Panhandles

Breakfast is the important start of any day, which is why we look for hotels that provide it for free.  The Sleep In in Amarillo had a breakfast buffet and we came downstairs hungry.

Now all breakfast buffets have bagels, yogurt, oatmeal and fruit.  And the better-appointed ones have eggs and breakfast meat.  But only in Texas do they have Texas shaped waffles.

I am not making this up.

How could I resist?

We sadly then took Deena to the airport.  Let me now just take a moment to laud the goodness of Deena, who voluntarily accompanied us for so much of the journey, sharing in not just the driving, but also the hauling, and the child tending.  Not to mention the radio tuning, evening drink making and conversation keeping.  God bless you Deena Prichep!  May everyone read your blog! Mostly Foodstuffs

John and I then had an errand to run.  Somewhere on the left side of the car a lamp was out.  I could tell from the “blinkedy blink blink blink” of the turn signal.  Jay might not be able to accompany us here, but he sure can use the Internet.  Jay found us a Toyota dealership in Amarillo that would look at our Lexus, and in a flash I was there.

As soon as I pulled up I was greeted with a friendly “Can you pull over here, Ma’am?”  Four mechanics surrounded my car, check the lamps, fixed a loose interior light cover, replaced a rear bulb, and gave me a bill for a whopping $6.51.  I didn’t even get out of my car.

Then off to Cadillac Ranch.

Now, some of you may, like worried Jay, confuse the Cadillac Ranch with the Chicken Ranch, a well-known brothel in Nevada.  Gentle reader, trust me when I tell you that the Ranch we were headed to was the more benign sort.

The Cadillac Ranch is perhaps the most famous outdoor pop art installation – a row of Cadillacs half-buried sideways in a field full of actual cows.  People spay paint them periodically, and I think the cows have eaten all the upholstery.  What it means is up for debate.  Is it the evolution of the car (the Cadillacs are stacked in model order)?  Is it a statement about mobility and stability (the stable roadside attraction coupled with the mobile automobile)?  Does it mean that cows will one day lord over us all?  Who am I to say?

I will say this.  The Cadillac Ranch is VERY HARD TO FIND.  You would think that Cadillacs on the roadside would be easy to spot.  Not so, my friend.  In the great vastness of Texas even a dozen Cadallacs are a mere speck on the horizon.  When GPS and Yelp failed, we consulted a gas station attendant.  And we finally made it.

After a great deal of fussing – “It is too windy!  The sun is in my eyes!  There is COW POOP!!!!” we got our picture.  

Then off we go.

By 1PM we were starving – a Texas-shaped waffle only takes you so far – so I looked for a place to stop.  For five days we had been attempting to avoid meat, I figured it was best to surrender.  And so we stopped at Ed’s Steakhouse and I ordered filet mignon, medium rare.  And it was good.

After lunch John and I explored the little town of Shamrock we’d stumbled into.  Shamrock is one of those towns completely built around the old Route 66.  Now it stands as a sort of a gas station museum.  John and I took some pictures, mailed some postcards, and hit the road again.

Oklahoma greeted us with brand new paving – an insult to Texas?  We drove quickly into the land of Cherokee shopping attractions, only stopping briefly for gas.  In no time we were in the land of toll roads, Oklahoma City, and at our hotel.

Deena had recalled that the famous food blogger Orangette, is originally from Oklahoma City, and had found some posts on dining in the city.  John and I ended up at the closest, openest of the recommendations, Tokyo Sushi, which of course was something Deena would have loved.  Sigh.  

John and I ate well, came home for a swim, and started planning our next day: On to Arkansas.