Day 28. Amarillo, TX.

Jumped back onto I40 West this morning. It's a beautiful sunny day. Passed through OK City, and realized how big that city is. Also lots of growth going on there. Joni says Hobby Lobby has a 10 Million square foot manufacturing and distribution hub there. 10 million square feet!

Just outside OK City we were forced to pull off to deal with a slide top awning that has broken loose from the roller. It started flapping around on the roof! So we found a little truck stop and there was a mobile truck repair guy working on a big rig engine. I asked him if he knew somewhere I could have that awning removed. He said he could probably do it when he finished the truck. About 30 minutes or so. So we waited for him. He was able to detach the rest of the awning and stow it so we could continue on.

So, back on the road again...we crossed that old red river...well actually the North Branch Red River, whatever that is...and we saw miles and miles of Texas.

And then drove and drove, and drove some more.  Uphill all the way. No lie. I checked. Oklahoma City sits at 1201 feet elevation.  Amarillo, TX sits at 3605 feet elevation. Its pretty much like they pulled a string between the two and the road goes straight forever at a continuous,  albeit, slight uphill grade.  Not a thing really,  other than the engine in the Newmar was taching 3600 RPM for like 3 hours straight. Normally it will pull 65 MPH at 2600 RPM.

So then we got about 3 miles  from our destination and I40 came to a dead stop.  There was no way out. I'd say it took a good hour to go those 3 miles. We never got the full idea of what the heck happened. The first thing we came upon was a semi on its side in the eastbound lanes. Behind it was a load of melons dumped on the ground and a bulldozer pushing the pile. But we were in the west bound lanes...

Any way as we sat, we looked to the left, across the highway and there was one of my favorite spectacles, Cadillac Ranch. Now if you don't know about Cadillac Ranch, look it up right now! I first saw Cadillac Ranch in 1979, just 5 years after it was created by a couple of hippies from San Francisco and a rancher from Texas. As I recall, back then the cars were just the cars, as they were put there. Then somewhere along the line it became an audience participation thing. People started spray painting the wrecks, and that was embraced by the creators. There is a nonstop flow of people walking out into that field to add their personal touch.

*Updated October 16, 2020- today I ran across these pics from my first visit...I think it was 1979

And then these below are current.

I took these 2 pics from the highway .

This pic was plucked off the Internet. Can't say exactly what it looked like today because we didn't go out there. 

So, after much Ado we finally got to our exit. Exit 60 on I40 west in Amarillo. Literally, as we crept onto the off ramp (where all traffic was being directed anyway) they re-opened  I40. We rolled into the Oasis RV Park just a little after dark.  And I said to myself, "self, the last  time you set up in the dark you said you'd never do it again"!

p.s. As a classic nod to the CadillacRanch which is less than a mile from here, the Oasis RV Park has an RV half buried!