Is this the way to Amarillo?

Sorry but it had to be this song today, some people really hate it, but like Tulsa last night we only picked our location for overnight because the song made it a place worth stopping. We could have stopped in any one of hundreds of Texan hotels, but we were on the way to Amarillo, so we stopped there.

Some of my colleagues and former colleagues will remember us doing a version of this song walking through J270 as a homage for Professor Norah Jones on her retirement as Head of CELT, hard to believe this was 6 years ago. I still have the video!!

Anyway, enough reminiscing, today’s journey, like yesterday, was in principle direct, but we had again factored in elements of Route 66, so the journey looked like this:

Breakfast

This morning I woke at 4.30 and tried to load some photos to Flickr, but given the slow Internet connection I was able to update the blog, but not get the photos loaded, the upload crashed halfway, though I guess 275 photos is quite a lot to upload!  Let’s hope the connection is better tonight.

I made coffee for Drew at 5, I do like these coffees machines, a different brand in every hotel, some make a single cup, today’s was the more traditional pot with the water dripping through a filter bag.

I showered, Drew bathed and at 7.45 we went down for breakfast. As we are in a Comfort Inn the breakfast was at the usual high standard, though now we are down south the ‘gravy’ Drew whinged about yesterday is indeed on the menu – it goes gloop as you watch it, as I hope the picture shows. With bacon, egg and biscuits for both of us and a large chocolate muffin for Drew we were ready for the day.

Back to Route 66

We left the hotel at 8.30 and went straight across the road to top up the petrol. Petrol here is 50c cheaper per gallon than the last lot we bought. The price is the equivalent of 40p per litre an amazing deal.

Filled up we headed West, we skirted Tulsa on the US412 until coming to the I40 when we were 244 miles from Amarillo if we had gone direct.

We drove on the I40 for about an hour before pulling off at Stroud, so I had my first drive on Route 66, it had all been Drew yesterday. The road is in good condition and easy driving, a nice change to the constant avoidance of big trucks on the Interstate. I drove the 20 miles between Stroud via Davenport to Chandler and we were joined on the road by a large number of bikers all on large Harley’s. The bikers were all wrapped tightly in leather and wearing masks under their helmets. I was careful to keep a distance from them to avoid a scene like those in ‘From Dusk to Dawn’.

Driving in to Chandler we found the Route 66 "Interpretative" Centre which we had seen advertised the previous day. The Centre is in the old National Guard Armoury building in Chandler, a very impressive building which has been reconstructed for this purpose. The Grand Hall is used for wedding etc and is an amazing space. The ‘Interpretative’ element of the place was its use of seats from old cars and beds from old motels as venues to display videos about various elements of the ‘Mother Road’ <<Co-pilots note: “Many years of travelling with Mr B have given me an aversion to anything called ‘Interpretative’, experience says the word means boring and stupid. I swear he seeks them out!!  However today’s example was perfectly acceptable just walk around and look at what you want. It even came complete with 12 antipodean bikers who were using Harley’s to do Route 66. >>

We spent 45 minutes at the centre heading off at 11 for a further drive along Route 66 before coming to Pops in Arcadia. Pops is an eccentric place with pop bottles of multiple varieties, though it was only constructed in the 80s it has all the charm of the old Route 66 locations that had no claim to fame but an eccentric’s bring together of things they were interested in. We spent 20 minutes in Pops looking at the Pop bottles, some of the colours were astounding. This morning at the hotel I’d read my sister-in-laws discussion on Facebook about  Pineapple Fanta in Lanzarote, there was an even bigger selection of flavours here. I tried to buy Drew one called: “Geek Juice” but he was having none of it.

We headed back to the I40 for a while before turning off at a town called Hydro to have lunch at another Route 66 tradition - Lucille's Route 66 Roadhouse.  An article I read this morning said that when the road was in full swing popping in to see Lucille was a ‘right of passage’. Though Lucille died 15 years ago her hospitality lives on. 

We arrived at 1.30 and for lunch Drew had a Classic Burger, a burger with cheddar cheese, jalapeno, onion and tomato served with fries. I minded of the Monty Python song had a grilled Spam with American Cheese and jalapeno bacon in a sandwich. It was branded as a Spamwich. We were never spam users at home, so I can’t say this was living a memory, but it had a lovely sense of unusualness about it, as well as being very tasty.   

We left Lucille’s at 2.15 and headed on to Clinton to the Oklahoma Route 66 Museum, yes, every state on the route has at least one. This one was well worth the stop, it's range of original artifacts and its articulation in sound and text of the development, heyday and decline of the route was the most complete that I have seen.  I remember coming to an early version of this museum in 2000, but it has been vastly upgraded since then.

Clinton is also the birth town of my favourite singer, Toby Keith, there is something about the town that evidences the reasons for his angry rejection of societal norms and his support for the little guy – great when you can do that and make millions at it!!

We left Clinton at 3.30 and headed for Amarillo, with Drew driving. We arrived at the Comfort Inn and Suites, I40, Amarillo at 5.50pm and checked in to room 115.

Clothes Washing and Dinner

you’ll remember that we had a washing machine and dryer in our room in Chicago so we last washed our clothes on Saturday, with Guest Laundry facilities yesterday, today and tomorrow in the hotels, we decided today would be a good day to wash all our dirty clothes, apart those we are wearing of course!!

This was very convenient as the the Guest Laundry was 10 feet up the corridor across from our room. This is the first time I have seen guest only access to these areas, often they are quite open, but this one can only be opened by an hotel room card.<<co-pilot’s Note: the co-pilot and Captain Jack are not sure that Mr B needs to be worried, we can’t think of anyone who would want to steal his dirty smalls.>>

In 30 minutes the wash was complete and I transferred the clothes to the drier, 45 minute later they were ready to come out and be packed.

Like last night location was more a decision about eating than preference. Just two buildings down from the hotel was a Cracker Barrel Store and Restaurant. Rather than taking the car out again we decided to walk there.

Those of you who have been to America, especially in the middle, i.e. not the east or west coasts, will know that most of the places are designed for cars not people, therefore pavements, or sidewalks as they are called here, are not common. This was the case here, even though we only had to walk 200 yards it was an exciting 200 yards, including a small river and a mud path. We got there safely but needed to knock the mud off our shoes before entering.

Cracker Barrel have a 'homestyle' menu with a range of delicious including grits, chicken livers, catfish and meatloaf, though we couldn't spot any appetisers.

For his meal Drew had a half-pound of beef burger with bacon and cheese, this was served in a bun with lettuce, tomatoes, cheddar cheese and pickle with large fries.

I opted for Chicken and dumplins, it sounded unusual and was. Essentially the chicken is boiled I a stock and then suet, not shaped like British dumplings but as thick strips, the same size as a ravioli. This was covered by the stock mixed with flour to make a gravy. My dinner had three sides included in the price, I opted for corn, pinto beans and mashed potatoes, unlike Drew who had to decide which cheese he wanted, what types of potatoes he would prefer and how he would like his burger cooked, I only had one question, but one I've never been asked before: “Do you want the gravy on your mashed potatoes to be white <<co-pilot’s note: blob!>> or brown!!” I opted for brown which gave a good colour variation to the white of the chicken and dumplings. The flavour of the chicken and dumplings were excellent, it might look odd, but the rich chicken flavour permeated the dumplings, indeed I could have just eaten them and not the chicken and would have been very satisfied.

After eating we retraced our steps to the hotel, I mean this literally, we could see our shoe prints in the mud! Drew went to bed at 10 and I, with the opportunity to load photos to Flickr which was not possible last night, I added titles to them all and competed them by 11.15 and went to bed.