Route 66 - still the spot for mystery and adventure

Sept. 27, 2008
Got up, packed and jetted away from Mosquito Hell. We thought that spot in eastern Montana was bad! At least THOSE mosquitoes responded to bug spray! These were just ravenous! Found a Waffle House in Amarillo for brunch before parting ways for the day. The motorcycles could enjoy several short stops while the girls and I enjoyed a longer visit to the Quarter Horse Museum next door to the headquarters of the American Quarter Horse Association. Nice museum, particularly the area about the breed, horse anatomy, care and feeding of horses and several video displays about a wide array of equestrian events in which Quarter Horses are known to compete. We could probably have stayed here all day, or at least for a couple more hours. This is a great spot to research the ancestry of your horse, or just enjoy the horsey, western surroundings.

Geocaching led us to Cadillac Ranch (do you know which cars’ tires won’t turn? We do.), the midpoint on Route 66, then to Glenrio, once the border town between Texas and New Mexico. Glenrio was once such a bustling community that there’s a concrete island in the middle of the highway for traffic control. Today, all the buildings in town appear vacant. Windows broken or entirely missing; doors sprung or missing; walls falling apart; roofs well beyond repair. There does appear to be one residence at the east end of town still in use. Otherwise, Glenrio is a ghost town.

A funny thing happened in Glenrio, though, so I’m not likely to forget it too soon. As we were restashing our cache, a little car came by, so we hung out as if we were just checkin’ out the flowers. They waved. We waved. After we’d turned around where Route 66 turns to dirt, I’d stopped in town to take one last photo when that same little car rolled up beside us. I figured it would be a local checking to see if we were lost or otherwise needed help. But the passenger said, “My husband thinks we saw you in Nebraska.”

“You probably did,” I said. Then, “You look familiar.”

“Did we take your picture?”

Then the lights came on! These people had taken the pictures of the girls and me at Scott’s Bluff National Monument! They were headed east to Chicago from which they planned to follow every bit of Route 66, spurs and all, back to Los Angeles. The chances of running into each other, here of all places, seem so slim. Perry and (I believe) Becky were very friendly, and we found we had a lot in common. I hope we run into them again as we continue roughly along Route 66 for a few more days.

Met up again with the motorcycle crew at Santa Rosa State Park, New Mexico where they’d searched out the best campground: showers, flush toilets and among the best playgrounds we’ve seen in any campground along some 8,000 miles at this point.