Shamrock, TX

Our next stop was in Shamrock, TX. On a working cattle ranch. In the middle of nowhere. Mom said it was not only peaceful, but extremely interesting. They have about 750 "mama" cows, and 30 or 35 bulls, the man couldn't remember exactly. I suppose when you get that many it's hard to keep track. The cows are separated into separate pastures with whatever bull they want them bred to. While we were there some cowboys were supposed to come in with their horses and separate the calves from their moms so they could be vaccinated, tagged and eventually shipped off to finishing lots to mature for market. But the night before they were supposed to arrive some cows broke through a fence and the cowboys had to arrive in the wee hours of the morning to herd them back in. We didn't get to see them work.

Since Mom couldn't get a picture of the cowboys, she wanted me to include a picture of the cow without the boy. RITGL (rolling in the grass laughing).

Apparently these cowboys are day laborers who travel to various ranches with their horses to accomplish whatever tasks need to be done at that time. Then on to the next ranch.

The ranch owns about 25 acres, but leases surrounding land about a mile in all directions, and some in other areas as well. We learned that the green fields are planted with wheat that the cows will soon graze on, but currently they're on fields of brown prairie grass. There are acres and acres of hay, sorghum, alfalfa and wheat baled in long tubes for feed this winter, and to supplement when the pastures have been grazed down.

There are acres and acres of these feed tubes

There was lots of equipment from tractors to balers to equipment to make compost and liquid fertilizer from all the manure. As you can imagine there's lots of it to work from! One tractor had a tire that was over 6' tall.

The back tire is over 6' high.

You can see how much taller the tire is than mom!

Road less traveled

Images of Shamrock, TX and other places along Route 66 were used in the movie "Cars". The rocks in the background were inspired by Cadillac Ranch from nearby Amarillo, TX, which are old cars with their front ends buried in the ground. Ramone's body-art shop in the film is directly inspired by the U-Drop Inn, a restored Art Deco gasoline station and restaurant complex in Shamrock, which now serves as a tourism and chamber of commerce office.

If you'd like to know more about inspirations for the movie, check out this link. https://www.route66news.com/2006/06/09/a-route-66-guide-to-cars-movie/

As we left Shamrock we headed west to Placitas. NM, which is about 1/2 hour north of Albuquerque. We'll be taking a right there, not a left.

--Sammy