It dosn’t get any better across the border, this place is home to about 40 people
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Shamrock was the next small town along the route. The highlight of the town was the beautifully restored 1936 Tower Service Station and U-Drop Inn.It is an amazing building and was building was the inspiration behind the body shop in Disney’s Cars that was owned by Ramone the Chevy Impala Lowrider. The town is home to about 2000 they most of the town area was run down, but there were a few new food chain outlets and new hotels, so there was some sense of rejuvenation. 
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The Devil’s Rope Museum is housed in a converted factory and is dedicated to the history of barbed wire, fencing tools, and ranching heritage and was located in McClean. There was also a area dedicated to Route 66 with some interesting memorabilia. 
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McLean was the next stop east on Route 66. The town is home to about 800 people and grain (corn) seemed to be the towns lifeblood. Like many other towns along Route 66 good times went when the highways bypassed the town. Two of the areas most prized icons are the giant cross (jebus is huge in these parts) and the leaning water tower. 
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In the spirt of Cadillac Ranch in Amarillo, the small town ( a motel and a silo) of Conway has a Bug Ranch a collection of VW Beetles dug into the ground and a few spray painted ruins. It was pretty half arsed but made for some good photos. 
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Amarillo is about as big as Geelong located pretty much in the middle of northern Texas. It is a mix of freeway businesses and rural trade. They are known as the quarterhorse capital of the world. We went for a drive along Route 66 through the town, things were pretty broken, tacky old diners and hotels, closed shops and nothing much good. Its incredible the differences in the standard of living here to home, this place is so run down, there are huge new malls and hundreds of new eating establishments, donuts, burgers, waffles, tacos, steaks, but away from the new commercialism the place is so run down, the houses are small and shabby with old cars, couches and junk instead of gardens and fences. Time to head east. 
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What a place, they pick you up in a stretched limo and return you free of charge. The place is massive, brewery, fudge factory, shooting range, hotels, gift shop and huge restaurant surrounded by heads of poor creatures that had been stuffed. It was like a texan version of the Rhiengold only better. Talking of stuffed the restaurant has a challenge, eat a 72 ounce steak with all the sides (thats 2+ kilos of beef) in under an hour and its free. One guy took up the challenge while we were there, he was going great for first 30 mins, next 10 he slowed down and gave up at the 50 mark, so bloated. The record is a skinny woman, she did it in under 5 minutes and then the guts did another one. Dont believe us…well do a search on Youtube for Big Texas Challenge. The previous record holder was a circus lion. Lucky he didn’t get his head chopped off and hung on the wall. 
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If you get the urge to buy a gun while you are doing your grocery shopping at Walmart no problem, gust go to the gun counter. Its good to see Walmart has high ethics and doesn’t sell liquor because it is a problem to society. 
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Cadillac Ranch is 10 cars dug into a a field a few miles from Amarillo. People visit and cover them in graffiti, the paintwork is a foot thick in some cases.
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With the highway bypassing much of Route 66 there is plenty of decay, but its got its own charm in a broken down sort of way 
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Russell’s Truck and Travel Centre just over the Texan border had a great little car museum and best of all it was free. They had a great collection of cars and plenty of artefacts including plenty of Elvis memorabilia. 
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The next town to the east was Tucumari, This was a lunch stop. There were plenty of run down Route 66 businesses that made for good photos. Our route 66 route ended up in a muddy dead end so we needed to side track.
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