"I rejoiced with those who said to me, 'Let us go to the house of the Lord.'”  Psalm 122:1

I went to church today with Mark and his family--Paramount Baptist Church in Amarillo. Ah, there's nothing quite like a good Texan Baptist church service--and I mean that with all sincerity!   I enjoyed the vibrant Christ-centered worship.   Their church has two worship services--one at 8:30 which is traditional and one at 11:00 which uses contemporary worship music.  We went to the contemporary service.   One thing that impressed me was that their church is very mission minded.  This church has many ministries in the Amarillo area as well as a pretty strong foreign mission support.

Me, Mark, Pam, Lee, and Lauren

After having a delicious lunch at another local restaurant -- Joe Tacos -- with the Ellis family, I said my goodbyes and headed east for Oklahoma City.  I am generally taking the old US Route 66, though not much of it exists. 

The land sure is flat!!  So it wasn't hard to see from a great distance, this 200 ft. steel cross along side the road at Groom, Texas.  They say you can see it for 20 miles.  Anyway, I pulled up to it and snapped some photos.  This cross is surrounded by smaller sculptures of the stations of the cross. 

As I was traveling through the little town of Shamrock, Texas on historic Route 66, I saw this restored old Concoco gas station.

 

 

A little later, I was in Oklahoma.  The panhandle of Texas does not take nearly as long to drive through as central Texas.

There is more of Route 66 preserved in Oklahoma than any other state.  But still, a lot of the former stops and attractions that used to line this road are abandoned and/or in ruins.  Kind of sad to see.  But this one was pretty cool--the Route 66 Museum in Elk City, OK.

 

 

 

It has been a beautiful day for drving.  Even though the landscape is still pretty flat, I can see some small changes in elevation in places!  I'm staying just west of Oklahoma City tonight.

 

In western Oklahoma, I drove through these huge wind farms with this gigantic electricity generating wind turbines as far as you could see.  This is a smart use of that "wind comes sweepin' o'er the plain"....  Someone should write a song about that!...