Amarillo to San Jon (141 km)

Go west, that was the goal of the day. It was a bit risky, because it was a long drive against moderate wind. But there simply aren´t places to sleep in closer range, what defines the length of our daily drive.

Leaving Amarillo we passed the Cadillac Ranch, standing along Route 66. Cadillac Ranch was invented and built by a group of art-hippies imported from San Francisco. They called themselves The Ant Farm, and their silent partner was Amarillo billionaire Stanley Marsh 3. He wanted a piece of public art that would baffle the locals, and the hippies came up with a tribute to the evolution of the Cadillac tail fin. Ten Caddies were driven into one of Stanley Marsh 3's fields, then half-buried, nose-down, in the dirt (supposedly at the same angle as the Great Pyramid of Giza). They faced west in a line, from the 1949 Club Sedan to the 1963 Sedan de Ville, their tail fins held high for all to see on the empty Texas panhandle.

 

From there it wént on through he flatest land one can imagine. Its like an ocean, no trees, very few deserted houses and good to see, some huge wind turbines. 

Driving on the historic route 66, which was one of the first roads crossing the country , we passed through Midpoint cafe, the place from were Chicago and Los Angeles are both 1139 miles away. Of course we had lunch there, a bit proud to have made it so far.

30 miles later we left Texas, a state we really liked for its very friendly people and their wonderful cowboy hats. The next state was and is New Mexico. A nice welcome awaited us there in form of an excellent information centre, a lovely lady being curious about our trip and many hints what to see in New Mexico. And again, we had to turn back our watches for one hour.

The last 20 miles we did in dawn and later darkness. The days have become very short now and we face the problem of driving in the night. Its rather frightening, because in this area there is no light anywhere, only from cars passing us and from the village San Jon where we wanted to go to. We saw it´s light´s for more than a hour before reaching it. There we checked into the only motel, it was so terrible, that we both had problems to sleep (icecold becausse the heating refused to work in midnight and plastic sheets in the beds)   



Entering New Mexico