Day 31: This is Texas!

Breakfast. The most important meal of the day. Well, Wayne and Bernardo of El Farolito Inn certainly took that refrain to heart! Ronit had given me the heads up that this BnB is famous for its rich, healthy breakfast and I can see why!

Besides the variety of different coffee, yoghurts, granola and cereals, you're also served a warm homemade breakfast. Today's breakfast was Hatch Green Chili Strata with Chicken and Calavasitas Squash. Yum! As if that wasn't enough, there were deserts in the form of bundt cakes and fruit as well. While we can't squeeze all the photos of the delicious foods within this blog post, you can check out all the photos in the photo gallery.

Happy Wife Happy Life

This is my wife's first time visiting Santa Fe and she really had a blast browsing through all the locally-made jewelry. And when I say "browsing" I mean "purchasing". 🤣

To be fair, we did end up buying some truly spectacular bracelets and necklaces that were more works of art than just plain jewellery. It was extremely difficult to walk around looking at all the amazing artisanship and not take something home. Also, happy wife happy life, right? So really couldn't go wrong with our jewellery shopping morning.

As we were walking around Santa Fe, I heard the familiar sounds of my native language. I have travelled around the world during my life and have always managed to hear someone speaking Hebrew, my native tongue, no matter where I go. Once my wife Ronit joined me, I expressed to her a few times how shocked I was that during the last 30 days travelling throughout the USA and Canada, I had not heard Hebrew once!

Well, all that changed in Santa Fe, where we not only heard Hebrew but met 3 young women, Anat, Yaffa, & Einav who are actually from Israel! And as fate would have it, one is a newly graduated software engineer, and our CTO is currently looking for developers.

Galleries on Canyon Road

We were finishing up our time in Santa Fe. We had the art galleries to visit still, but first, we were in need of a fuel-up. We stopped at Sage Bakery where we picked up a double espresso, a latte, and a collection of scrumptious, fresh pastries to "last us for our 6-hour drive" to Claude, Texas. The coffee at Safe was exceptional, the very best we'd tried in Santa Fe, and the pastries...well, let's just say some of them didn't even "last" to the car. They went straight into our bellies.

We then visited multiple art galleries along Canyon Road. We found some very interesting art pieces. Some were giant painted metal animal sculptures that would certainly make a lasting impression in anyone's front yard for the bargain price of $45,000.

In fact, many of the art pieces were of considerable size and quite impressive! We had a great time looking through what they had to offer. The Wilford Gallery also had some gorgeous wind sculptures that were beautiful and hypnotic to watch.

On the Road Again

It was time to leave Santa Fe and get back on the road. As we were driving we noticed a wind turbine blade being transported along the highway on a truck with two separate sections making it look as long as a train! However big you think these wind turbine blades are, I promise you they are even bigger than you're thinking. I just could not believe how huge the blade was, and how they fit it on a truck! I told Ronit, I hope there are no turns along this highway because I just can't understand how this truck can turn!

Ronit is a complete genius when it comes to finding great places to stop along the way. Sure wish she could have been with me for the entire 30 days of the trip! Here, she had found the midpoint. No, no, that's what the place is called, The MidPoint. We had already made it into Texas and were driving along Route 66.

We parked our car in front of the diner and noticed all the chairs outside were stacked up on the table, but the door to the restaurant was open. We entered, and told Adrian, the young lady working there, that we had thought the place was closed because of the stacked chairs. She replied confirming that they were indeed closed, but she patiently answered our questions about the place.

Adrian told us that this is, in her words, "literally the smallest town ever", and that they sell pie. She said it is the halfway point between Chicago and Las Vegas and that they get all kinds of visitors passing through here. She explained that she had been working there for the last 6 months, and so far it seems that most of the activity happens early in the morning until around 4:00 PM, and that this is why they close early.

She pointed out an actual mark on the road outside that indicates the exact midpoint between Chicago and Las Vegas, the distance to both places is 1,139 miles from the midpoint.

Cadillac Ranch

As we were driving, we stumbled upon a strange sight. Off the side of the highway was a cluster of vintage Cadillac cars, half buried in the ground. Why? Well, we didn't know but we were going to find out. There were a lot of people, both adults and kids surrounding the cars so we went to investigate.

Turns out they have a paint truck (think food truck but with a selection of paint colors to choose from) that sells spray paint cans to be used to graffiti the Cadillacs. People come here to do a bit of graffiti artwork as an activity. Ronit and I wanted to take a closer look, but the wind was blowing quite strong. Have any of you ever used spray paint in the wind before? Well, it blows all over the place, and the smell is very strong. It's pretty unhealthy to inhale and we didn't want our clothes to change colors, so we got a few photos from afar and got out of there, chop chop!

Yet another fantastic find from Ronit, the Giant Legs of Amarillo was our next stopping point. We drove up and saw the area was surrounded by barbed wire and a locked gate, but did that stop us? Not a chance. We pulled the barbed wire apart a bit and squeezed right through.

And there they were, the giant legs, and when they say giant, they certainly mean giant! Ronit also found a very strange-looking plant very close to the legs. It looked like some kind of flowering cactus bush. Anyone know what this is?

CW House

We were headed to our accommodation when Steele decide to take us through fields of corn and wheat. We eventually made it safely back to the real roads, but I'm not sure what made the car's GPS think dirt roads through fields would be an appropriate path for the Mercedes. It seems the only people who use this trail are the drivers of farming equipment... Ronit thinks it's because I've now travelled so many dirt roads in this car that his confidence has been boosted.

We arrived at CW House, the beautiful home we were staying in and were greeted by our host, Jana. The home is absolutely gorgeous and also has some history to it! We will get all the historical tidbits from Jana tomorrow.

Meanwhile, we were told a big storm was brewing, and since we're back in tornado country, you never know what that might bring. Apparently, only a few weeks ago a storm came past that generated a tornado that killed four people in a nearby town. So needless to say we were a bit concerned. Jana had prepared the garage so that we and the other guests could park our cars inside in case of any hail from the storm. So at least Steele would also have a safe place to brave the storm.

We decided to make a grocery store run to get some breakfast supplies and stopped to pick up some hamburgers from the local burger joint, Red Roof Grill. We were told by a few locals that the best item on the menu is the 1/2 pounder burger with hand-cut fries. We took their recommendations and loved it all. Absolutely delicious.

We met Gabriel, the chef and son of the owner, and learned that his father had opened the place four years ago. Since Claude is a small town, they don't open for many hours a day. We were very fortunate that Friday nights are the one night a week they also serve dinner! The wait was a bit long since they had many people dining in, plus call-in orders and pick-ups. You could tell it was a very popular joint, but be prepared to have to wait a bit!

Sunset Weather

We hurried back to the BnB with our burgers so that we wouldn't get stuck in the storm. We had gotten a few weather alerts on our phones while we sat down to eat dinner and chatted with the other guests at the house. After we'd eaten we went back to our room with the plan to call it a night. We still had the blog to work on anyways and it had been a long tiring day after walking around until noon in Santa Fe and then all the driving.

But then Ronit casually asked me what time the sun sets in Claude Texas. And by golly, I knew what that question meant! It meant the day was not yet done. At this point the weather had seemed to clear up, there was no tornado, no storm, no clouds, just a bit of wind.

To be honest, I really wanted to stay home at the BnB and work on the blog and get to bed early. But I love Ronit, and if she wants to see the sunset then we are going to see the sunset! Anything to make her happy. So when she asked "Do you feel like visiting a lookout point not far from here", my response was "Absolutely, let's go!". So back into the car we went.

It was a short, 20-minute drive to the lookout through flat farmlands. Then suddenly without warning, it suddenly changed to canyons. Ronit and I were stunned at how quickly the landscape had changed. Once we arrived at the lookout we were both very happy we'd come. It was absolutely beautiful. This.. is... TEXAS!! Can you believe it? You would think you were looking at Utah or some other state. No way, Jose! Texas has its own beauty, and it ain't all flat.

We set up at the lookout, bringing out the Nespresso and with the help of Eric's Jackery (thanks again, Eric for letting us borrow it!) we made ourselves some tasty coffee to enjoy the view.

While at the lookout point, we met Ryan, a young gentleman. He was walking around with his phone videoing himself, documenting the scene just like we have been doing. We introduced ourselves and learned that he is from India and working as an IT professional in NYC.

He was down in Texas visiting a friend in Dallas Fort Worth and decided to take a trip to the Palo Duro Canyon. He had rented a car and was trying to figure out if it was possible to tour the USA through free campgrounds or sleep inside his car as it would be a very economical way to see the country. He explained he'd only rented the car yesterday and spent one night in the car, but it hadn't been bad at all. Ryan is the second car-mper I've met along this trip.

Ryan was planning to spend tonight at this very lookout point and wanted to watch the sunrise over the canyon. I gave Ryan one of my Smart TS XL windshield sun protectors as he was in need of one. We then said our goodbyes and Ronit and I went in search of finding the best spot to see the sunset on our way back to the BnB.

It was an absolutely perfect sunset and a perfect way to end the day.

Goodnight and see y'all tomorrow.

-Shlomo & Ronit