2008 Vacation: Day 9

We got up early, before daylight, with plans to end up in Vernon, TX back at the Rocking “A” RV Park. Our agenda today included only two stops en route. Quirky little stops really.

The Cadillac Ranch, located along the tatters of historic Route 66, was built in 1974, brainchild of Stanley Marsh 3, the helium millionaire who owns the dusty wheat field where it stands. Marsh and The Ant Farm, a San Francisco art collective, assembled used Cadillacs representing the "Golden Age" of American Automobiles (1949 through 1963). The ten graffiti-covered cars are half-buried, nose-down, facing west "at the same angle as the Cheops' pyramids."
In 1997, development creep forced Marsh to move the entire assemblage about two miles further west. The line of cars is far enough out in a field to allow for suitably bleak photography. The distance from any authority also encourages ever-mutating layers of painted graffiti, which Marsh doesn't seem to mind.

Visitors are encouraged 24/7 - no admission. Bring your own spray paint.

After this little stop, we moved on to Goodnight, TX a community on the edge of Claude, TX where Charlie Goodnight rests.

This is the cemetery way out in the field on a little hill.

Who the heck is Charles Goodnight? You might ask. Well, he was the co-founder of the Goodnight-Loving Trail. Born in Illinois in 1836, he moved with his family to Waco, TX in 1846 when he was ten years old. By the time he was twenty he was working as a cowboy and served with the local militia in the many fights against Comanche raiders. In 1857, he joined the Texas Rangers, where he continued to fight in the Indian wars and served as an Indian scout. Later, when the Civil war began, he again served as a scout.

After the war, he teamed up with Oliver Loving to move cattle from Fort Belknap, TX to Fort Sumner, NM, in what became known as the Goodnight-Loving Trail. It was during this time, that Charlie would invent the chuck wagon when he rebuilt an army surplus Studebaker wagon for more practical use on a long cattle drive.

Unfortunately, Loving was killed by a Comanche war party in 1867, but this did not stop Goodnight from continuing to organize cattle drives on his own.

The novel, Lonesome Dove by Larry McMurtry, is based on the historical accounts of Goodnight and Loving (The Real Lonesome Dove). Augustus McCrae is patterned after Oliver Loving and Woodrow F. Call after Charles Goodnight. The movie is also based on these men's lives. Charles Goodnight would be the patron saint of all cowboys as he developed the cattle industry as it stands today.

During our visit here we discovered a geocache full of geojunk. The kids were very excited to dig through this one. We paid our respects to Charlie Goodnight, we moved on toward Vernon, TX.
We weren’t doing too badly on time until we had another blowout on the trailer. This delay caused us to spend more time hunting for a tire place to purchase 3 new tires.

We ended up somewhere in a little town on Old Route 66 for a delay of 2 hours while we took care of this little chore.

Got to Vernon, TX around 7 p.m. The kids and I finally were able to don swimsuits (the ONLY time on this trip) and cool off in the pool. That water felt sooooooo gooood!

After a dinner of frozen, smoked chicken and deli macaroni salad, we got our showers and hit the hay.