WATSON’S BAR-B-QUE
We found Watson’s Bar-B-Que in Tucumcari NM on Yelp, and it didn’t disappoint. The food was great, but we had to shoo away the cats to eat. We enjoyed exploring the collection of vintage signs, cars, coke machines and other ephemera spread across the lot and building adjoining the restaurant, including the ones pictured below. We have found on road trips that Yelp is often a reliable way to find great local restaurants, if you read the reviews.
Our approach to road trips is to spend approximately six hours of driving per day. This gives us time to explore oddities along the way, discover decent dining and engage in some local sightseeing at each of our overnight stays. We will often book hotels in advance — especially in cities where we plan to spend more than one night.
But if we are just going to stop long enough to sleep before heading on, we will turn to the app, Hotel Tonight, to search for bargains on accommodations. Sometimes, the prices are cheaper there than on a hotel’s website. But not always. We always check both and will book through the hotel website if the price is the same (or better) because that ensures the hotel gets all our money. We also have found that we often get better rooms and/or extras — like a late checkout — that might not be available when booking through a third party.
GROOM CROSS
Another oddity along the road was the giant Groom TX cross, officially The Cross of our Lord Jesus Christ Ministries, at Exit 112 on Interstate 40. A nonprofit, the Cross Ministries, erected the 19-story, 2.5 million pound cross in July 1995. Since then, the organization has added over a dozen life-sized bronze sculptures portraying Jesus’ journey to the cross and the empty tomb. When we visited, the Visitor’s Center was closed because of COVID. But they let us in to get a glimpse of the gift shop. It was, as promised by the road sign directing us there, an “Inspirational” stop.
CADILLAC RANCH
No road trip through Texas would be complete without a stop at the Cadillac Ranch. Rising at an angle out of the prairie along Route 66 west of Amarillo, the artwork consisting of 10 partially buried Caddies was created in 1974 by a group of artists from San Francisco, who called themselves The Ant Farm. An Amarillo billionaire, Stanley Marsh III, financed the creation. While we had seen the photos, we didn’t realize that this was participatory art. They sell spray cans of paint at the site, and visitors add their own touches. One balding man who appeared to be in his 70s or 80s stood holding a can of spray paint as we approached. Asked if he’d ever painted graffiti on anything, he provided grinned mischievously and said: “Not until now.” Each vehicle is caked with paint, and the constant updating means the art work is constantly changing. These photos represent just one day in this consumer-driven, evolving artwork.
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