Leaving Tulsa, we continued on Interstate 44 which parallels the old Route 66. As you pass through Oklahoma City, you move over to I-40. According to the map, 44 goes south and ends in Wichita Falls. As we continued on in Oklahoma, I photographed some of the many wind turbines. The ones pictured below are near Hinton, Oklahoma. The wind farms are still generating controversy but many land owners love the money they get from energy companies to install the turbines. According to Wikipedia, in 2021, Oklahoma's installed wind generation capacity was almost 10,500 megawatts, supplying over 40% of the state's generated electricity.
Soon we were in the panhandle of Texas and the Route 66 stop we chose was in Shamrock. The Tower Conoco is a very fancy gas station built in 1935. Shamrock is located at the intersection of former Route 66 and Highway 83. It it was the first landmark encountered by Oklahomans heading west on their famous exodus from the Dust Bowl. The station has recently been restored and is now another Route 66 museum.
Our second night was at a Marriott, comparable to the hotel in Tulsa. They had a very nice dog area just outside the main door and an even more elaborate breakfast with bacon, eggs and biscuits and gravy. For dinner, we did take-out at a local Italian joint. We had one more landmark to visit and decided a morning visit would be nice. The infamous Cadillac Ranch.
According to Roadside America, “Cadillac Ranch was invented and built by a group of art-hippies imported from San Francisco. They called themselves The Ant Farm, and their silent partner was Amarillo billionaire Stanley Marsh. He wanted a piece of public art that would baffle the locals, and the hippies came up with a tribute to the evolution of the Cadillac tail fin. Ten Caddies were driven into one of Stanley Marsh 3's fields, then half-buried, nose-down, in the dirt (supposedly at the same angle as the Great Pyramid of Giza). They faced west in a line, from the 1949 Club Sedan to the 1963 Sedan de Ville, their tail fins held high for all to see on the empty Texas panhandle.”
Over the years, people stopped to view the cars and then started to strip their parts and then spray paint them. Marsh and the Ant Farm were tolerant of this and in time, it was encouraged. The cars are now stripped to their frames and splattered in paint.
You can see it was a cold morning but the sunrise was spectacular! From here, we head to Santa Fe, NM.
You will hear me say this a lot, "Never Been There." I have cousins in Enid, OK but, "Never Been There" :-)
Thanks for the pictures and have a fun trip!
I love the windfarms in West Texas. They make me so happy 😊