Texas

We begin our day in Shamrock Texas by kissing the Blarney Stone in Shamrock Park. It is an actual fragment of the Original Blarney Stone in Cork Ireland brought here many years ago under a mutual agreement, many people in Ireland were not happy it was being sent here so it arrived under armed guard! On the way out of town we drove past the restored Magnolia Fuel station, an took a picture of the U-Drop In, an inspiration for a part of Radiator Springs in the 2006 Cars Movie.
We were very surprised how lush and green the rolling landscape was in the Northeast area of Texas, much different than we had anticipated it would be. We drove down 66 for about 30 miles of nice old highway, the speed limit in Texas on most of 66 was 75mph, slowing around the towns.
This placed us at our first museum of the day, The Devils Rope and Texas Route 66 Museum. Devils Rope for those not knowing is a term for Barbed Wire, on the sign were 2 large balls of Barbed wire I would guess 3' thick! Inside there was a room dedicated to Route 66, but the

bulk of the Museum was displayed with a HUGE display of Barbed Wire and anything to do with fencing or wire. Including but not limited to, post hole drills, fence stretchers, fence winders, a board displaying more types of Barbed Wire than I even new existed, post drivers, post driving mauls etc. It was very interesting, believe it or not! There was also a small room displaying pictures from the dust bowl days and the great depression. I told the woman working there, I would guess she was in her 70"s, that I learned more than I thought possible about wire. She laughed and said yes she understood, when they told her they were going to open a museum about Barbed Wire she thought they were crazy, "That was 25 Years Ago." Also on the way out of town, another restored Gas Station, this time a tiny cottage style station, Phillips 66.
The next stop was the village of Groom, we noticed a stark change in the landscape around Groom, it was still green and healthy, but

becoming very flat, I'm talking seeing flat to the horizon. We also started to see many Windmills, dotting the landscape with huge towers in no discernable pattern, you could see them in almost every direction. Wind Power is very real in this area, I even saw a billboard encouraging students to go to college and work in that field in the future. Our guidebooks mentioned 2 sights in Groom, a leaning water tower and the worlds largest cross, coming down the road we saw the leaning water tower and it is pretty amazing it is standing. The lean is such that at least one of the 4 legs is completely off of the ground. We expecting the large cross to be a big version of the crosses you occasionally see on the road side. As we got closer we were very impressed with what we were seeing, a 190' White Cross, as we approached we found it was located in a beautiful brick circular courtyard, and all around the courtyard were bronze statues depicting the 14 Stations of the Cross, life-sized statues. There was

also a life-sized bronze sculpture of the Disciples at the last supper (the newest exhibit) High above and up about 30 steps was a depiction of the Crucifixion. It was really a very moving stop. There was a large building, with a beautiful garden, religious gift shop and rest rooms, and a lot of spotlights, it must be awe inspiring at night!
We be-bopped down the road to Amarillo and enjoyed lunch at the "Big Texan Steak House" a Route 66 tradition, Famous for their offer of a free 72 0z steak at no charge, providing the person ordering it can consume it is 60 minutes or less!
We then headed to the Cadillac Ranch, a collection of Cadillac's buried nose first in the ground, moved to it current location in 1997.
Everywhere we look on the flat land as far as you can see, the farmers are bailing and chopping hay, and we have seen as many as 3 large John Deere Combines side by side harvesting wheat. The crops look good, the fields are full.
A little side trip, off of Route 66 was to a Texas State Park called "Palo
Duro" near the town of Canyon. It took us about 20 miles off of 66, as we approached the park nothing looked different than any other flat land we had seen most of the day. What the surprise was, was a beautiful Canyon, you will notice on the pictures at the top of them the landscape is straight across. This is because this entire park is in a Canyon below the surrounding land, there are no humps, bumps or

hills of any kind. Plain and simple, one branch of river cut this canyon, deep into the earth, below grade. It was gorgeous and you could drive right into it.
After the canyon it was getting late, so we jumped on the interstate and headed into Santa Rosa, New Mexico for the evening.
Along the way we made one last detour to a town called Glenrio, it is Exit 0 in Texas, almost on the border of New Mexico, Route 66 goes into it as 4 lanes and shortly after becomes a dirt road. But the amazing thing is it is a real live Ghost Town, building after building deserted, empty, falling down, disappearing. It was erie and surreal, the only sounds we heard were dogs barking, no one visable, no sign of life, time had passed by for Glenrio.