'Show me the way to Amarillo'
Today we hit 'The Mother Road', aka 'Main Street America' or Route 66!
We picked it up just west of Oklahoma City at Yukon. It is quite hard to follow, at times as it is inconsistently marked and no longer exists as one road any more. Since the completion of a freeway west to California the road no longer carries the same importance and has gone into serious decline taking whole communities with it. There's not much use in a gas station, motel or diner if, overnight, your custom disappears. Sometimes the old road runs along side the freeway at others it can be a few miles away. It is a very narrow road, more like a British one in that respect. It is also blissfully empty. We found ourselves alone on it most of the time. The surface is often very poor, but of course, our trusty Landie made short work of it.
We went to a Cherokee trading post and bought a few things including a garden for our dashboard. Adrian thought that the rattlesnake head key rings would look good turned into earrings! I declined. Actually, as a lover of kitsch I am in heaven. I am being very restrained though as we would need a trailer otherwise. I can hear my children sighing with relief from here.
We passed through small, almost deserted towns that would have been thriving before the freeway, now in a state of decay. Businesses and homes have just been abandoned and left to rot and be consumed by nature. There are some efforts being made to attract people off the freeway such as the rather wonderful 'Devils Rope Museum' in McLean housed in an old ladies undergarment factory. McLean is known as 'uplift city' for that reason. But really the attractions are more about the highly evocative feel of the history of the road.
The early settlers in the west made the journey by covered wagon. Just one day on the road makes one realise what an undertaking that was. The landscape can be harsh, so far, huge flatlands and searing heat.
Later, during the great depression the flatlands of Oklahoma experienced drought throughout the 30's.Everything turned to dust, cattle died and the people became destitute and desperate. Steinbeck wrote so wonderfully about this dreadful period through the story of the Joad family in 'the Grapes of Wrath' and their flight from the dust bowl to the promised land of California. Families were loading up their pathetic possessions into an old car and heading west, on route 66, in the hope of a new life in a place where they had heard that the weather was kind and the land fertile. About 2.5million people migrated away from the plain states. Around an eighth of Californians have Okie heritage.
Their cars would have been old and in very poor condition and with tyres like paper it would have been a long, arduous, frightening journey with an unknown outcome. We were able to imagine our Model A bouncing along the road.
We entered The Texan panhandle just after the virtual ghost town of Texola. We saw one occupied house, a run down bar and a church that looked used; all the rest empty. We are in Amarillo tonight in land as flat as flat with the biggest skies that you can ever imagine. Amarillo handles 90% of all the beef in Texas and 25% of all the beef in the USA. It is home to a restaurant with a 72 ounce steak on the menu!
We picked it up just west of Oklahoma City at Yukon. It is quite hard to follow, at times as it is inconsistently marked and no longer exists as one road any more. Since the completion of a freeway west to California the road no longer carries the same importance and has gone into serious decline taking whole communities with it. There's not much use in a gas station, motel or diner if, overnight, your custom disappears. Sometimes the old road runs along side the freeway at others it can be a few miles away. It is a very narrow road, more like a British one in that respect. It is also blissfully empty. We found ourselves alone on it most of the time. The surface is often very poor, but of course, our trusty Landie made short work of it.
We went to a Cherokee trading post and bought a few things including a garden for our dashboard. Adrian thought that the rattlesnake head key rings would look good turned into earrings! I declined. Actually, as a lover of kitsch I am in heaven. I am being very restrained though as we would need a trailer otherwise. I can hear my children sighing with relief from here.
We passed through small, almost deserted towns that would have been thriving before the freeway, now in a state of decay. Businesses and homes have just been abandoned and left to rot and be consumed by nature. There are some efforts being made to attract people off the freeway such as the rather wonderful 'Devils Rope Museum' in McLean housed in an old ladies undergarment factory. McLean is known as 'uplift city' for that reason. But really the attractions are more about the highly evocative feel of the history of the road.
The early settlers in the west made the journey by covered wagon. Just one day on the road makes one realise what an undertaking that was. The landscape can be harsh, so far, huge flatlands and searing heat.
Later, during the great depression the flatlands of Oklahoma experienced drought throughout the 30's.Everything turned to dust, cattle died and the people became destitute and desperate. Steinbeck wrote so wonderfully about this dreadful period through the story of the Joad family in 'the Grapes of Wrath' and their flight from the dust bowl to the promised land of California. Families were loading up their pathetic possessions into an old car and heading west, on route 66, in the hope of a new life in a place where they had heard that the weather was kind and the land fertile. About 2.5million people migrated away from the plain states. Around an eighth of Californians have Okie heritage.
Their cars would have been old and in very poor condition and with tyres like paper it would have been a long, arduous, frightening journey with an unknown outcome. We were able to imagine our Model A bouncing along the road.
We entered The Texan panhandle just after the virtual ghost town of Texola. We saw one occupied house, a run down bar and a church that looked used; all the rest empty. We are in Amarillo tonight in land as flat as flat with the biggest skies that you can ever imagine. Amarillo handles 90% of all the beef in Texas and 25% of all the beef in the USA. It is home to a restaurant with a 72 ounce steak on the menu!
At least it's a Hereford bull.
ReplyDeleteI don't think 72oz steak would be enough for me xxx
ReplyDelete