Texas Route 66: In The Middle Of It All By Nick Gerlich
Texas. The very word causes eyes to widen and pulses to skip a beat. It’s a place whose name is its own marketing campaign, tag line and all. Even though Texas had only the second-most miles of Route 66, with 178 miles beelining across the Panhandle, the eastern border at the 100th meridian is where Mother Road tourists know that this is the spot where the old road really kicks it up a notch. It’s the very middle of the route, literally and figuratively, and the perfect place to take a breather along the 2,400 mile journey from Chicago to Santa Monica, or for those who live nearby to take a day trip.
or who (like more than 20% of all Route 66 travelers) live outside the US, all of these things are new to them and part of the mystique and legend that makes Texas the great state it is.
through canyons and arroyos, from pasture to pen. In the process, they created the place that now serves about 30% of the beef this country eats.
And most Route 66 guests through So when motorists cross the 100th these parts would feel they missed heading west, an entirely new world out if they didn’t at least stop to have opens before their eyes. Gone is the a big, juicy steak somewhere along Midwest with its lush tall grasses and those 178 miles, be it at the Red River trees. Gone is the transitional zone west Steakhouse in McLean, the fabled of Oklahoma City, where the trees and Big Texan in Amarillo or any number the population start to thin out. In their of independently-owned restaurants place are short-grass prairies, trees that doing their best to keep it local. only grow where God put them, skies that scream for our attention and stars From the Art Deco styling of the 1936 at night so big and bright that—well, Tower Station and U-Drop Inn in For those who call this part of Texas you must be deep in the heart of Texas. Shamrock, to the eerie ghost town of home, we take for granted the wide Glenrio—the only Route 66 community open spaces, the abundant sunshine But it’s also where the west was won, with a state line running through the (did you know that Amarillo is the where cowboys were not just mythical middle of it—Texas has a lot to offer 16th sunniest city in the US?), the ever- creatures of lore but the folks who anyone wishing to take a drive or ride in present breeze, sunrises and sunsets that tamed the land before it could tame the past lane. Amarillo sits conveniently you can almost reach out and touch. But them. They drove cattle over the plains near the middle, offering everything for those who live elsewhere in the US, across which you could see for 20 miles, tourists would expect in a bigger city,
