Today was a recovery day, lollygagging east along I-40 frontage roads from Amarillo to Shamrock, Texas…often on Old Route 66. We did see the (allegedly) largest Cross in the Western Hemisphere, and went to the Devil’s Rope Museum (Devil’s Rope = Barbed Wire). Did you know that ranchers used the upper wire of the fence to conduct telephone signals? If you see resistors inserted into fencing, that’s what was going on! If you do make it to the museum in McClean, Texas, don’t forget to check out the cowboy hat made of barbed wire.
I did get a flat…but it was a slow one, so I could ride until I found a bit of shade under a (rare) tree to change it out. The arrival in Shamrock, of course, was marked by temps over 100 degrees – again.
One theme of the trip I haven’t talked about much is the death of small town America that we seem to be witnessing. These tiny cities off the beaten path have boarded up theaters, banks, grocery stores, gas stations, insurance agencies, houses, and motels. We’re not talking about the outskirts of a city – I mean right on “Main Street.” You can just imagine the scene on the streets when the farming and route 66 traffic, for instance, were making for boom-times. Now, literally, tumbleweeds set the scene.
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