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Cadillac Ranch, The Big Texan & Route 66 Museum

Posted by on July 28, 2014

We pulled out from Tucumcari, New Mexico and headed about 2 hours east on I-40 to just outside of Amarillo, Texas to Cadillac Ranch as our first stop this morning.  Cadillac Ranch was created in 1974 by three guys as a public alternative display of architecture on the land of local eccentric millionaire Stanley Marsh III. (He passed away in June 2014 just one month before our visit).  Basically it is 10 Cadillac’s from the 1949-1963 era that are buried nose first halfway into the ground at an angle!  You park on the side of the I-40 frontage road and enter a large field for the 150 yard walk to the Cadillac’s that have their tail fins proudly in the air. That night before it had rained heavily so we walked through a substantial amount of mud to reach the Cadillac shrine.  Graffiti and spray painting the cars is encouraged and they were a rainbow of colors the day we showed up!  We forgot to bring spray paint but we did have a Sharpie marker and both Victoria and Thomas signed their names.  We made our way about 15 minutes further east on I-40 to an Amarillo landmark, The Big Texan Steak Ranch!  The Big Texan is known for good steak but most of all it is known for it’s Free 72 oz Steak special.  If you can eat the entire huge steak, the baked potato, the salad, the beans, the bread (and butter) and the shrimp cocktail in ONE hour, the whole meal is free- otherwise pony up the $72 for the king size meal!  We got there just as a young average sized man had started the challenge.  We went to our table with the intention of ordering an appetizer or two, since it was noon on a Monday but soon we were eating prime rib, ribeye, sirloin and salad (Victoria)! The enormous dining room was very fun to eat in and we even got a Texas sized piece of the best carrot cake I have ever eaten for the road.  The young man made it only about half way through his meal when the buzzer sounded.  However, in May of 2014, female competitive eater 125 lb. Molly Schuyler beat the record for fastest time when she ate the entire steak dinner in under 5 minutes!  The more amazing part to me is she then downed ANOTHER full meal in the next 10 minutes!  With our bellies full, we got back on to I-40 East and continued across the Texas panhandle for the next 4 hours till we reached the Route 66 Museum in Clinton, Oklahoma.  There are numerous Route 66 museums but this has to be one of the best.  The exhibits were set to nicely memorialize the 2400+ mile road that ran from Chicago to Santa Monica.  We got to see old cars, soda machines and we even got to play some oldies music on an old-style jukebox.  We loaded back up and continued several more hours to Oklahoma City, Oklahoma for the night.  We had a great day making our way back east and exploring Texas and Oklahoma along the way!

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