We joined the Gypsy Tour for a day of riding to historic sites along Route 66. Our first stop after leaving Oklahoma City was the pony bridge that spans the Canadian River near Bridgeport, OK. Each of the 38 spans is 100 feet long. The bridge is believed to be the longest pony truss bridge in the world.

We rode to Clinton, OK to visit the Oklahoma Route 66 Museum. I visited the museum three times before and wrote about it earlier in this blog, so I didn’t go through it again.

Next we stopped in Erick, OK to visit the Sandhill Curiosity shop, run by Harley. He and his wife had a musical act they would do for visitors; however, his wife died a while back. Harley can still pick a mean guitar and entertained us with a few songs. The building is covered in signs and filled with old stuff. A real American Pickers dream location!

A short distance down the road we stopped at the Conoco station in Shamrock, TX. The station has a gift shop, a few old pictures, and a recreated lunch counter.

100 miles west we stopped for lunch at the Big Texan Steak Ranch. It’s a huge restaurant and was packed. The food was passable, but not special. The big attraction is their free 72 oz. steak. To get the steak for free you have to eat it in one hour. Ugh! While we were there, though, someone did meet the challenge.

After lunch we stopped just west of Amarillo to visit the Cadillac Ranch, which is an outdoor art exhibit. It’s 10 Cadillac cars half-buried in the dirt. Visitors are free to spray paint the cars.

The sad thing the cars are falling apart and people are just plain rude. They throw their empty paint cans on the ground. Who is going to pick up after them?

The final leg of the day was a 90-mile ride across I-40 to Tucumcari, NM, and the Blue Swallow Motel. Beth and I stayed at this 1950s-era motel in 2016 on our way to the Motor Maids Convention in Santa Fe. Most of the units have garages, so we were able to park our motorcycles inside one of the garages.

We had a catered BBQ dinner and spent the evening sitting and talking.

The motel is decorated with lots of neon lights and is very pretty to see at night.