We Do Things Big Here in Texas

Tuesday, April 27, 2021  for Wednesday, April 21, 2021

My Dad used to tell a joke that went something like this -- a man is traveling on business and ends up at a hotel in Texas. He is by himself, and after dinner he walks into a bar looking for some adult refreshment and conversation. The bar is huge, the biggest he has ever seen. The man orders a shot of whiskey, and the bartender brings him a water glass full of whiskey. The barman says to him, "We do things big here in Texas." The man asks for some peanuts to go with his drink, and the bartender brings him a one pound bag of peanuts, and says, "We do things big here in Texas." After finishing his drink, and now quite tipsy, the man asks where the men's room is. The bartender tells him, "Go down this hall, and it is the second door on the right." The man walks down the hall, opens the first door on the right and falls right into a swimming pool. After 15 minutes, the bartender notices the man still hasn't returned, so he goes down the hall to look for him. He sees the open door, looks into the pool, and sees the man treading water. The man looks up at him and shouts, "Don't flush it!"

We began our day in Shamrock by checking out of the nasty motel. We started our tour of Shamrock with the Pioneer West Museum. It was, as many of these are, filled with all kinds of esoteric trinkets, including items from townspeople. Some are interesting to us, some not so much, but on the whole, entertaining. This particular museum had a claim to fame -- an authentic piece of the Blarney Stone from Ireland.

The lady who took care of the museum had some physical difficulty -- she was our age, I found out -- but was very enthusiastic about the museum. One thing she was proud of was an area off a former classroom on the upper floor, which led out to the roof. From there you could see all of Shamrock, including their water tower.

There was another restored gas station, this one looked pretty nice -- 

Our next stop was McLean, TX and the Devil's Rope/Old Route 66 Museum. Devil's Rope refers to barbed wire, and while you may find it hard to imagine an entire museum devoted to barbed wire, there were MANY different types of barbed wire, tool used to manufacture it, install the posts to hold it, string it, repair it, and probably to dispose of it, too, though I didn't see that part. I have told a number of people, my head hurt when we got out of there, due to the large amount of detail about barbed wire.

Randy especially liked the story about the display below. It seems that some ranchers attached heavy metal balls to the horns of young bulls, for the purpose of causing the horns to grow down rather than up, which would lower the chance of a bull goring someone.

As you can see, there were also examples of artwork made with barbed wire. I've included a number of pictures, and there were hundreds of them.

Our favorite part of this museum was when we first walked in. Again like many of these smaller museums, they had a sign-in book for names and the towns visitors are from. Right above our names were two men signed in, one from Ontario, OH and another from Mansfield, OH. There were two men in the gift shop just inside the museum, so I shouted out, "Who's from Mansfield, Ohio?" One of the guys shot his hand up, and we went over and talked to them. The lady in charge of the museum thought we were all pretty funny, joking and laughing. We spent about 45 minutes talking to them. Their goal was a bit different, but they were traveling Route 66 also, and and we figured we might see them again. I gave one of them the the address for this blog.

As we headed west, we came to Groom, and their "leaning water tower."

You might ask, "Wasn't this in Groom? Why does it say Britten?" It turns out, this tower was used in a movie sometime in the past, and the fictional town was Britten. When the movie was over, the movie company did not repaint the tower, and neither did anyone else!

The next sight was what is called the Bug Ranch. Soon you'll see the more famous Cadillac Ranch, this is someone's idea of a take-off on that. The first picture is the area around the Volkswagen Bugs, and the second picture is the "Ranch."

We planned it correctly this time, so we could eat at the Big Texan Steak House and Motel in Amarillo.  This was another place that required a number of pictures.

This place is fairly overwhelming. We were seated, and we discussed whether our friends, Jim and Mark from the Devil's Rope Museum had made it here. Randy thought she saw them, so I went to investigate and sure enough, they were there. I asked if we might join them, we did, and continued sharing our experiences. They were again a bit ahead of us, so they took off. We finished our very nice meal, and when I called for the check, the young server said -- paid for! Our new friends had covered us!

If like us you have heard of the Cadillac Ranch most of your life, you might be surprised to find out that it isn't like it used to be. There is a trailer on-site that sells spray paint, and these classic Cadillacs buried with their fins up are completely covered with spray paint. When we were there, it was very windy and cold. We met Jim and Mark while we were going in, they were leaving, so we were able to thank them for the meal, chatted a few minutes, and they handed us a spray paint can. I sprayed a bit, but I didn't want to chance painting my clothes or hat in the strong wind, so we headed back out. As we returned to the road, there was a rest stop/convenience store/souvenir stand with Cadillacs on display, so we stopped.

Time is fleeting, it is getting late, but there is still have "miles to go before I (we) sleep."

While getting near the outskirts of Amarillo, we reached the geographical midpoint of Route 66; we were not really at the midpoint of our journey, but it was still a great place to stop and take a couple pictures.

(Showing off the Route 66 shirts we purchased during the trip.)

Our goal was to reach the Motel Safari. You will see me state that the guidebook(s) suggest other places as the best on Route 66 of the classic motels, but this one was the best so far.

Lobby

Courtyard

The room

This was the utility room, with vending, laundry, and ice.

Then there was the whimsical "exercise room"!

Finally, after dinner, we headed out on another neon search:

The Blue Swallow was another place that we were told was terrific, but we were very happy where we were. The next three pictures were from the Blue Swallow -- they did have nice neon.

Our guy at the Motel Safari, "Two Gun Larry," told us something else that shows the passage of time. He said most of the neon signs the remain on Route 66 were no longer actually neon but LED lights. There are very few people to maintain and repair the old neon. Sigh.