We are now in Albuquerque and it is very crowded as tomorrow the State Fair opens for two weeks.

Not much to report on Route 66 today as this stretch has been covered by Interstate 40 and it's so bleak that there weren't many towns here anyway. This is very much Native American country and a number of the crossover bridges have ancient and intricate designs on them.

Houses seem to be built on any flat space that is available.

We arrived earlier than expected in Albuquerque and took a trip up to Sandia Peak. The journey was 14 miles long up very winding hairpin bends but the views from the top were unbelievable. The mountain summit is one mile higher than Albuquerque and 11,000 feet above sea level. There were warning signs about lack of oxygen. The temperature dropped 16 degrees as we travelled from base to summit. We managed a short stroll along the summit trail and watched a woodpecker that wasn't a bit afraid of us.

Soil is sparse, eroding quickly and some trees are just managing to survive.

Today has been an amazing contrast between bleak deserts and forested mountains.

We are at present in Santa Rosa New Mexico and have put our watches back and gained an hour as now we are on Mountain Time.

Just a few miles outside Amarillo we stopped at perhaps the most famous piece of Folk Art in the USA - Cadillac Ranch. This consists of ten Cadillacs buried in the middle of a field. Visitors are expected to use the provided cans of spray paint to leave their own mark - so we did.
http://www.roadsideamerica.com/attract/TXAMAcadillac.html

Further on we saw what looked like dark fields from a distance but when we got closer we realised that there were tens of thousands of cattle here, mostly black and dark brown. This was the well known (at least to the Texas cowboys) feed lot at Wildorado on the edge of Texas.

In the tiny town of Adrian, in Texas, is the place that lays claim to being the half way point on Route 66.

Twenty miles after Adrian we crossed into New Mexico. A new set of Route 66 signs to spot.

When we got into New Mexico the landscape changed dramatically. Distant horizons, crumbly rocks, rough dry land and spikey plants.

In Tucumcari, NM, we couldn't resist the big teepee and spent a few dollars. This is an old Route 66 shop that has recently been restored.

These cactus plants are all around. They are quite pretty as long as you don't try to pick them.

After arriving at the hotel we drove around the area and found Lake Santa Rosa. We relaxed in the shade for a couple of hours (95 deg's) but felt comfortable with the steady breeze blowing past.

Thank you to all the people who have left comments on our blog. We do enjoy reading them.

We have just returned from dinner in the hotel where we found it was themed as a Route 66 diner.

We are now in Amarillo Texas for the night.

This morning on the way here we saw the best Motel sign that is still in use.



Shortly we drove into Texas (again) and in a town called McLean we visited the only museum in the world to feature barbed wire - the Devil's Rope Museum, with over 500 different types of barbed wire!

http://www.barbwiremuseum.com/

Again just to prove we are following the right road, this is one of the Route 66 signs in Texas - it doesn't mention the state like all the others do.



We thought the weather was changing as it was windy, but we were told that it was always windy there as can be seen by this tree by the side of the road.

The landscape began to change and this is the sight of the notorious Jericho Crossing. Farmers made money by pulling cars out of the mud here. The rain washes the soft soil away very quickly and even drivers today are warned to avoid the area in the wet.

This is America's answer to the Leaning Tower of Pisa - The leaning Tower of Groom. It is a water tower and it is said it was built this way in order to attract attention.

This huge cross, also in Groom, is 190 ft tall and is the largest cross in the Western hemisphere. It was built in 1995 to attract people to the town.

We saw lots of these windmills along the road. They are used to pump irrigation water to the farms.

We travelled for several miles along some of the original Portland cement sections of Route 66 today. We visited 'The National Route 66 Museum Complex' at Elk City.
Alan enjoyed 'driving' the Pink Cadillac.
http://www.theroadwanderer.net/66Oklahoma/elkcity.htm



The complex has a small town recreated in detail. There is also an interesting town museum here . This is very much cattle and rodeo country. We passed several ranches on the way.



This is one of two giant 'Kachinas' from the trading post that used to be in the city. They were used to attract customers from the highway and to show that Indian goods were for sale.



These Rules for Teachers were on display in the one room schoolroom.
1. Teachers each day will fill lamps, clean chimneys.
2. Each teacher will bring a bucket of water and a scuttle of coal for the day's session.
3. Make your pens carefully. You may whittle nibs to the individual taste of the pupils.
4. Men teachers may take one evening each week for courting purposes, or two evenings a week if they go to church regularly.
5. After ten hours in school, the teachers may spend the remaining time reading the Bible or other good books.
6. Women teachers who marry or engage in unseemly conduct will be dismissed.
7. Every teacher should lay aside from each day pay a goodly sum of his earnings for his benefit during his declining years so that he will not become a burden on society.
8. Any teacher who smokes, uses liquor in any form, frequents pool or public halls or gets shaved in a barber shop will give good reason to suspect his worth, intention, integrity and honesty.
9. The teacher who performs his labor faithfully and without fault for five years will be given an increase of twenty five cents per week in his pay, providing the Board of Education approves.

After taking all this in we decided to relax and go to Foss Lake, which is where the locals go on Labor Day.

This is a lake with interesting and varied wildlife next to the shore.

This did not stop Glenys relaxing.

Glenys has decided to take up golf so that Alan can improve his putting technique and where better that the miniature putting green in the hotel atrium.

Just a short distance today, about fifty miles,but plenty to do and time to relax.

Set off this morning with not so far to go as there is a lot to see on this section of road. This is a pony bridge near Hinton and was in the film "The Grapes of Wrath" directed by John Ford and starring Henry Fonda.




This area was just past the pony bridge and shows the way the rivers eat through the red dirt.

Further along the highway is this famous roadside diner, Lucille's Road House. She ran it for over 50 years and it only closed when she died in 2000.

We saw lots of windfarms in the area and came past a manufacturer of the blades in Weatherford. They were very big when you got close to them - this is just one blade.

This is the Oklahoma Route 66 museum in Clinton opened in 1995. By this time it was very hot outside so I had to buy a Route 66 baseball cap (see later photo). Each room was set out in the style of a different decade with music to match.

www.route66.org

This is a real Route 66 diner transported from its original site and renovated (note the smart cap)

There were lots of these wind turbines on either side of the road for a good 5 mile stretch. Surprisingly they did not look out of place in such big country.

Just near our hotel we visited the Stafford Air & Space Museum dedicated to Thomas Stafford who piloted Apollo X to the moon (but didn't land). We were just about the only ones there and it was a fantastic place with lots of exhibits.

www.staffordspacecenter.com

We found some lovely stretches of Route 66 today and sometimes felt as if we were miles from anywhere.

Straight out of Dallas on Interstate 35 and back to Oklahoma. Spent 3 or 4 hours here at Lake Murray relaxing in the sun, or rather in the shade as it was very hot. Lots of speedboats, wave runners, canoes and sailing boats.

These nodding donkeys are everywhere by the roadside as Tulsa OK used to be the oil capital of the world.

Country suddenly became rocky, very much like the North Yorks moors and we stopped to look over Turner Falls Park.

When we arrived at the hotel after an exhausting day(!) we took advantage of the hotel room furniture (Photo thanks to Rachael's birthday present to me).

Later we went out for dinner at Bennigan's and Glenys's holiday was made when she ordered a beer and was asked for ID to prove she was over 21.