Leaning Towers, Giant Cross and lots of wind.

Brrrr…..cold this morning when I got up. Glad Bill left his sweat shirt out in the living area. Got lots of different weather today. Cold to begin with, windy, very windy, hot, sprinkles and now cool again. Got to love the high desert.

Strange happenings last night. Every time we walked back and forth in the Alfa we got POP POP sounds. What the heck? Finally figured it out this morning. The levelers were on gravel and our weight and movement shifted the gravel and the jacks just enough to make noises. And then today the GPS acted up again. Worked except wouldn’t show the map. Or look for nearby places. GRRRR….finally I took the memory card out put it back in and she is working fine now. I’m beginning to think I’m giving out bad magnetic vibes or something.

Got on the road about 9:00 – drove without stopping to Tucumcari, New Mexico 199 miles. Got here about 12:30. Not too much construction today. But lots of wind that got worse as the air warmed up. Were glad to stop when we did. More about the weather later.

Not too many pictures today but a few. Thought the back of this truck was funny. I like the teeth.

And this leaning water tower. Two of the legs are in the air.

It is in Texas near Groom. Searching the Internet I found this information. “The building of the leaning tower was purely intentional. That's right, the lean was deliberate, a direct result of the most formidable influence known to man: good, old-fashioned American marketing. It worked like a charm, too. Passing motorists pulled off the highway just to make sure they saw what they thought they saw. Next thing they knew, they were finding themselves in the parking lot of Ralph Britten's truck stop and restaurant, where the as-long-as-we're here factor would take hold. Britton’s Leaning Tower Truck Stop was the talk of I-40. CB radios echoed with gossip about the tower.” Just thought it was kind of fun information.

Groom is also known for its gigantic cross. I took this picture when we were still nine miles from the cross. You can just barely make it out in the picture – much easier to see in real life.

This is as we passed it. 

It is called The Cross of Our Lord Jesus Christ. It is 190 feet tall fabricated of tubular steel and covered with white galvaluminum panels. It has a wind resistance up to 140 miles per hour. It is seen annually by approximately 10 million I-40 motorists.

Soon we were passing through Amarillo, TX. Every time we go through I look for the Cadillac Ranch. For the uninformed – there are a bunch of Cadillacs buried in the dirt nose first out in a field. And today I managed to see them. Grabbed the camera and got it focused and was about to snap a picture as a big semi passed us blocking my view. When he finally got passed I managed to get this out of the drivers window. Not too good but now I know where it is.

Here’s some info about it.

Standing along Route 66 west of Amarillo, Texas, 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 3. 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.

Finally we were into New Mexico. The wind picking up as the day progressed.

We stopped in Tucumcari – another little town that used to be thriving when Route 66 was in its prime. I've posted a lot about it and pictures of its many murals previously. 

We stay at the Kiva RV Park right downtown. There are pull throughs, level sites, WiFi, cable TV for $20 a night. For more information check out their web page.  http://www.kivarvpark.com/

This is at the entrance of the park – love it.

By the time we were set up the wind had really picked up and the dust was blowing like crazy. Went out to the market and on our way home we got a few sprinkles. According to the weather report the winds were gusting to 50mph.

The dust is what made the sunset pretty.

 We’ll be staying here a couple of days.