Day 9 -- Tucumcari, New Mexico to Amarillo, Texas -- 113 Miles

Yes, you can believe it. We only managed to drive 113 miles today. Usually such insignificant mileage totals are my fault, and today was no different. As you motored east on Interstate 40, which runs at times quite close to the old Route 66, I kept seeing things I'd like to shoot.

For instance, we spent a good chunk of the morning motoring adjacent to the largest wind farm I have seen east of the Altamont Pass area of California. If the sun would cooperate and illuminate the cream-colored monsters against a backdrop of darker clouds, I might get a good photo. Naturally I started looking for an offramp that might get me close enough and maybe even provide a good foreground subject.

So it was that as we approached the offramp for the tiny town of Vega west of Amarillo, I turned on the blinker and made my exit. Wonder of wonders, as we pulled into town we came abreast of a marker that proclaimed that we were now located exactly halfway between the starting point of Route 66 in Los Angeles, California, and the ending point in Chicago, Illinois. In addition to the roadside historic marker denoting Vega's half way status, there was a broad white line on the pavement to make sure you didn't miss the point.

Forgetting all about the windmills, I parked the rig under a giant CAFE sign for some long-gone restaurant and leaped from my seat with camera in hand. Because the few surviving motels and restaurants in Vega are anxious to lure travelers inside their establishments even today, the roadside glitz and whimsical antiques were on display in living color. Everything from long-dead automobiles covered with clever grafitti, to displays like a rusty coke machine and an ancient gasoline price board were just a short walk from the rig.

Naturally, it took me so long to shoot everything from at least there differenbt angles that it was lunchtime before I finished. Finding a seemingly unused piece of commerical real estate, we pulled off the main street and spent a pleasant hour having lunch.

After lunch my mind drifted back to the need to find a windmill shot, so we picked a street in Vega that seemed to lead to a decent stand of windmills and we motored off in that direction. Unfortunately, when the city street turned to gravel and then turned to a dead end at the edge of a farmer's field, I determined that the shot was not to be. We still weren't close enough nor had a decent foreground scene to make a good photo.

Rolling back towards mainstreet, we came upon a truly great example of a Route 66 filling station located just across the street from the courthouse that had been restored and turned into a sort of Chamber of Commerce display. Once I had stopped to photograph the filling station, it was perfectly logical that I should cross the street and photograph the "World's Largest Branding Iron" on the museum property there.

While I was lining up the shot for the branding iron, a museum docent came out and wanted to know if I'd like to come inside and see the rest of the exhibits. When I said I really couldn't spend that much time, he suggested I at least photograph the two vintage cars that the museum had on display. Naturally, I had to grab those shots as well, along with the cool mural that the museum had someone paint on their outside wall.

By now most of the day had flown by. Our clock said two o'clock and we still needed to try and reach Amarillo to do some badly needed shopping and to pick up a perscription at Walmart.

Sadly, the windfarm dropped behind us as we took to Interstate 40 and continued our sojourn into Amarillo. But just moments later, I perked up again as we passed a whole line of Cadillacs with their noses buried in the earth of someone's farm field. "I'm going to have to come back here in the morning and get this shot," I told Concetta, and she agreed that would be great.

Before long we rolled into Amarillo city proper and with the help of the GPS unit we quickly found the Walmart and hurried inside to accomplish our shopping. This particular store was about three times as busy as our local store in Nevada, but we made the best of it and were soon headed for checkout.

Almost immediately I botched the checkout procedure as I hit the hand-held scanner button once too often and rang an item up twice. But with the help of a kind and helpful Vietnam vet, we soon were straightened out and had checked and sacked all our groceries and were headed for the exit.

Imagine our dismay as we reached the exit and discovered that it was pouring rain outside. Usually we park the rig as far away from the store as possible so as not to inconvenience other customers, and this time was no exception. Neither of us are up to do much running anymore, but we did our best to not get drenched by hobbling briskly.

At this point we decided that it was just too late to attempt to leave town and find a camp further along our intended route. So we called a nearby camp that we had seen just before leaving the Interstate to find Walmart and they agreed to rent us a spot for the night. Incredibly enough, the camp was called "Cadillac RV Park" in homage to the row of buriend Cadillacs and sports quite a display of Cadillacs of their own.

So that's it for today. We're all set up for the night, I've bought my "Get Your Kicks on Route 66" t-shirt which I couldn't pass up in the gift shop, and tomorrow we'll be headed just down the road to capture the row of Cadillacs "on film" so to speak before we resume our journey east.

Hopefully, we'll have just as much fun and just as many distractions as we did today, but maybe we'll get a few more miles on the clock. Until then, we'll saty ciao and wish you many happy adventures of your own!