ROUTE 66 ODDITIES

Every since we left Missouri we have been following the historic Route 66 and we have found a few oddities. The first one we came upon were these road signs in Oklahoma which stated “Do Not Drive Into The Smoke” The signs were posted about every 5 miles or so. I was never able to snap a picture of one of them, but for the life of me I can not figure out what they mean and who they are intended for. I never saw any smoke, so if anyone knows anything about these signs please drop me a line, inquiring minds want to know.

We then came upon a sign stating “The Largest Cross in the Western Hemisphere” which was located in Groom, Texas. Picture this, it also had a gift store attached to it, I assume so souvenir crazy travelers could get a memento of their visit.. It was out in the middle of no where, and I can’t say there were any visitors there when we passed by it, but I did manage to get a picture of it.

Craig and I then decide to try a remote roadside diner in Conway, Texas. I really don’t know how to begin to describe our experience there. It had one of those old 1950’s style highway motels attached to it. It was called “The Route 66 Diner”. It had an old car parked in front with a flat rear tire. We were trying to guess how long it had been left there when we got to the front door with paper signs stating “No Checks or Credit Cards Accepted”. Okay, no problem, we still travel with paper money. We walk in and there is a elderly white haired lady at the register counter. She didn’t utter one word to us, but since there was no one else in the diner , and we weren’t sure if that was a good sign or not, we just figured we would seat ourselves. There were approximately 10 tables with some of them having the remains from previous diners still on the table. We found the closest clean table and sat down. The small menus (see picture posted) had a very small selection for breakfast, but there was a breakfast special written on a white board on the wall. The lady finally approached us and asked if we wanted coffee of which we both declined seeing as on the table they only had Coffemate creamer in the packets and sweet and low for sweetener. She dropped two sets of silverware in napkins not even within arms reach of where we were sitting and shuffled off again. Craig and I waited patiently and she finally returned. I told her I would like the breakfast special with the biscuit instead of toast since both were an option. She slowly starts writing it down but shakes her head no. I finally figure out she is telling us no biscuits were available. I can only imagine the big breakfast crowd that came before us and ate the one batch of biscuits she must have prepared.

Breakfast was served shortly thereafter, and she asked if we wanted ketchup. We said yes and off she shuffled again to a wall cooler where she must have had a couple of 6 packs of soft drinks, some bottled salad dressings and oh yes, the one ketchup bottle which was about 1/8 full. We were hardly able to get anything out of the bottle, but neither one of us was going to complain. We quietly ate our breakfast as Family Feud played on the television. We really had the feeling we were at the Bates Motel and that Norman would come around the corner at any moment.

After paying for our breakfast we were more than happy to return to our truck, but not without noticing a fine crop of old Volkswagens planted nose first into the ground with graffiti all over them. We saw another crop of them further down the highway with about 4 vehicle loads of people traipsing across the field to go look at them.

We then came across a travel center in Newkirk, New Mexico. What struck us funny about this one was the sign which stated “Road Kill Apparel” and directly below it “Buffet” Of course you get the idea we got so we had to go check it out. It really was a nice coffee shop with a Subway attached and the biggest store full of crap (aka: souvenirs) you would ever want to walk through.

We then had the pleasure of going through Albuquerque, New Mexico and stopping at a Flying J Truck Stop so that I could post the pictures to the previous entry. The scenery much to this point had been very boring. We kept asking ourselves why would anyone live in this area and with this heat (100+ degrees). Although I do have to say, I thought a couple of areas were quite pretty.

We finally ended up for the night at San Fidel, New Mexico at the Sky City Casino parking lot. We had to at least go inside and check it out and gamble just a little bit.

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We will be up and headed towards Winslow, Arizona tomorrow to put in a 34 hour reset of Craig’s driving hours before dropping off the boats in Glendale, Arizona on Monday morning. Route 66 with it’s roadside oddities made for an adventurous and at times humorous day.