Why did we go? Why not go?...it's
there...it's cool....it's a famous landmark. We loved it. The
Cadillac Ranch is located just on the out-skirts of Amarillo, Texas. The sun
was getting ready to set and it was sprinkling rain, but we went anyway. When we
were doing research on this trip we looked up the website to the Cadillac Ranch
and it encourages people to sign their names, or whatever, on the cars
themselves. So, Les took some spray paint and painted our names on one of the
cars. The following pictures are all taken at the Cadillac Ranch.
And then the sun began to go down as we
drove to our next destination...
We reached New
Mexico at around 8:30 pm on September 23rd and we had to set our clocks back
an hour. That was the cool thing....getting an hour of our life back. And I
might mention...the roads in Texas and New Mexico were a dream...a real
wonderful experience. But the gas prices were getting more expensive with each
state we entered.
We pulled into a KOA at Tucumcari,
New Mexico. It was dark and we couldn't see our surroundings. It was
surprisingly cold. We turned the heat on in the camper.
When we got up the next morning it was even
colder...and a fog was hanging so thick outside that we couldn't see much of
anything, so, we had yet to see what New Mexico had to offer. In no time we
found out. Les was outside doing things to get us ready to hit the road again
and he opened the door and said to look outside....this is what I
saw...Tucumcari Mountain. It rises to an elevation of 4,956 ft.
We stayed until most of the fog had risen
and then we were on our way. The winds were incredibly strong and it was hard to
pick up any speed. This was going to be a long day, and it was, but the
mountains were beautiful.
I was surprised at the number of
single wide 1960's style trailers here, too...and most of the people have
campers....and a few folks have 'attached' their campers to their trailers...and
even added a room onto their campers. I've not seen anything like this little
trick. But we saw no 'adobe' type homes....only single wide trailers.
We ended up in a little traffic jam. The
sign said that there would be road work for the next 91 miles. But it still
wasn't as bad as Arkansas.
Stopped at a gas station. We had been
noticing a change in the rock colors...we were starting to see a lot of black
rock everywhere. So, Les asked the station attendant what it was. He said it was
from Mount
Taylor, the' volcano'. Cool....where is the volcano?...right behind the gas
station. Yeah...that's just where I would have chosen to put a gas
station....uh-huh. So, we got some 'lava' stones for souvenirs.
We
finally reached Arizona....and
we had to set the clocks back again...one more hour. I had to have a
picture of me beside the 356 mile marker, since the number 356 is in my email
....it was too cool!! The head-winds were still very terrible. They were so
strong that the speed limit signs along the road in the construction areas were
almost laying flat on the road. This will really slow you down to a crawl.
We arrived in Williams,
Arizona at around 7:30 pm on September 24th....tired, cold, but happy to
reach our destination. The next day we were to finally see The
Grand Canyon! Les purchased our train tickets. We were going to travel 'Club'....which
was equal to 'second class'. That was how we were going to reach The
Grand Canyon...by train. Once we reached the canyon we were to take a three
hour bus tour of the best scenic points. We were so excited we could barely
sleep.
