Day 4 - New Mexico to Oklahoma City

We got an early start, yet the sun was high enough in the sky that it wasn't glaring in the windshield as we made our way east from Tucumcari into Texas.  There was a wonderful stretch of old road that we followed, abundant with wildlife and ghost towns.  We came across a number of turtles making their way across the road; we helped them along by moving them to the roadside in the direction they were traveling.  We also had a young jake wild turkey fly across the road in front of our car!

In an old ghost town in the vicinity of Glenrio, Texas, there was a building claiming  "Modern Rest Rooms".  There were also old adobe buildings that were falling apart and old abandoned cars.  Of course we just had to stop and explore around the ghost town!

There was also remnants of an old, but abandoned motel and cafe.  There is a lot to see when you find a section of the old road that hasn't been paved over with interstate.

Our next stop was for breakfast at the Midpoint Cafe in Adrian, Texas.  The cafe was built in the early 1940's.  When route 66 was the main highway, the cafe was open 24 hours a day.  Now the cafe serves locals and those route 66 travelers that have heard how good the food is.  It was a great cafe that also sold a lot of route 66 memorabilia.  I bought a cook book titled "Ugly Crust Pies".

We stopped in Vega, Texas where there was a restored gas station.

In Vega there was also Dot's Mini Museum which was built on private property next to Dot's house.  The museum doors are unlocked and open to the public.  She had collected a lot of Route 66 memorabilia over the years!

We hopped on the Interstate so that we could see Cadillac Ranch.  It consists of 10 old cadillacs buried up to their windshields in the middle of a grain field.  Evidently this was the idea of an eccentric millionaire.  The cadillacs have mutiple layers of grafitti sprayed on them.  What bothered Rainy and me was all of the litter surrounding the cars.  People currently come out with bags of spray paint cans, then simply leave their cans and bags behind them even though there is a large garbage container just off the interstate.  This made the experience a bit diappointing.

We continued traveling the old road as much as possible in Texas and on into Oklahoma, stopping at the Route 66 Museum in Clinton, Oklahoma. The museum took you along the highway beginning in Chicago, Illinois and ending in California.  There was a lot to see, and we enjoyed the museum very much.

It was late afternoon and our goal for the night was Oklahoma City.  We stopped at one more restored gas station.  After taking a few pictures and looking around, we were back on the road.  For dinner we ate a sushi restaurant that Rainy had eaten at a few years earlier when she was traveling to Bentonville, Arkansas to visit her grandmother.  We got a hotel in Edmund, on the outskirts of Oklahoma City and settled in for the night.