Cattle stink, lava , and more March 21, 2026

After almost 3 months away, we're heading home, 2252 miles and 8 states, driving 7-8 hour days, our stops are Albuquerque,  Oklahoma City,  St. Louis,  and Columbus, OH. Today could have been really boring, as we  passed through New Mexico, northern Texas, and western Oklahoma.  But it turned out to be both good and bad interesting.  

The bad? We encountered at least 6 objects on the road that Google warned us about. Of course when you have no idea where or what lane the object is in, it makes things interesting.  Most were large pieces of tire. There was a tandem instance when a large metal chunk was followed by a large pipe. At 80 mph (speed limit 75), that makes for a situation that begs for alert driving.

Somewhere around Amarillo, we passed a huge cattle stockyard with literally thousands of cattle. Before you see them, you smell them. I read that in this area there are dozens of feedlots, that hold Texas Panhandle’s massive, concentrated cattle-feeding industry. This area hosts nearly 2.5 million head in feedlots, with individual, large-scale feedyards often holding 20,000 to over 100,000 head at a time. The smell was so incredibly bad that I wondered how the paint on the car could hold up passing through. It took several miles for the stink to dissipate in the car.

The good: Along our way on I40, we passed the Leaning Tower of Texas, and discovered it has a pretty cool story: https://texashighways.com/travel/roadside-oddity-the-leaning-tower-of-texas-britten/

Extensive lava fields line the edges of I40 near Grant's, NM, part of the El Pais National Monument. 

The Peace Garden of All Faiths, ) is a unique, roadside attraction in Amarillo featuring plaques, memorials, and a large peace sign.  https://www.facebook.com/peacegardenoffaith

Not far from the Leaning Tower is the Cross of Our Lord Jesus Christ ( in Groom, TX) erected by the Ministries of the same name. It is a 190-foot-tall, 1,250-ton free-standing cross monument that can be seen from 20 miles away.

In addition to all this, we saw lots of scrub land, goats keeping brush down on the edge of the highway, motionless windmills, and some later that were moving, and places where semi trucks (sans trailers) were lined up in fields along the Interstate. 

It really was an interesting ride. Tomorrow we head to St. Louis.