Amarillo, Texas to Tucumcari, New Mexico

We packed up after breakfast and continued our drive through Texas. Our first stop was at a ranch. Usually one expects to see horses at a ranch but this one was home to a row of half-buried Cadillacs!

It was the idea of a controversial millionaire, Stanley Marsh from Amarillo. He said he created it as tribute to the golden age of car travel!! Visitors are encouraged to leave their mark by spray painting their names, comments etc. on the cars.

We soon reached Vega, another small town with lots of Rte 66 treasures including a restored 1920s
Magnolia gas station and the Milburn-Price Museum in what was previously the town bus station. Miss Karen, the owner told us lots of interesting stories about the museum pieces which were all donated by local families.

Outside the museum there was a beautifully restored 1923 Model T Ford.

We reached Adrian, TX which marks the mid point of the Route - 1139 miles east to Chicago and 1139 miles to Santa Monica, Los Angeles.

After the ghost town of Glenrio, TX we crossed into New Mexico and mountain time where put us 7 hours behind home. New Mexico - the 47th state of the Union- was only 14 years old in 1926, the year Route 66 came into existence. The landscape began to show some hills and scrub plants to relieve the unending flatness of the last few days.

We encountered torrential rain as we neared Tucumcari an pulled over for a while for safety.

We arrived in Tucumcari and checked into our motel.

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Holbrook, AZ to Peach Springs, AZ

We left Holbrook in bright sunshine and continued our drive along Rte 66 which once again had us driving on the Interstate at times. Our first stop was in Winslow made famous when The Eagles recorded "Take It Easy" whose second verse starts with "Standin' on a corner in Winslow Arizona". We then drove on to Flagstaff but didn't stop in the city. Flagstaff has a beautiful forested location high up on the Colorado Plateau and it was a change to be driving on roads lined with tall ponderosa pine trees. We had a picnic lunch off the beaten track in Buckskinner Park, Williams, AZ. We followed a dirt trail to the picnic area which really tested our car's tyres. They survived, thankfully. We soon found ourselves in Seligman (pronounced Sligman), a sleepy town which maintains a lot of its historic character together with a few unexpected twists - eg Santa in a Chevvy outside the wacky Snow Cap Drive-in. Our destination for the night was th

Seattle, WA

We left Everett on Sunday morning and headed south to Seattle, our final stop on this trip. We drove to our hotel and dropped off our cases before we headed to SeaTac to return our car. After the brief stop at the hotel we drove to Kubota Garden, a 20-acre Japanese garden in one of Seattle’s southern neighbourhoods. It was started in 1927 by Fijitaro Kubota, a Japanese immigrant. It is an urban oasis with Japanese and native trees and plants, ponds and waterfalls. It was beautiful with its fall colours. The following morning we headed down to the waterfront to the historic Pike Place Market where Starbucks first opened its doors to the public in 1971. Then we wandered through the market which opened in 1907 and strolled by the numerous stalls of seafood, fresh produce, crafts and flowers. On Tuesday we took the monorail, which was the first commercial monorail in the USA and built in 1962 as an attraction for the 1962 World’s Fair. It still uses the original cars. The monorail

Volcanic Country

On Wednesday morning after breakfast, we headed back to the airport to pick up our car. We got a very nice car, a Ford Edge, fairly large for what is described as a small SUV. Then it was off on the road trip part of the holiday. Our first stop was in a cabin in Ashford, a very small town near the entrance to the Mount Rainier National Park. Thursday morning saw us head to Mount Rainier NP. Mount Rainier at 14,410 ft is the tallest mountain in Washington State. It is an active volcano and is the most glaciated peak in the lower 48 states. We drove up to Paradise which at an elevation of 5,420 ft. is famous for its stunning views. We then walked to Myrtle Falls and the views all round us were just stunning. After lunch we drove to Reflection Lakes along a road with hairpin bends and precipitous drops to the side. While in Ashford, we ate at the quaint Copper Creek Restaurant which opened in 1946 and is the oldest, continuously operating restaurant in Washington State.

On the Road with T and S

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