Be Aware Of The Weather

Trip #4, Day 8, 7/8

Be Aware of The Weather

Shamrock offered a good night sleep, except for the lingering smell of industrial strength cleaner. We headed to breakfast and honestly for the first time ever, the breakfast attendant made custom egg dishes for guests, (I ordered 2 eggs, easy over, my favorite). It was a very nice touch and a great way to start the day.

With our continued efforts to recall Hwy 66 landmarks as our guide, we headed west and passed "The Leaning Tower of Britten", or "The Leaning Tower of Texas”. It is, what it is literally called, a water tower that leans. Located in Groom, Texas, it originally functioned as a water tower. Ralph Britten saved it from demolition and used it as an advertisement for his truck stop. Unfortunately, the truck stop burned down, but the tower remains as a reminder and landmark.

Still too early to stop for gas, Amarillo took 5 minutes to cruise through because we didn’t stop at Buc-ee's. A short time later, we were in the town of Tucumcari, an ICONIC Hwy 66 spot with motels and motor inns, cafes and diners, museums and historic signs. It was still a bit too early to stop to eat, and nearly nothing was open yet for tourists. We continued slowly through town as we gawked at the history that lay before us and definitely a place to return to in the future at a better “tourist” hour.

Finally crossing into New Mexico by lunchtime, we came to another town with roadside attractions, Santa Rosa, New Mexico. Although it is hard to eat out of an ice box (actually a refrigerator, I’ll explain more in a minute), it is harder to continually stop at fast food restaurants. We chose to cruise business Hwy 66 and found a supermarket. Picking up bread, chips, drink and a few extra items, the cost comes out to the same price as one meal at a chain restaurant, but instead now, we have enough lunch food for three days.

As I mentioned above, the “icebox” or refrigerator we purchased from Amazon, a 12V refrigerator for travelers/RVers and two solar batteries. We then don’t need to deal with ice, as we rotate the batteries to keep the refrigerator operational when the truck engine is off. Dry products like bread, chips, beef jerky and water flavorings are separated into a regular ice chest (without ice). Our next step was to find a place to picnic. We found a local park and enjoyed our lunch under the trees watching locals going about their day with their family and friends. Once we filled our bellies it would have been so easy to take a nap, but we continued driving, with just one of us falling asleep (NOT the driver).

But I digress, as Santa Rosa has some great roadside attractions like the Blue Hole, which is a unique 80-foot-deep, circular, bell-shaped pool that expands to about 130 feet at the bottom. It has been closed since 2024 due to a boulder slide, with no date of reopening as of this posting. And like

each iconic town, Santa Rosa also has a Route 66 Auto Museum, which features a collection of classic cars. Other landmarks like the Sunset Motel and vintage neon signs that kindles the era of the Mother Road (Nod to John Steinbeck).

BE AWARE of the WEATHER! As we are learning quickly, not only from our own personal experiences, but from reading other road adventurers that one must be aware of the weather. Especially in the midwest, where weather can change in five minutes, do yourself a BIG favor and learn about sudden weather patterns and other atmospheric clues that can aid your safety during your travels. One such incident occurred about an hour after we left Santa Rosa.

When we travel, as a habit, whoever is not driving,it is their job as navigator and meteorologist and to watch the weather and radar forecasts.. Outside of Albuquerque, New Mexico we noticed a rain ‘cloud burst’, just north of the highway. As we passed underneath it, we wiped off a few sprinkles from the windshield and thought we cleared it. Just by chance we needed to stop for gas, but didn’t want to stop in Albuquerque and decided to head to the west side, 7 miles out of the city, where there was a Love’s Truck Stop. Somehow, maybe the winds changed or our focus was finding the correct exit, but either way, by the time we got to the off ramp, the rain was coming down steadily. Like being in a watery tornado, the wind picked up and the rain came at us horizontally within the next minute. No more than two more minutes passed, as we crossed the overpass, where we found ourselves in the middle of a flooded intersection. The wind was blowing harder, and the trailer was being pushed sideways. Trucks jumped in front of us either because they couldn’t see us through their blurred windshields or just to get out of the weather, with their size winning their favor. We managed to get across the road safely and hunkered down behind a building. But as fast as it appeared, the rain stopped as the clouds made way for sunshine. It was the hardest rain we had ever experienced. After we settled into the hotel in Chambers, we tracked the news to see what happened with the rain we had experienced. We concluded the clouds and rain that we experienced headed south toward Ruidoso, New Mexico, where flooding caused major damage and killed three people. It also wiped out their historic raceway. We were saddened at the news, but understood because we witnessed how quickly the weather can change from calm to scary within minutes.