Stuart Day 9

Glenrio Ghost Town

Halfway!

Palo Duro

Never done this before!

The raw Challenge!

Quite a significant day today. We left New Mexico after 3 good days and moved into Texas (another time change), we reached Midpoint (1139 miles to LA and Chicago) and we passed 2000 miles. Our first port of call was Glenrio, a R66 ghost town (except that some people are still living there and they have lots of dogs!). Scary! We then picked up R66 and drove into Adrian (79001) and the Midpoint Cafe - good breakfast and R66 memento overload. We continued on R66 to the Cadillac Ranch, indeed a bizarre place. A Californian millionaire has 'planted' 12 Cadillacs, 1957-1962, in a field. That's it but it certainly brought out the inner vandal in me - watch out Banksy! It was getting pretty warm by this stage, over 90, and we headed south from Amarillo (79101) to Palo Duro Canyon (79015), America's second largest canyon. After viewing some longhorn cattle we headed down into the canyon for a hik., As we set off on foot, the thermometer showed 110 and it was like a sauna. Don't worry, Val, I had water and sun screen!  Amazing - two days ago we were throwing snowballs at each other, today we are hiking in well over 100. As a reward, we then sought out the Big Texan Steakhouse. We were hoping to see someone take on the 72oz steak challenge and about 15 mins after our arrival some young lad took his place at the raised table and away he went. We had the netbook with us and had the bizarre experience of watching him from our seats to the side while viewing him head on on the restaurant's website. It was a pretty pathetic attempt and he stopped chewing at about the half hour point. It's all fairly obscene - he's sitting on his own at a raised table with this monster in front of him and a big bowl on the floor alongside him! Despite that, we enjoyed our meal and then headed off on the Interstate to find some accommodation. We ended up in the Cactus Inn in McLean (79057). We asked the very nice lady on the desk if we could get some beer in the town and she told us that we could get beer 7 miles one way and liquor 20 miles the other. She told us that the restaurant at the back of the motel had a cowboy singer on tonight, and when we asked if we could get a beer in there, she told us that we couldn't buy it but we could take our own in! We're obviously in that part of Texas! We decided on an alcohol free Saturday evening. Lovely lady and lovely room, the cheapest we've had - still in the 90s at 7.30, though.
Today's fact: Tucumcari has a population of 5,000 and a strip 7 miles long (sadly, half derelict)