Got up in our 0.5 Star campground (parking lot) with chilly morning air but a decent breakfast. Left and headed down into the Palo Dura canyon and hiked the Lighthouse Trail for about 3 hours. Very hot in the canyon floor at 27C when we started and 32C when we finished. It is called the Lighthouse Trail as the end point of the effort is a hoodoo shaped like a lighthouse (it also looks like other things but not quite sure what, I will have to ask Phil and Ike).

The Lighthouse Hoodoo

Who says this girls can’t trek

Texas Bear

The canyon was wonderful and what a park it would be to cycle in. The entire 120 mile canon floor is accessible for bikes, horseback riding, and hikers too.

A quick shower and a quick plug-in for AC at the campground allowed us to nuke our leftover curry for lunch. We then blasted off to the west of Amarillo to see the Cadillac Ranch… it is a performance art piece from years ago that features 10 Cadillacs buried nose-down in a field. There are left over spray acns of paint on the ground and the owner encourages folks to help themselves and paint them any which way you want. A little weird so it appealed to us.

Cadillac Ranch

Then off to the tiny town of Adrian and the Route 66 “Midpoint Cafe” which is 1,139 miles in each direction to Chicago and LA. The place is known for pies and wow, I had a massive slice of chocolate cream pie. Yummm! Sean had a great conversation with Denis, the owner, who regaled him with stories about the cafe and history of the area.

The day was now quite hot and the AC went on again. Although Texas is mostly known for oil they are apparently on the run for energy conservancy too which is nice to see. We saw wind farms with 200-400 windmills each. The other feature were dust devils, mini-whirlwind tornado things that reach from the surface to about 400m or so up. It probably extends further up but the debris doesn’t make it that far so it is sort of invisible. Too cool. One about every 4 square miles in a casual survey.

Drove along more of Route 66, visiting the ghost town of Glenrio which was quite spooky, and then crossed the boarder into New Mexico and the welcome center. This followed with a final stop at Russell’s Truck stop, to see the owners antique car collection, that was not to be missed. He has set up a museum at the back of the truck stop and it is really something…1927 Model T Roadster, 1929 Model A Pickup Truck and a mint condition 1959 Corvette Convertible, were just 3 of the 26 vehicles he had on display. He was also a Marilyn Munroe fan and had tons on memorabilia on the wall around the room. The museum was free and all donations went to the local food bank. Isn’t that great!!!!

The recommended state park was not described in glowing terms so we opted for a commercial site in the town of Santa Rosa. An old KOA it was dusty and lifeless with just a few trees. But the amenities were perfect. And at 5000 ft above sea level it chilled rapidly with sunset. We met Lynn and Darwin, from Reno and their 3 terriers, and struck up a conversation that ended in Sean trying to help Lynn with her WiFi. Their motor home was one of those massive buses with a 70 inch plasma TV. You could square dance in the kitchen. After laundry, salad and movie, we packed it in for the night.