stating that morals and ethics can come only from religion. This is absurd. How I wish they would have had someone like Sam Harris on there to talk about the “moral landscape!” Morality, kindness, and decency are not the sole purview of the religious. I shouldn’t have to point that out, but it’s obvious that I do.

The height of absurdity for me came when Billy Graham’s daughter Anna, who had earlier stated that religious preference should not be a part of the discussion and that people should vote on policies rather than religious views, flatly stated that she “would not vote for an atheist.” I swear, I don’t know why her tongue didn’t jump out of her mouth and run screaming down the hall. Two giant steps back. This is the kind of disconnect that is so infuriating to me. There she was, sounding fairly reasonable when it came to not voting based on religion, and it’s like okay, that’s good. Then she turns right around and says but an atheist?! No way! It makes no logical sense whatsoever. But then I’m probably asking for too much if I expect logic. Or sense.

I was also very disappointed in David Gregory for not following up on such an irrational comment. For shame, David. I still love ya, man, but I’m disappointed.  

At least President Obama has mentioned that we are a nation made up of all religions...and no religion. The numbers of the nonreligious are increasing all the time. A recent Gallup poll on religion showed that 32% of Americans consider themselves nonreligious, stating that religion is not an important part of their daily life and that they rarely if ever attend church services. Almost a third of the populace is not an insignificant group, and politicians would be wise to take notice.

Head out to the highway

At long last, the time approaches for our Route 66 trip!

We’ve been talking about it for many years now, pretty much since we met! Shortly after Ken and I met, Cousin Shane and I went on a trip we’d been planning for a while, where we went from Chicago to a little past St. Louis on Route 66. I’ve also been on the Road in a few other spots in Missouri, but it’s always been a goal to do the whole thing. (If I actually had a bucket list, this trip would be on it.) We had tentatively planned it a couple of times, but for various reasons, it didn’t work out...but THIS is the year!

Our good friend Andy will be graduating from Cal Tech with his Ph.D. (him smart) in June, he asked us to be there for his graduation, and we are honored to be invited. That will work out perfectly, and we timed our trip so that we could drive out on Route 66 and be in Pasadena for his graduation (we’ll rent a car—a convertible, of course!—then fly back). Our friends Kim and Steve are planning a trip to Hawaii at that time, and we’re hoping that they’ll be able to fly out of LA so that we can spend the weekend with them. We also hope to hook up with other family members, although our time will be limited. Paths are converging! Planets are aligning! Dogs and cats are living together!

Today I started some early planning. The goal is to average 150 miles per day (there’s a lot to see along the road...Shane and I took a week to go from Chicago to St. Louis and back...normally about a five hour trip), and Ken suggested breaking it down into about four blocks, and then breaking it down further from there. That worked well, and I have a general idea of where we want to get to each night. That could change, and I still need to do lots more research for the stops and side trips. Meramec Caverns is a must, the Petrified Forest will warrant much of a day, and there will be a stop our friend Laurel’s Afton Station and hopefully dinner with her that evening...and there are so many more stops to make and things to see! We also hope to stay at the Munger Moss Motel in Lebanon, Missouri, the Blue Swallow in Tucumcari, New Mexico, and the Wigwam Motel in Holbrook, Arizona. (A teepee motel is a must for this trip.) Laurel has been a wonderful resource, and she recommended Jerry McClanahan’s EZ 66 Guide, which I’ll be studying over the next few weeks. I have several other guidebooks, as well as a ‘50s-era road atlas from when Route 66 was still a commissioned highway.

Can you tell I’m getting excited? This blog will probably turn into a travelogue during that time, and I hope to update almost every evening. We really won’t be doing much night driving, because that would kind of defeat the purpose, wouldn’t it? I’m looking forward to all of it, but I’m especially looking forward to driving through the Southwest. I’ve traveled quite a bit, but I’ve spent very little time there, and it has a unique beauty. I know Shane loves it there, and I can see why. There are also quite a few towns along the Road that, if not exactly ghost towns, are somewhat desolate and a little spooky. Shane tells me that Glenrio, which straddles the Texas/New Mexico border, is such a town. You know how I love abandoned places!

Anyway, it’s going to be a fun trip. We’ve got a couple more months to nail down our plans, and then we’ll hit the road! I hope you’ll enjoy my tales of the things we see and the people we meet. I think it’s really going to be one of those “trip of a lifetime” kind of deals. Every trip is fun, but this one is going to be something special!