Route 66 - Help I Can't Keep Up

So much has happened in the last few days that I don't have the time to keep up the blog!
So I am skipping the details of Route 66, as although I have part written it is not finished.
So today we have driven for the third day on the trot. Since leaving Guthrie we have covered 591 miles without unhitching the trailer.
We set out from Guthrie and picked up Route 66 at the Capitol Building in Oklahoma City. Now you have to realise that Route 66 is not a motorway, it is a hundred main streets connected by bits of road, like a two and a half thousand mile bit of c(a)razy paving. So In OK City it was back streets, that were the main street 80 years ago. Eventually we made it out into open land and bowled along nicely, often route 66 runs alongside Interstate 40, sometimes it has been subsumed into it and disappears. The first section was 35 miles long and went through a little town (they are all little towns, apart from Amarillo) called Reno, where we had to join the I 40, but dropped off to see Hydro and Weatherford, skipping some towns we ventured into Elk City. Elk City has the National Route 66 museum, which we really enjoyed, though it was not very exciting. All along the way we have been amazed at the 'Roadside Architecture' for which Route 6 is famous for and there is still plenty of it. Motels, garages, diners, restaurants and gift shops predominate in glorious, garish colours and unlikely shapes. Mostly based round Art Deco, (or a later parody of Art Deco), moving into space age/chrome aerodynamic architecture of the 50's and 60's, often quite conservative, very little psychedelia on good old solid Route 66. Following our visti to Elk City we sped along I 40 and slipped over the border back into Texas to stop at in a sleepy little town called Shamrock.
Shamrock was the start of weirdity. We walked to a steakhouse for a meal, which was opposite one of the icons of Route 66, the Connoco Tower. At this point the restaurant owner pointed out that in the Pixar animation Cars the'U Drop Inn' was modelled on this very building, which was a cafe, gas station and service are combined. It had beautiful green tiles on the outside and at night was lit up with green neon. It is an amazing building. we returned to our trailer and watched the first part of 'The Grapes Of Wrath' on DVD, which is about a family in the 30's being evicted from their farm in Oklahoma and travelling to California on Route 66.
Next day we set out on the road again, still travelling West, we pulled off at a couple of small towns, Mclean, which was very run down but has a small but perfectly formed gas station. Then a few miles further along the town of Groom, which boasts the Leaning Water Tower of Pizza, built on an angle to attract passers by!
In Amarillo we stopped for supplies at the Walmart and meandered through the town to follow the original Route 66. As we were making good time we set our sights on getting to New Mexico, to a place called Tucumcari. First though we stopped off at some more small towns to cruise their main streets. Vega, which has some very old motels and Adrian. Now Adrian prides itself on being the Midway Point on Route 66, halfway between Chicago and Los Angeles. At the Midway point is a cafe called... The Midway Cafe! We decided that this would be a nice place for a cup of tea/coffee, so stopped in. The place was a temple to the Mother Road. All the furniture was original though it opened in 1928, though much of this furniture was original 50's tubular chairs and metal tables, vinyl booths and padded stools at the counter. ANYWAY, we started talking and I noticed that their road sign looks very much like the flash insignia used in Cars. Yes she said, but more than that the cafe was used as a model for Flo's V8 Cafe. Apparently the director had visited the place several times with his graphics crew.
NOT ONLY that, but as we talked to the owner she said that the waitress twins, Tia and Mia were modelled on their waitress Mary Jane! We had been served by the person who was the model for Mia in Cars!!!!.
We soon crossed the border into New Mexico for the first time ever. We reached Tucumcari and pulled into the Empty Saddle RV park and flopped.
Today Tuesday we were again away early marvelling at the Roadside Architecture of Tucumcari, then on to Santa Rosa, where we left Route 66 and headed south on Route 54.
So far I have said little about the countryside we have passed through, but here is a brief description -Oklahoma, red earth and rocks, flattish, grass prairie with trees. Texas - Flattish, grass prairie, no trees. West Texas, grey or pink soil, it becomes really dry, the scrub gives way to bush like cactus and the grass is very crinkly and brittle. All the way from Okalhoma we have been steadily climbing, from 1900ft to about 300ft. On the border with New Mexico, we suddenly drop down an escarpment to flat desert with grass and cactus as West Texas. We are still climbing, when we turn south at Santa Rosa we are hitting 4500ft, but continue to climb. at 5000ft we start to get Juniper and some sort of pine. The road is dead straight form 10's of miles. By the time we reach Corrizozo we have hit 6500ft. Our destination is Valley of Fires Recreation area, we reach there by about 4.00 We feel that we have put in a good three days travelling and we are knackered!