Travelling Tales - Part 8

Hi folks, finally back on track with another instalment of our "Tale".... we left it with mexican and beer in Sullivan if you remember. 

The weather forecast for this area was storms, lots of them, but we were hoping we would miss them due to our south westerly direction, not so......  after a visit to the Jesse James Wax Museum, that was one for the boys, I just sat in the sun; we continued along 66 stopping for lunch where we picked up a tornado warning!  Skies were getting blacker, stopped for petrol (gas) around 3pm and talked to a trucker who said a tornado had touched down 40 miles away and was heading in our direction.  Quick decision was made to head for the nearest Best Western and call it a day.  I have never seen skies like it, we watched as the storm headed our way, to say I was scared was an understatement, rain like you wouldn't believe, no time to stop and suit up, just keep going.  Luckily for us the interstate veered off to the left and the storm passed us on the right.  You could see the tail forming and apparently it finally grounded and hit near the truck stop we had just left!!!!  We managed to get booked into the hotel and the bikes undercover.

31 May - woke to a perfect blue sky, bright and cool - we followed the 66 across the corner of Kansas into Oklahoma, a great day of twists and turns, wrong ways, back tracks,  lot of the orginal "pink" road

We ended the day in Tulsa - always wondered about Tulsa - spent the evening eating chicken wings and popcorn shrimp and drinking too much booze.  Peter even had a very drunken conversation with a police officer.

1 June - Continuing 66 very quiet roads stopping at Stroud to take a look at the Rock Cafe

Then on to Arcadia to see a restored round barn

See no traffic, just us and the road

 Over a 38 span bridge, the temperature was hitting 93F.

We ended the day in Clinton at the Best Western Trade Winds hotel - apparently Elvis used to stay here.  The hotel was situated over from the Route 66 Museum, so we made this our first stop on the 2nd June before heading to Amarillo

After the museum we headed towards Erick where we spot a newer roadside attraction - The Sandhills Curiosity Shop, where we met Harley and Annabelle.  They were the nicest people we met on the trip, they put on a show for the 66 tourists, providing a cold drink - for just tips.

Check out this video of Harley and Annabelle, they are real characters

More tornado warnings on the lunchtime weather report, so the decision was made to end the day at the Big Texan Steak Ranch and motel

Our rooms complete with saloon bar style doors on the bathroom

We were on tornado watch till 10pm, but was lucky to get away with just a huge dust storm, which of course Peter and Don decided to go out in to get some photos

Peter being sung too - it was an all request show

My dinner

We said our goodbyes to Don as we were heading down to Dallas for a concert, it was good fun riding with him but also great to be back on our own.

We spent the morning in the local dealership where Peter had managed to arrange a service for the bike, then had a fairly boring ride down to Witchita Falls, theres not much to see in Texas - the most exiciting thing we saw that day was a tornado hit grain train at Childress, you could see where the tornado of the previous evening had come across the field down the railway cutting, knocking out the train, then it missed a Ford dealership, carrying on it path of destruction. 

And that dear reader is where I will leave you for today.  Next stop Dallas and the Crossroad Guitar Festival