I been from Tuscon to Tucumcari

Whoever can name the title tune first gets a prize! Wednesday morning, while we had breakfast at the Plaza, "someone" apparently put toothpaste on our brushes. The hotel is haunted!! After checking out, we walked around the Las Vegas square. Lots of nice old architecture, but it seems like many are soon to be demolished. We went into a store across the square from our hotel that had signs that said, art, beads, rocks and a few other things. They were having a sale with everything between 25 and 50% off. We found lots of interesting beads and a few rocks that we just had to have and all at a substantial savings, so how could we not?

The Historic (haunted) Plaza Hotel

A lovely rest stop in Texas

On the way to Amarillo, just for kicks (it is on Route 66), we drove through Tucumcari. There were many interesting signs along the road, but nothing that made us feel the need to stop and get out. Before we left on this trip, I made reservations for a Chuck Wagon breakfast at a ranch outside of Amarillo. It is at a ranch in the Palo Duro Canyon (the second largest canyon in the U.S.). After a large breakfast of all the traditional cowboy vittles, there is entertainment by traditional cowboys performing the great "old cowboy classics, poetry and humorous cowboy storytelling". I'm sure you can understand why I felt this had to be a part of our trip. As we neared Amarillo, the phone rang. It was a woman from the ranch saying that only 6 people had signed up for the breakfast and they needed more like 30 to make it worth their while. So, the Chuck Wagon Breakfast was canceled. Bummer. Just as I hung up, I saw exit 60 ahead and we got off the freeway so we could visit the Cadillac Ranch. The Cadillac Ranch was built in 1974 by Stanley Marsh III, the helium millionaire who owns the wheat field where it stands. Ten cars are buried in a straight line. They are covered in graffiti and we witnessed many people adding to the art work as we were there.

Cadillac Ranch

Finally, on to Amarillo and the Big Texan Motel. It's a very western themed dive hotel that I read many mixed reviews of but decided we should stay there, for its quirkiness and the Texas shaped swimming pool. When we presented ourselves at the check-in, we were told that they had no reservation for us. I checked my copy in the car and sure enough, I'd made a reservation for the day before. Oops. We had passed many hotels along the way, so we turned around and easily enough, got in at an alternate spot, though with much less character. We did return to the Big Texan for dinner. They offer a free 72 ounce steak to anyone who can eat it and all the sides within one hour. We watched several men make the attempt as we ate our delicate and delicious 6 oz. sirloins. We did not stick around to see if they were successful, but the man who started first had about 20 minutes remaining and he seemed well on his way to success.

The Big Texan free steak contestant

Today, we drove to Tulsa, uneventful except for the rain. When we got into town, we went to the Philbrook museum. It's a beautiful building with a very nice collection of art including Native American (they have two paintings by Pablita Velarde and one by Helen Hardin!), American, European and African collections. And a really nice gift store.