Friday, May 16, 2008

Caddies and Canyons

We arrived in Amarillo, Tx, Wednesday about 7pm after a very long drive. The Fort Amarillo RV Resort was our fortuitous choice of campgrounds. It may be the best campground we have ever used. The bathrooms are clean and the showers wonderful. There is an indoor pool and workout room with new equipment. The WiFi works. Shoshie caught 37 fish in the catch and release pond yesterday. It was too good to leave so we looked for some sights to see.I had previously noted Cadillac Ranch as a roadside stop on old Route 66 but didn't know if we could get there with the trailer. Now it was only about a mile away from the campground so we headed over. This was created in 1974 by local eccentric millionaire Stanley Marsh 3. Apparently graffiti is tolerated if not encouraged. Two young men gave my kids spray paint and they contributed. Someone had recently pelted one of the cars with bullets. Where the bullets did not fully go through the metal, they caused lumps of paint to fall from the backside. These lumps were like geological specimens, strata of paint applications. Cars, guns, old Route 66, I40 noise, cow hoof prints and graffiti - ah, America.

Then we headed to the second largest canyon in the US, Palo Duro Canyon. The kids, who have not seen the Grand Canyon yet, were suitably impressed. Yakov and Shoshie hiked along some of the trails. We were not very well prepared for some reason so we ran out of battery power for the cameras we had and don't have any really good pictures. This one is from the state park website. It was beautiful. And some real geological strata. PRM

2 comments:

Suburban Correspondent said...

I remember Amarillo. We stayed there once when we were transferring from Maryland to California. We spent the night in that motel right next to that place that offers the 42-oz steak. The doors into the bathroom area of our room were swinging doors, as if it were a saloon or something. Our 2-year-old loved them.

Funny what you remember, right?

Ruth in NC said...

42 oz steak! Now they're offering a 72 oz steak. Must be steak inflation.