Ode to windmills, Cadillacs and thumbprint cookies...

Windmills!

Even more windmills!

We noticed when we pulled into Abilene last Friday that some giant windmills peeked above the treetops off in the distance, so we went looking for them. Wow, did we find them. As we headed farther west into Nolan County, Texas, we saw giant spinning windmills as far as the eye could see in every direction. There are over 40 different wind farms (totaling several thousand wind turbines) in this very rural, flat and windy part of west Texas. Now, your standard wind turbine has a 200 foot tower, and a wingspan of 231 feet across. From the ground to the top of one of the blades measures 328 feet tall. Wow! They're really cool! And altogether these puppies can power over a million homes!

As we continued heading north the landscape changed again. We noticed the scrubby brush and short trees near Abilene slowly gave way to broad open plains with gigantic farms in every direction with virtually no trees or bushes in sight. As we neared Slaton, Texas, we saw a billboard advertising the town as the "Thumbprint Cookie Capital of Texas" at which point Ken began shouting "I COULD HAVE THUMBPRINTS! I LIKE THUMBPRINT COOKIES!" while pressing his thumbs madly into hundreds of invisible cookies on the dashboard, but sadly, we didn't stop. Apparently there is a bakery there, creatively named Slaton Bakery, that makes excellent thumbprint cookies and other delectable pastries...too bad we missed that, he was talking about it for miles.

Cadillac Ranch

Eventually, we pulled into Amarillo and set up camp at the Overnite RV Park, a nice quaint campground with plenty of space but quite a bit of noise from the highway, and a great view of the undersides of several roaring airplanes taking off from the nearby international airport. After a quick trip to the visitor center and then to get some groceries, we spent the evening doing laundry. Nice.

Old Rte. 66 (now 6th Ave.)

On Monday, we headed out to the Cadillac Ranch, a quirky art installation of 10 graffiti-ed Cadillacs half submerged in a random field along the highway. They are all leaning at the same rakish angle and are covered in crazy shades of spray paint.

Cadillac Ranch

Next, we drove around aimlessly looking for the historic Route 66 section of Amarillo and after many wrong turns, a total lack of adequate signage and roughly 30 minutes, we finally found it. 'It' is a mile of antique stores and tchotchke shops with a few restaurants thrown in for good measure. We poked around in several antique shops, got lost in one and had to ask for directions out of it, mimicking other past walking mishaps of ours. (Peanut gallery commentators need not speak up.)

Palo Duro Canyon State Park

Having previously enjoyed this restaurant in a different state, we ate a great lunch at a Cheddar's. We both ordered the Monte Cristo, a deep-fried ham/turkey/cheese sandwich dusted with powdered sugar and served with raspberry dipping sauce. Yum. Heart attack on a plate. This is the best Monte Cristo Ken has ever eaten, having tried many substandard versions in quite a few places. I really liked it, too.

Palo Duro Canyon State Park

After lunch, we stopped by the Goodwill store (as we are more and more prone to do) and picked up some bargains. Ken was dismayed to see I had again collected 18 balls of yarn (all wool!!), but I managed to make it out of there with them anyway (and with Ken's senior citizen discount, no less). Sweet.

After dropping our purchases off at the coach, we headed south to visit Palo Duro Canyon State Park, the second largest canyon in the U.S. The park is over 29,000 acres of beautiful landscape, with a park loop road down to the bottom of the canyon and several buildings constructed by the Civilian Conservation Corps in the mid 1930's. The canyon was formed by the carving of the Prairie Dog Town Fork of the Red River through the Southern High Plains. At 600 to 800 feet deep, the river has exposed geologic formations as old as 250 million years.

Palo Duro Canyon, low water crossing

We drove down the park loop and across several water crossings, including one that actually had a few inches of water on it. But we were particularly shocked at a sign we saw showing the high water mark recorded on May 27, 1978 at 21 feet above the low water crossing! Wow. That would have put most of the campgrounds and picnic areas in the canyon underwater. Yikes...glub, glub.

We noticed the weather turning a little ugly while we toured the canyon...the clouds moved in and after we left, the wind picked up. Not wanting to see the canyon high water mark reached again, we quickly drove back north to Amarillo. The wind picked up even more and we saw a dust storm clouding the buildings off  in the distance, but it never did rain. We were treated to a red-brown sunset from all the dust in the sky while the strong winds knocked the RV around a bit. No harm, no foul, though.

Fantastic day!