Route 66, Day 7....Amarillo by dinnertime.....

We managed to make our way to the National 66 Museum in Elk City, OK. It is a pretty nice little complex. They have some real neat stuff there. I got a few pics, they are in the slide show further down. Overall it was a very relaxing ride today. We pretty much wanted to get to Amarillo so we vould go and explore some in Palo Duro Canyon and then have dinner at the Big Texan. I think today we actually managed to find a higher percentage of original pavement than we have any other day. Except for about 9 miles on the interstate, we were on Route 66. For most of the trip it was the frontage road, but you have to be very alert and switch sides of the highway or you will be forced onto the interstate due to a creek. This will happen if the bridge is on the other side of the highway. Then there are times where the access road will take off into the middle of nowhere and pass through a few towns and then come back to the interstate.

I think the funniest thing I saw was just west of Texola, OK. When you cross the border you end up on the frontage road of I40. It is a 2 lane 2 way road. The neat part about it is that there were yellow wildflowers growing on the side of the road that were high enough that you could not see I 40, but you could hear it. By the time you got to where the flowers were short enough to see over, we were behind the trees again.

Crossing back into Texas also meant Texas bugs. I collected a huge grasshopper in the cooling fins on my motor. It was kind of scary.

Here is the shot of the U Drop Inn in Shamrock, TX:



It was actually a pretty tiring day of riding for only going about 150 or so miles. Route 66 miles are like dog miles. They feel much longer than the odometer says. This is maily due to the fact that you may end up going 70mph, or you may end up going 10mph on a gravel road. You may also circle an intersection a few times trying to figure out how to get there from here. Then realizing that the only way to get to that section of 66 is to take the back exit of a hotel parking lot.

After we got back from dinner last night, we checked on the bikes and my kickstand had sunk half an inch in the parking lot. The nice people at the Outback Steakhouse gave us a couple small cooking tins to put under the stands so we wouldn't sink.





Here is the route we took, hopefully, I will shoot some video from Palo Duro Canyon tomorrow.


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TTFN

Dave