It is sad. Guymon, OK was always our little oasis and we'd stop there for the night before our push to Albuquerque. It's not a big town but all the essentials are there. There's a whole lot of nothing between Kansas City and Guymon, mostly abandoned towns or towns barely hanging on. There's even less between Guymon and Albuquerque.

I remember in the 70's when so many of those little mom & pop roadside restaurants, stores, and attractions were still around. There were tons of smaller "motels" too. Most of them were already fading into history by the end of the 80's. I never thought about it before but the advent of more reliable cars with higher MPGs probably contributed a lot to the demise of those small, remote towns.