Day 9 already. Because of the inconvienences we’ve had with the inverter at the beginning and the starter, and the fact that today was a very very long drive day, we decided to stay an extra night at our next stop and rest up a bit. We got a late start but still took as much of Route 66 in Oklahoma as we could. We started Route 66 in Canute, Oklahoma, the home of Oklahoma’s first state park. It also has a lot of old hotels like the Cotton Boll that tell a story of how busy Route 66 was in its day. From there we went to through Elk City. This is where the National Route 66 Museum is located. They also had the only fireproof hotel between Oklahoma City and Amarillo, Tx called Casa Grande Hotel.
After going over one on the many many bridges on Route 66, the next town we came to was Sayre where you could stay at the Western Motel back in the day as well as today. Do that at your own risk though. Doesn’t look like its been updated since 1940. From there it was Erick and Texola (really seemed to miss this town driving through. Nothing really left of it) we crossed the Texas border. Now Keith really didn’t want to stop anywhere in Texas so we hopped on the freeway and drove through it. We stopped twice for gas, not because it was that far but the wind on the panhandle is unbelievable. It felt like we were being pushed by the wind. It was a cross wind so Keith really fought to keep thing under control. But the terrain had also changed. Tall trees gave way to scrub trees and green grass to dry short course grass. And looking at the original Route 66 road along side of us, we could see we would not have been able to drive it. Very rough road. After a very long drive through Texas, We crossed into New Mexico and gained an hour of time, which we really needed.
Here we got back on the original road and entered Tucumcari, New Mexico. It was really late so we didn’t spend a lot of time here. But the town boasted over 2000 hotel/motel rooms in the 30s and 40s. Like the Blue Swallow Motel. Route 66 actually gets back on the freeway and the next stop was Santa Rosa. This is actually where we were staying for the night at Santa Rosa State Park. After turning right at The Comet II restaurant, and a wrong turn where Keith had to turn the camper around (my fault!!) we were on the road to camp. How beautiful. The terrain was so breathtaking. Arrived at our site, set up and made dinner of sloppy joes and mac and cheese. Just seemed fitting. We took a couple of walks and enjoyed the evening. And nothing went wrong today.
Long and uneventful Day 9