Turns out it was! Growing up in the 70’s pop songs like ‘Is this the way to Amarillo?’ sung by Tony Christie & Albuquerque by Neil Young would be blaring away on the radio at home leaving me to wondering where on earth these places were as they seemed so exotic. Little did i know that many years later I would be planning a road trip that took me to those very locations.

Trundling along Interstate 40 we passed many a place some with the most odd sounding names that must all have some sort of story attached as to how they came by them but we had miles to cover so mostly they are recorded just as a nod to the route we took.

Keen to establish the full capacity of the gas tank we let the miles go by & the level sink until we really had to stop for a comfort break & a top up. Seems that capacity was about 25 gallons & this cost about $100. It was interesting to see that the price of gas actually started to decrease as we headed East but we were heading to “JR Ewing” territory & home of the oil barons so may be not such a surprise. The mural on the garage wall was interesting as it seemed to signal the fact that the station had originally been part of the old route that we had to leave the interstate to find.

As the miles rolled by so did the places but we stopped for a break at Santa Rosa & came across this historical marker. These seem to crop up all over the place & impart some interesting information about the location. House was curious as we didn’t see any as we went by & it also seemed popular for places to be known simply as a first name. Adrian was perhaps the larger of such settlements & was also the home to a large wind farm. The wind did whistle & driving at times was slower because the open plains around gave no protection from the gusts.

Living in a rural area surrounded by farms it came as no surprise to see similar as we drove by but what was surprising was the sheer scale. This was only a snapshot of what seemed like thousands of cattle & its probably as well that the image didn’t capture the pungent smell that followed us for miles after.

The next day would bring the long track to Texas & the first taste of fear while negotiating the traffic system as we headed to the RV park near Fort Worth.