Route 66 - Day 1

Well, we packed up the ducks and headed out, but not before Big Sister called and asked if she could come with us, not before Gr8ful G stopped by and said she was ready to go with us, not before our Cracky doc & his wife asked if they could go with us. If I could have charged them, we could have paid for the whole trip.

But like I said, the ducks got loaded up & they were in charge of navigation.

We headed across the old Lake Overholser bridge, around the north of the lake and into Yukon. We continued on into El Reno, trying to follow directions to find an old building that was at the St Louis World's Fair, but we got turned around. Heading on out of town we suddenly cam upon Lucky Star Casino. WHOOOOOOPS, we're heading north (stupid, stupid duck navigational system). Resisting the smell of Eischen's chicken a mere 5 miles down the road, we turned around and went back into El Reno.

We found this small cafe and I showed the ducks their possible future fate if they messed up again.

We also found the Motel Reno, which appears to recently have been leveled, but the sign was still there.

We drove on several more miles and decided that the rest of Oklahoma 66 would make for a nice day trip, so we jumped on I-40.

I swung back onto 66 just outside of Elrick. The place I wanted to visit was closed so we ended up in the Roger Miller Museum. Roger wasn't born in Elrick, but he was raised there. Lovely Wife was unfamiliar with Miller's work, but she really enjoyed the museum. I was really impressed with the quality of the museum, the curator was very friendly and knowledgable. The walls were adorned with Miller's sayings and quotes (Behind every great man is a woman with a great behind, I have all the money I need as long as I don't buy anything or eat, I've seen more hair on a bar of soap). The ducks did manage to find us clean restrooms.

We continued on, jumping back onto I-40 until we hit Shamrock and the U Drop Inn. This wonderful gas station/cafe from 1939 is now the Chamber of Commerce and the community center. From there we continued to Groom to see the giant cross and the stations of Cross sculptures and then we headed on down to Palo Duro canyon, about 30 miles south of Amarillo. The canyon was great, we hit it in the late afternoon and you could really see all the colors in the rock. We even saw some wild turkeys walking through a campground.

After tooling through the canyon for a bit, we headed back into Canyon for dinner and then back to Amarillo for the hotel.

Not sure if we will go back and retrace our steps on 66 through Amarillo. I do want to see the Caddilac Ranch and ride as much of 66 tomorrow as possible. I know there are some stretches through New Mexico that are gone, but we'll see. Tomorrow, Santa Fe.

The wifi connection in the hotel is dog slow, so the motel photos will show up when things run a little faster, or you can look at our flickr collection here.

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