Old Route 66

While we have either paralleled or actually traveled the old Route 66 for some of the way from Missouri to here, this is the first time we've run into some really strong signs of it.  Right down the street from where we stayed in Shamrock (an historic old town along the Old Route 66) was one of the buildings used to model one of the town buildings in Disney/Pixar's movie "Cars".    From what we were told, they took old historic buildings from along the whole of Route 66 for the fictional town of 'Radiator Springs', and fixed them up in real life as a tribute.  This old Conoco station is now a gift shop (but the neon works!)

38 cents per gallon - I can only dream...

Next on our Route 66 experience was The Big Texan in Amarillo.  Since 1960 this place has challenged visitors to eat a monster meal in an hour - if you do it's free!  It also is a blatant tourist stop, with all the bells and whistles.  Still, we loved it!

The motel next door was done up as if it was an old west town with a variety of hotels next to each other - kinda cool.

The sidewalks had all kinds of cattle brands marked in it - pretty cool.

Here's the world famous free meal - just 4 1/2 pounds of meat, a huge potato with butter & sour cream, 3 fried jumbo prawns with sauce, a loaf of fresh bread and a dinner salad the size of a plate - no problem!

Our next Route 66 stop today was to show the kids Glenrio.  This is one of the towns killed by the interstate (they learned a little about this by watching the movie).  It was a little sad to see...

Is that 'Mater outside the old auto shop?

Here's the old auto shop...

...the cafe...

...the motel...

...the post office (note the modern mail boxes outside - there are still a few residents living in the area, and are served as a rural route)...

...and another motel.