Route 66 on a shoestring!: Cadillacs, bug-guts and dinosaurs!

Up and at ‘em rather early today! On the road at 7am! For me, that’s early! When I’m on vacation, I have no desire to rise early! Mark on the other hand is an early riser. It’s a defect but, you have to be tolerant of the handicapped.

We stopped at a Route 66 museum which was fairly nice. As we were paying for our tickets, the lady asked if we wanted her to put our helmets behind the counter until we finished the tour. Why yes, we do! Rather nice of her! She took our helmets and as I was putting my money back in my wallet, I heard Mark excitedly saying HEY!HEY!HEY! I had no idea what had gotten into him until I looked up. I saw my helmet falling to the floor! The lady had placed our helmets upside-down on the counter and of course, they rolled! Mine just happened to be the one to make it to the edge and consequently to the ground! She turned around and said “Oh.”. No “Sorry!” or any other apology! She picked it up and put them both right-side down and said nothing more! I guess non-riders just have no concept of how expensive helmets are and furthermore, how vitally important they are to my life! It only fell less than 3 feet so, I wasn’t concerned about the innards being damaged. It didn’t even mark it in any way. Still pissed me off!

We wandered through the museum and checked out the exhibits. It was interesting with several life-sized displays of old vehicles and gas pumps, etc. Some interactive items were there as well and lots of reading material. We finished and exited back into the lobby where we came in and retrieved our helmets from Gertie Gravity! As we were heading out to the bikes, we heard a voice say “Damn biker trash!”! I turned around ready for a discussion with whoever was crazy enough to make that comment and there was the biker from hell we had met earlier! He was passing by and saw our bikes and stopped in to say hello again! So, we chatted for a bit and parted ways again. Nice guy!

We crossed into Texas and got to see all the stereotypical sights you equate with Texas; longhorns, oil wells, pipelines and cattle ranches. We came across the Shamrock Gas Station! It’s an original Route 66 Conoco gas station that has been restored and now acts as a tourist attraction. We got there after it was closed so we didn’t get to go inside but, we could see most everything through the windows. Of course, we took several pics!

Somehow, my navigation got a bit wonky and the street signs were very confusing in this area so, we ended-up travelling about 25 miles or more on the wrong road! So, we backtracked and figured out where we went wrong and decided to stop in at a Dairy Queen for a bite to eat. The skies were looking a bit ominous and while we were inside, we heard a loud siren which I recognized as a tornado siren! I asked the ladies working there if we needed to be concerned and they said it was just a test and if it was an actual tornado it would have kept screaming. By the way, as with every single day past Missouri, we had side-winds the entire time we were riding!

As we were riding, I saw my first live Roadrunner! He ran across the road in front of me and off into the brush. I suddenly became aware of the danger of falling anvils but, none were to be seen! Whew! I also saw a couple of hawks directly above the right-side of the road about 150 feet up and something struck me as odd about it. Then I realized they were stationary! Now, it’s normal to see birds riding the thermals and winds and just hovering in place but, that’s not what was going on here! Remember those winds I mentioned? These hawks were flapping their wings furiously and were ever so slightly moving forward! I would bet it would take them fifteen minutes or more just to cross the road at that rate! Fascinating!

The KLR by this time had decided it preferred to live off oil rather than gas. This would be an issue for the rest of the trip. I should give a little history on the bike so as not to dissuade anyone from ever purchasing a KLR! I bought the bike from a friend and also got an entire second KLR minus the frame and wheels! So, I’ve never been concerned about abusing the bike. I’ve beaten the hell out of it off-road and jumped it. I’ve run it at redline for 80 miles non-stop. I regularly ride with the sportbike crowd in the twisties and I’m never at the back of the pack! That being said, the bike has never let me down and has run pretty fantastic until this trip. Before the trip, I bought the Tiger for Mark and rode it most days for about 3 months to make sure everything was proper for the trip. I never gave thought to the KLR getting jealous during this time. It had never gone more than a couple of weeks without being run prior to me getting the Tiger. The 3 months did it’s damage with the carb getting clogged and other minor issues. It had always used a little bit of oil but, never more than any of the other bikes I’ve owned except for the extended redline run. The many miles of higher-speed travelling took its’ toll on the years of abuse I’d already put it through and it started using oil at an alarming rate! At this point, there was nothing to be done but, keep feeding the beast. I had to switch from fully-synthetic oil to the cheap stuff as I couldn’t afford the cost anymore. Still, she held together for the entire trip and I would easily and highly recommend a KLR for any trip! Just make sure you have a good aftermarket seat and I cannot say enough about the Airhawk seatpad I used for the entire trip! Once I got the air-pressure adjusted to my liking, I never had any issues!

Back to the trip! As we were getting ready to turn off to go to a Yamaha shop to get some oil we were passed by the biker from hell! I motioned for him to follow us as we had already decided if we ran into him again we would grubstake him a decent amount of cash to help with his trip but, apparently he misunderstood me and kept going after I turned off. I hope his journey went well and all his reasons for making the trip were fruitful!

After oiling up again, we headed to the Cadillac Ranch! For those not aware of this little piece of art/roadside attraction, it’s a bunch of classic Cadillacs buried nose-down in a field with the tail-ends sticking up in the air at about a 60 degree angle all in a row. It’s one of those interactive living artworks in that anyone can stop by and paint graffiti on the cars. The artwork changes daily and I’m sure what’s there today is gone in a few days. There was a small shop just down the road that sold spray paint specifically for this purpose and I bought two cans for our graffiti!

Mark chose to write the name of his new grandchild which was sweet and touching!

I on the other hand decided to shamelessly promote myself just like I’m about to do now! For those who don’t know, I am an actor. I’ve been acting for over 20 years. I’ve starred in a couple of movies that made their way to DVD’s, Netflix, Amazon Prime, etc. I am currently starring in a web-series called The Stranger and you can watch it here. https://www.youtube.com/user/whoisthestranger It’s a murder-mystery in a small town with a supernatural twist. I play the Chief of Police, Gabriel Tilson. If you want to know more about my acting/directing/producing career, you can look me up here! http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0022983/?ref_=fn_al_nm_1 If you like fun zombie movies then you should check me out in this little gem I starred in a few years back! http://www.amazon.com/101-Zombies-Teague-Quillen/dp/B00ALPONCU Enough self-promotion now! If you like what you watch, please do tell everyone you know! If you don’t, keep your damn mouth shut! J

We both learned definitively our boots were 100% waterproof and mud proof! It had rained recently and the area directly around the cars was a thick, boot-removing mud! Luckily, for me I’m long-legged and could avoid the deepest stuff but, Mark had to struggle through to get to the cars!

Somewhere down the road we came to the halfway point of Route 66! We were now equal distances from Chicago and L.A.! Cool!

We rode on and crossed into New Mexico! I have to say, New Mexico wins the award for best state-line border monument! Unfortunately, since we were riding I didn’t get a pic. The instant we crossed into New Mexico, we felt like we had stepped into the world’s largest paintball game and we were the only targets!! There were literally millions if not billions of grasshoppers in the air splattering themselves all over the bikes and us!! Mark had a windshield on the Tiger! I did not! I laid my head down as far as my helmet would allow and could only see through about a half an inch of the top of my visor peeking over the front fairing! It was absolutely insane! By the time we arrived in Tucumcari, New Mexico we were covered in bug guts and worn out from the tucked-in riding position we held for over 20 miles of that hell!

We stopped at another America’s Best Value Inn and got a room. The lady told us we were at the end of the hall and she opened the fire-door for us to be able to bring our gear in more easily. She told us not to let it close as it would lock back and she was leaving for the night. I asked when check-out was and she said 11am but, not to worry about when we leave as no one was expected and no one would be there to check us out anyway at that time. She said to just drop the cards off at the desk and everything would be fine! Sweet!

We discovered grasshoppers weren’t the only things swarming in the area! As soon as we got off the bikes at the back of the hotel, black clouds of mosquitos surrounded us! We kept our helmets on during the transfer of gear and one of us would stand at the door keeping it almost closed while the other moved his gear into the room so we wouldn’t let too many of the bastards in!

After we got our room sorted, we rode out to eat dinner at a nice local restaurant. As we rode through the town we discovered a huge amount of original Route 66 Motels! I wish we had ridden in and looked around instead of just stopping at the usual hotel. There were so many cool and unique motels and it would have been nice to have stayed in another original motel!

While in Tucumcari, I discovered the Mesalands Community College Dinosaur Museum. I like dinosaur related stuff and I have a friend who is a huge fan so, I thought I would check it out and grab a souvenir while I was there! Mark chose not to join me so, I toured solo. It was a nice place with a lot of very nice fossils and several full-sized complete skeletons on display in active poses including a full-sized 40 foot long Torvosaurus which is similar to a T-Rex! I grabbed a small figurine for my friend at the shop at the end and we headed back to the hotel.

In the museum.