Day 15--Amarillo, Tx to Oklahoma City, Ok.: Buried cars, "Cars" cars, and car trip!

For most of you who missed this earlier blog, I was at the point of giving up completely on computers. Mine died in the middle of the day (which really was yesterday but I'm writing this as if it were today--completely confused?! Me too!!!!), and last night we couldn't get Daren's computer to hook up to the internet, so we thought we were in deep trouble. So this morning Daren turned on his computer and miraculously it worked! It's taken me most of the morning to load up just a few pictures (and pack up too) and now we are on our way for today, so this will be a short rendition of our day yesterday, from Texas to Oklahoma.

The first thing Will said when he woke up in the morning was, "I want to go see the buried cars!" I think all the boys felt a bit ripped off that they didn't get to see Cadillac Ranch for too long because it was getting too dark and it was very windy the night before. We figured we had time, so off we went to the buried cars again. As we were walking up to the cars a kid who was leaving handed me a can of black spray paint and said there was a little left if we wanted it. So each of the boys found their favorite cars and we painted their names on the wheels. It was a very fun time and they loved playing around all the old cars.

For lunch we found this place called the Big Texan Steak Ranch, and they offer a free meal, with a catch of course. If you can eat a salad, roll, shrimp appetizer, baked potatoE, and a 72 oz. steak within one hour, it's free. Our waitress said she has seen a few people do it, but dang, that's a lot of food!! We opted for the regular meals, and it was so good. Definitely on our list of places to recommend.

I wasn't able to load up all the pictures I wanted to include from the 100+ pictures I took yesterday, but these are a few highlights. Cars movie trivia time. The picture above, called the Leaning Tower of Texas, was the inspiration for what??? The leaning tower of tires at Luigi's tire shop.

One more Cars trivia question to name this place...It's called the U-Drop Inn and Tower Gas Station in Shamrock, Tx., not long before you get to the state line. It was also the inspirtation for Ramone's paint shop, so check out the movie. (To my brother, Eric--that means you will actually have to sit down and watch it instead of listening to it while you are driving in the car!)

We made it to the state line and entered Oklahoma!! By this time we were getting short on daylight, so we had to zoom on and miss some places. Funny enough, this almost made me feel a little guilty because we are on a Route 66 road trip and here we were by-passing some of the small towns we were supposed to be seeing in turn to get somewhere else faster on the "super slab" as it is called by other "roadies." We got a little lost trying to find our hotel too, so by the time we got there it was super late for the young 'uns, and for us. It was a good day, though, and now we are caught up. Whew!!

Super signs: (you gotta love the speed limit sign--it took me a minute to get it!)

Photo 1: The sign which leads to yummy food in Amarillo, Tx.; photo 2: speed limit 66 sign in Texola, Ok.

Total mileage to date: 3,398.2

Weather: overcast most of the day, but no rain, 85 degrees

Premium gas price in Shamrock, Tx.: $3.99!! Who ever thought you'd cheer at $3.99 a gallon!