Monday, 30 March - In to New Mexico

Palo Dura was a GREAT park and campground.  We’re still waking up early because we’re on the ‘far’ side of the Central Time Zone.  We wanted to ‘stretch’ our legs, since we’ve been in the car, all day, every day for some time.  There were several hiking trails, but we selected the one that was both the favorite, but also had incurred the most deaths…..  It was called the ‘Light House’ trail and was 2.75 miles each way.  However, at the end of the trail, you had to do a 500-foot ‘scramble’ up a very steep slope just to get to the base of the Light House.  Other than the ‘scramble’ it was nice 6 mile hike.

The canyon is 800 feet deep

This is a distant view of the "Lighthouse"

Getting closer....

On the flat at the top

We decided not to stay another night at the park, so we loaded up and headed back to Amarillo where we picked up the old Route 66 highway and picked up our trail to Santa Monica.

Just west of Amarillo, is the “Cadillac Ranch” which is located in a huge field on the opposite side of I-40 from the old highway.   We did a 18 mile detour to back-track our trail on the other side, and take a look…

West Texas is rather barren but the old road is still there.  We found a restored Marigold gas station from the 1920’s that was interesting.

We stopped in Adrian, Texas which claims to be the ‘mid-point’ between both ends of Route 66.  However, it’s the mid points for birds that fly in straight lines.  We’ve travelled well over the 1,139-mile from Chicago to get to this point.

We left Texas and picked up some tourist info at the New Mexico Welcome Center.  We picked up another hour coming from Central to Mountain Time, so we drove through Tucumcari to Santa Rosa where we’re camped for the night.

Had time to set up camp, relax a little and cook a couple of steaks before we enjoyed a well earned rest.