Route 66–The Rest of Texas

 

  West of Amarillo the road climbs slowly through the Staked Plain, a 37,500 square mile mesa that covers half of the panhandle and extends into New Mexico. It’s hot in summer, cold in the winter, gets very little rain…

and the wind blows all of the time! Texas makes good use all of the wind. One turbine will provide power for 225 – 300 households.

  It’s a hard, desolate place and we wonder about the story behind each abandoned farm house.

  The population of  Vega, Texas never reached 1,000 but it’s status as the county seat has kept it alive. The 1920’s Magnolia Service Station on Main Street has been completely restored by local contractors and dedicated volunteers. Displays inside can be viewed by peeking in the windows.

        

  The Milburn - Price Culture Museum, with a beautiful mural on the side, is just a block west of the gas station. This little free museum has items donated by the local community.

  In the 1940s Dot Levitt and her husband opened a small store near Route 66. The store closed after the interstate bypassed Vega but Dot still welcomed visitors at Dot’s Mini Museum to see her collection of western artifacts and other memorabilia. Dot passed away but her daughter has kept the museum opened. It was closed when we stopped.

  Ervin Pancoast built the Vega Motel in 1947 and managed it for over 30 years.

   We hit the halfway point!  1,139 east to Chicago and west to Los Angeles.  We started at the end of September so we’ve been driving along Route 66 for more than a month and a half and we’re 3/4 of the way down the list of interesting points on my map. The west has more empty spaces than the east so we’ll probably see the Pacific Ocean by the year’s end.

  The midpoint, little Adrian, Texas, is home of the MidPoint Café, closed for the season; Sunflower Station antique and gift shop, closed until a new owner comes along; and the Fabulous 40 Motel, just plain closed.

                   

  There was so little traffic that we could park in the street to take this picture.

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Route 66-Amarillo

  As you come into Amarillo on I-40 the Big Texan is one of the first things that you see. The original restaurant  was opened along Route 66 in 1960. When the interstate arrived in the early 1970s  a new restaurant was built close to the highway and the giant cowboy  got a helicopter ride to his new location. A stop to see the Big Texan is mandatory even if you don’t try the 72 oz. steak dinner challenge. :-P

  The big green dinosaur, “Tex Rex”, was installed by the sons of the founder in memory of a vacation trip along Route 66 and a roadside attraction featuring big dinosaurs. Plenty of parking for RVs.

  And then back on Route 66 for a drive through the city. Amarillo has not fully embraced old Route 66  but there are a few buildings and signs left.

   Cultural attractions are a bit slim. The small and always free Amarillo Museum of Art is worth a stop. The main exhibit galleries contain Asian art collected and donated by a local couple, Dr. and Mrs. Price. We really enjoyed the special exhibit Chris Jordan: Running the Numbers  about consumption and waste in the US.

        

A close look at this copy of Seurat’s “A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte” reveals that it is made from photographs of 1000s of tiny cans – the amount used in the US every 30 seconds!

       

 Amarillo Botanical Gardens is small but well tended. A walkway circles around the conservatory which houses tropical plants in a very jungle like atmosphere. Visitors using wheelchairs should enter the conservatory on the upper level for an easier, downhill path.

The Don Harrington Discovery Center is within walking distance of the gardens. The center is fairly small with exhibits that change three times a year. There are a lot of activities for young and middle school children plus more in-depth exhibits that caught our interest but not much for teenagers. 

  Most of the exhibits are accessible.

    Medical Center Park is part of the complex that includes the gardens and the Discovery Center. A mile long paved walking trail circles a small lake. Don’t miss the Helium Centennial Time Columns Monument which was erected in 1968 to commemorate the 100th anniversary of the discovery of helium. Each leg is a time capsule to be opened at different times – 25, 50, 100 and 1000 years from 1968.  The complex has several parking lots with room for RVs.

  Jack Sisemore and his son Trent began collecting and restoring unusual vintage RVs 25 years ago. The RVs are on display in the free Traveland RV Museum at Jack Sisemore's Traveland RV Dealership. The collection includes some very rare RVs. Visitors are permitted to climb inside most of them.

  The museum is accessible but the RVs are not. The lot is small so larger RVs may not fit.

  The Cadillac Ranch Gift Shop is taking advantage of it’s close location to the ranch to sell souvenirs and spray paint. The cars and a giant cowboy makes a good photo stop.

  Cadillac Ranch was the creation of a partnership between Amarillo billionaire Stanley Marsh and the Ant Farm, a group of artists. Ten Cadillacs are buried halfway into the ground at the same angle as the Great Pyramid of Giza. They’ve been there since 1974 and have lost parts over the years but gained many layers of paint. Most visitors can not resist adding their name, soon be obliterated by the next can of spray paint.

  Wheelchair users will not be able to get close to the cars due to a zig zag gate with a narrow opening. There’s room along the side of the room where RVs will fit.

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Route 66-Into Texas

    Route 66 parallels the interstate most of the way through Texas.  It’s not very scenic but it’s still nice to meander along a traffic free highway.

  The Tower Station and U-Drop Inn in Shamrock is the most unique and beautiful gas station on Route 66. It was built in 1936 and was a working business until 1997. The city was given the station in 1999 to use as a chamber of commerce and visitor center. It’s been restored inside and out to it’s original appearance.

 

   Shamrock is also the home of the Pioneer West Museum, housed in the  Reynolds Hotel which was built in 1928. Each room contains exhibits about a different aspect of the area’s history.  We were given a free, personal tour by a very enthusiastic volunteer.

  The restored Magnolia gas station, a lawyer’s office, a doctor’s home, and a building with farm and ranch equipment are located on the same corner as the museum and included in the tour.

       

  The first floor of the museum, the gas station and the farm and ranch building are accessible. The second floor of the museum, the lawyer’s office and the doctor’s home are all accessed by steps only.

  RV parking is available along the street.

 

  On our way out of town we spotted this inexpensive RV park and stopped for the night.

       

  A strange park which I don’t recommend. The sites are not marked very well and something was wrong with the electrical box at our site. Payment is made by pushing  money through the slot in a collection box – no envelopes and no manager on site.

  Unfortunately the Devil's Rope Museum in McLean was closed for the season so we didn’t learn any new fascinating facts about barbed wire. :-D

         

  Much of the rest of McLean is crumbling away however a few buildings have been patched up.

  The facade of the Avalon Theater, built in the 1930s, was restored by the Old Route 66 Association of Texas.

         

  This cute little gas station was the first Phillips Petroleum filling station opened in Texas. It opened in 1929 and operated for over 50 years.

  The Cactus Inn Motel, the only motel still opened in McLean, has been in business since 1956.

        

  The restored Kiser Super 66 Service Station in Alanreed was built by Buddy Kiser in 1930

  Jericho was a mail coach stop, a water stop for trains and, for a few short years, a gas and motel stop on Route 66. With a population of less than 100 people it soon became a ghost town when Route 66 was moved a  mile north in the 1930s.

  Ralph Britten, the owner of Britten’s Truck Stop in Groom, installed this leaning tower to attract business. An electrical fire closed the truck stop but the tower is here to stay.

      

   A giant cross and wind turbines compete on the west side of Groom. If you drive to the base of the cross (we didn’t) there’s a gift shop, life sized statues and a parking lot large enough for RVs.

        

  A few graffiti covered buildings still stand beside the Slug Bug Ranch, a mini copy of the Cadillac Ranch, but there’s no clue about who buried the VWs.

        

  It’s easy to breeze right past the Peace Park. There are no signs pointing to it and no parking lot – just pull off on the grass, plenty of room for RVs. The park has signs with dates, signs with quotes and signs honoring veterans and only one sign with the name of the builder but nothing else about him. I did find some information after searching a bit. Richard D Baker is a local farmer and retired telephone repairman who invited a group of friends to help build the park and contribute a date that had historic significance. It is left to the traveler/visitor to figure out what each date represents.

        

Route 66-Sayre and Erick

The Beckham County Courthouse, built in 1911 in Sayre Oklahoma, appeared for about 30 seconds in the background of the movie “Grapes of Wrath”

  The Western Motel with it’s original neon sign is still in business.

  The Stoval, built in 1950, is no longer a theater but the sign has been nicely restored

                     

   Even though it was bypassed by I-40 in 1975 ( the last section of Route 66 in Oklahoma to be bypassed) Erick refuses to die. Every year the town hosts a Roger Miller Festival to honor it’s most famous hometown boy. We were familiar with Miller’s song “King of the Road” but that’s all so we visited the tiny Roger Miller Museum on the corner of Roger Miller Blvd and Sheb Wooley Ave. (yep, the guy who wrote “Purple People Eater” also lived in Erick!) We were surprised at the number of songs Miller wrote, the number of albums he recorded and the number of awards the received. And we even knew some of them like “Chug a Lug” and “England Swings”

  There’s not a lot going on in Erick so there’s plenty of parking along the side streets. A walk down Sheb Wooley Ave. is an interesting experience. Sandhills Curiosity Shop is covered on the outside with signs and filled on the inside with all kinds of stuff that Harley and Annabelle Russell collected. Nothing is for sale but tips are welcome. Harley and Annabelle loved entertaining visitors with songs and jokes. Sadly Annabelle passed away in 2014 but Harley still opens the shop occasionally.  It was closed when we passed through but the woman at the museum said we could try knocking on the door of his house. We didn’t. I think now that we should have.

        

   Most of the buildings along Sheb Wooley Ave. are closed so we peeked in the windows and found several of them we’re brimming with things. This one appears to be filled with both vintage items and garbage.

        

   The owners of the Bonebrake Hardware closed the store in the 1960s leaving everything in place. The city is hoping to acquire the building and turn it into a museum. They’re also in the process of opening the 100th Meridian Museum across the street from the Roger Miller Museum on a regular schedule rather than just by request.

  Watch for the West Winds Motel on the east edge of town. It was built of wood and stucco in the Mission style but the now trees block a good view of it.

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