Neon Lights, Tornado Warnings, & Cadillacs on Route 66 in NM, TX, and OK

In my last article, I told the tale of having a blowout that almost ended the trip. With some help from an RV tech, five new tires, and some DIY repair, we were hoping to leave all of that kind of excitement behind us! And, for a couple of days, we did.

Leaving Albuquerque with a refreshed RV, things were great. The new tires had much stiffer sidewalls than the old ones. Not only did this give us improved stability and range, but it also meant that stabilizers were a lot less important. At truck stops, we were able to just stop and go to bed without any extra work after a long day.

I’ve been to Clines Corners before, usually on trips from Santa Fe to Ruidoso back when I was traveling the state doing drone work. This time, I was there with a different set of lenses on. Instead of seeing the place as a truck stop and a place to get a drink, I noticed that it had some traditional Route 66 architecture, even if some of it was an obvious reproduction meant to keep the character of the place alive. We picked up a fridge magnet, some other trinkets, and some food for the camper.

Our next stop was Santa Rosa, but not to charge, I wanted to take a quick look at the cenotes (deep sinkholes filled with water), including the Blue Hole. My son ended up getting some toy swords that we ended up hitting each other with the whole rest of the trip. The local Dollar General was also kind enough to let us discard some of the wreckage from our blowout that the tire shop didn’t let us put in their dumpster. We passed by a Route 66-themed motel that we had stayed at in 2024 during our night as climate refugees.

I had been through Tucumcari a number of times before, but just as with Clines Corners, I was looking at the road through a different lens. Instead of sticking to the interstate or US-54 like I had on previous trips, I gave the old Main Street a better look. Not only was there the famous Blue Swallow Motel, but a number of other restored hotels with a classic car or two out front. A number of businesses were obviously in different stages of rehabilitation and rebuilding. Tucumcari has some real potential to be one of the most amazing Route 66 towns on the map.

One thing is for sure, though: Tucumcari is ready for the second hundred years of Route 66. There are several EV charging stations in town, including an iONNA station on the back of a classic motel, a pull-thru station at the Flying J truck stop, an Electrify America, and Francis Energy at an Allsup’s (with those delicious little fried burritos). We ended up choosing the iONNA station this time so we could walk up and down the main street while we charged, and we stayed the night at the Flying J in our travel trailer.

Our next stop in the morning was the mostly abandoned classic Route 66 town of Glenrio. At this place, we checked out some ruins of a motel and cafe, just over the state line in Texas, and a stone’s throw from a pot shop on the New Mexico side. We saw the remnants of a kitchen, the lobby, and a “motor court” layout. It looked like someone had attempted to restore part of it in more recent years, only to abandon it again. Strangely, there was an active utility connection to the place.

It was an extremely windy day, and our next stop on the Caprock was Cadillac Ranch. Here, some old Cadillacs are buried partially in the ground, and anyone is welcome to paint on them. The ranch sells paint, T-shirts, and other supplies, but no food. We quickly found that people were in the habit of sharing and passing paint around. The layers of paint were so thick as to completely obscure the original shape of the cars! We didn’t stay long, but I did manage to do a good deed and paint over some swastikas that some idiots had left on the cars.

Amarillo was kind of a rough place to get a charge with a trailer. The Flying J had a non-pull-thru station, and it was laid out in such a way as to be difficult with a trailer. We stopped across the street at a Supercharger in a Bucc-ee’s parking lot, but found that Tesla owners are in the habit of social distancing, parking every 6th or 7th stall to avoid being too close to each other, like men at urinals. We had to wait a few for one of them to leave to get in sideways and charge without blocking anyone in.

The next notable place we stopped was Shamrock. I spent some time here in both 2024 and 2025 on previous trips. When we passed through in 2024, we had a Bolt EUV pulling a trailer that really could have used a charge, but alas, there were no stations between Oklahoma and Amarillo at that time and the Supercharger wasn’t open to our vehicle at the time. This time, we had plenty of charge to get well into Oklahoma and were just there to see the old art deco service station again. If you ever stop in, there’s a nice steak house across the street that we tried in 2025.

The next cool thing we saw was a repurposed wind turbine blade in Weatherford, Oklahoma. Weatherford is a great place to see the Stafford aerospace museum (we stopped in there last year). It was nice to see that even in smaller towns in a red state, people are starting to get proud of wind power and don’t seem to think it causes cancer. There will come a time that clean energy is completely depoliticized and people just see it as another source of power.

Our goal for that night was to continue on to Oklahoma City and stop at a truck stop. We did that, but not long after leaving Weatherford, we encountered some tornado-producing storms.

The good? Our heavy Silverado EV was really planted. Even in severe crosswinds, we were stable, even if the truck was shaking a bit and causing some nausea in the passengers. Even the most severe gusts couldn’t create an unsafe condition for this truck. It was like riding on rails.

The bad thing was that all of the unexpected and shifting winds were eating majorly into our truck’s range. I had planned to arrive in OKC with 15%, but I saw my range dropping faster than the miles left on the map. So, I started slowing down, hypermiling, coasting downhills, and getting passed by a lot of semi-trucks. I rolled into our planned charging stop with 4% charge and the truck cutting our power back, but with a few miles to spare.

After this, I decided to change up my route planning a bit. Instead of keeping 10-15% reserve, I started having A Better Route Planner aim for a 20% arrival charge. The Silverado EV still gets its full charging speed at that percentage, and if I were to again run into unexpected storms or other winds, I’d still likely arrive with 10%. If something worse happened, I’d still get to the next station.

In the next article, we’re going to head across Oklahoma, hit a corner of Kansas, and stop in Missouri.  Be sure to subscribe for updates!