Day 19: Amarillo to San Antonio — A Coin, a Cadillac, the Women Who Flew, and the Alamo

2026 Rally4Vets America Grand Tour

This was a Texas day in every sense — wide open road, big sky, and a string of stops that ran from a Legion post at dawn to the Alamo at dusk. Solo behind the wheel again, I pointed the WRX south and let the day fill up the way the best ones do.

Starting Where It Matters — American Legion Post 54

First stop, before the highway opened up: American Legion Hanson Post 54 right here in Amarillo. I pulled the Rally4Vets car into the lot, walked in, and did the thing this whole tour is built around — left behind a challenge coin, a patch, and information about our service dog program.

There’s something about handing over a challenge coin to a fellow vet that ordinary words don’t quite reach. It’s a small piece of metal that says the same thing every time: you’re seen, you’re remembered, and you’re not in this alone. The service dog program information is the part I always hope plants a seed.  These dogs change lives, and every post that knows about them is step toward a dog for a veteran who needs one.

Cadillac Ranch — A Decal Among the Paint

You can’t drive Route 66 country and roll past Cadillac Ranch — and after all the talk of it on Day 18, I finally got my boots in the dirt. Ten Cadillacs buried nose-down in a Texas field, planted at the same angle as the Great Pyramid, and absolutely drowning under decades of spray paint. It’s loud, it’s chaotic, and it is wonderful.

I added our small contribution to the madness: a Rally4Vets decal pressed onto one of the painted hulks, layered in among thousands of other marks people have left out there. A little piece of the mission, sitting in the color and the dust for whoever wanders up next. The West Texas sun was doing its big golden thing overhead, and standing among those battered, beautiful cars, you can’t help but grin like a kid.

The National WASP WWII Museum — Sweetwater

From Amarillo I pointed the nose south to Sweetwater and the National WASP WWII Museum at Avenger Field — and I’ll just say it plainly: this place is extraordinary.

The WASP — Women Airforce Service Pilots — were the young women who stepped up in 1942 to fly military aircraft so that male pilots could be freed for combat. They ferried planes, towed targets for live gunnery practice, and flew very nearly every aircraft in the Army Air Forces inventory. Avenger Field, where I stood today, is the very place they trained. They came from every kind of background — housewives, teachers, students, secretaries — and went to work as mechanics, factory workers, and pilots, breaking a glass ceiling most of the country hadn’t even admitted was there.

When the program was deactivated on December 20, 1944, these women were sent home without veteran’s benefits, and their records were sealed. For decades they couldn’t even prove what they’d done. It took until 1977 for the WASP to finally receive veteran status. They did the work and then had to fight for years just to be recognized for it.

For a journey built around honoring those who served, walking through that museum felt like exactly the right place to be standing. These women broke the barrier decades before the rest of the country was ready to admit the barrier existed — and the ones who came after, flying faster, farther, and finally into combat in 1993, were following a trail the WASP cut first. If you are anywhere near Sweetwater, go. It’s a quiet hangar full of giants.

The Alamo at Dusk — San Antonio

A long push south brought me into San Antonio just as the light went gold, and I closed the day at the Alamo. Even at dusk — with the old mission lit up and the city towers rising behind it — the place holds its hush. The James Bowie statue standing watch, the wall, and that line carved large: “The salvation of Texas depends in great measure in keeping Béjar out of the hands of the enemy.” A string-lit live oak threw warm light across the limestone, and even amid the evening crowd, you could feel the weight of the ground you were standing on.

From a Legion post in Amarillo, to forgotten women aviators in Sweetwater, to a 19th-century mission in San Antonio, Day 19 was a reminder of how many shapes service and sacrifice take, and how much of it goes unremembered until somebody decides to stop, stand still, and honor it. That’s the whole point of this trip.

Looking Ahead

San Antonio tonight, and the road keeps bending east toward Florida and, eventually, Washington, DC. More posts, more coins, more miles of this big, generous country between here and there. But today gave me plenty to turn over behind the wheel — a Legion full of good people, a field of painted Cadillacs, and a hangar full of women who flew, were forgotten, and were finally remembered.

What a country. What a day.

The Rally4Vets 2026 America Grand Tour isn’t a road trip. It’s a moving act of remembrance; a celebration of the country and the people who created it.

Connect with the tour at www.rally4vets.com.

Follow the team in real time at: https://itl.ink/2026AmericaGrandTour

Donate to our current service dog in training: https://donorbox.org/2026-service-dog-program