A decent night's sleep was had by both, now reasonably well adjusted to the time zone. The effects of the orange dust from yesterday remain. Last night was a mix of sneezing fit (me) and nose bleed (Rory) after inhaling the unique and heady cocktail of cow, fertiliser and pesticide. It was only when I got in the shower last night that I realised the entirety of my exposed body looked like it had received the worst spray tan of all time...car crash lips and 3" false eyelashes would not have looked out of place.
A late start this morning, no decent weather on the horizon and the Jeep needed an oil change which could only be done by a Jeep garage, the V6 twin turbo being beyond the usual places. At some point in the past, one of the rear seat belts had been wrapped round the headrest and could not be freed as it was well and truly stuck. This would require a 90 minute disassembly of the seat belt mechanism which was declined as we wanted to be on our way; fortunately we are a person down so that seat remains unused.
As we sat in the hotel foyer a coyote pup wandered around the car park, unbothered by people and cars. Breakfast this morning was at Lubbock's Breakfast House which was a bit of a let down: the eggs were undercooked, the bacon overcooked and too salty, the hash browns underdone and the sourdough toast was stale and not buttered. The coffee was stronger than usual but took some effort to get a refill. Disappointing.
Today will be a leisurely tourist day and fortunately the sun is shining. The plan is to mooch north, up through eastern New Mexico, through Clovis and Tucumcari with a view to ending up at Dalhart in the Texas Panhandle ready for tomorrow's upgraded slight risk and 2% tornado risk over central Oklahoma no doubt replete with yahoo chasers clogging the roads as it's a Saturday.
Two years ago Rory and I visited the Museum of Texas Tech University in Lubbock, one of the many excellent and truly interesting museums that populate the Great Plains. Personally, I find museums back home to be stuffy and boring (the big London museums are great to be fair) but the variety here is really good; the relatively short European based US history means that the exhibits have some context rather than than being filled with artefacts from some long forgotten, lost civilisation.
Having done Texas Tech, Rory and I split off to go to the American Windmill museum, 6000 square feet of 18th century and later windmills used for pumping water through aquifers for agriculture, trains, powering mills and all sorts. The quantity and variety was astounding. The museum also contained huge scale model dioramas of American history including a monster and exquisitely made model railway which brought back the kid in me. There was also a massive mural on of the walls which was really well done. If you found Big Foot you could claim a prize from the gift shop. We couldn't. We got chatting to the guy on the reception desk and he put us out of a misery and showed us where the Sasquatch was hiding. All in all, an excellent museum.
Next up was our first trip of the tour to the strange behemoth that is Walmart and the realisation that four days in we'd had no corn or potato based snacks. That needed to be rectified, so picnic lunch ready I went to pay...they don't take Apple Pay. Gobsmacked. As we left there were three guys trying to open a truck using brute force with tools that should never be near car including a crow bar...where were they when I was trying to get into Rory's case last night?
We head north west on US84 towards Clovis, New Mexico and have a pit stop at Loves before continuing west on Highway 60 past Cannon Airforce Base. I'm still hacking up Agent Orange...we head north at Melrose with Tucumcari in our sights.
Tucumcari is derived from a Comanche word meaning "ambush" and is referenced in the Spaghetti Western "For a Few Dollars More" despite not having been incorporated until decades after the movie was set which was in 1872. It also appeared in "Better Call Saul". I've watched both, it's always fun to visit places that have been referenced on TV; Apparently Rawhide with Clint Eastwood was filmed nearby.
The endless flatness suddenly gives way to Rincon Canyon and an abrupt change to the topography with escarpments in all directions; we have deer. It's time to crack open the first enriched cornmeal based snack of the trip; I've held out quite well. Today's delicacy is Flaming Hot Crunchy Cheetos which contain several million percent RDA of Red 40 Lake, Yellow 6 Lake, Yellow 6 and Yellow 5...
We reach Tucumcari and have our picnic in Dunn Park. My Walmart Santa Fe salad looked promising until you wade through the layers of plastic to get to the food; it tasted ok, there just wasn't a lot of it, a case of shrinkflation? Rory can't resist the kiddies swings and is firmly encouraged to desist before the inevitable happens...We have a pit stop then drive out of Tucumcari through what used to be Route 66, now a rather sad spectacle with many long since closed stores slowly rotting away. I had some anticipation of Tucumcari on the back of all the cultural references but it was a bit underwhelming. We set off north east on US64 towards Dalhart. It's 16:30 and 87f, around 31c.
We check in at the Days Inn at Dalhart and head off to the XIT Woodfire Grill for dinner. I ordered a salad (body, temple etc.) which confused our server as I neglected to order additional meat...Rory gets the burger and fries and suspicions of us being communist sympathisers are allayed. We got a couple of scooners (big pints) of Karbach IPA at 6.6% which at $7 were really excellent. Tomorrow we're in central Oklahoma, likely an overnight stay in Enid.
Total miles: 302
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