Three Days in Amarillo

I woke up yesterday morning startled and alert. There was someone driving right by our rig! Why would someone be driving by our rig way out here? We are over ¼ mile off the road on private property in the middle of South Dakota. That is really how I woke up, it took me about 30 seconds to realize that we were not in the middle of a field in South Dakota, we were actually in an RV Park in Amarillo Texas. I know other RV’ers can appreciate the fact that you will often wake up and have to look outside to see and remember where you are. Those are the trials and tribulations of a FT RV’er!

We only spent three days in Amarillo but we packed them as full as we could! We had a list of adventures that we wanted to go on, the first of which was visiting the American Quarter Horse Hall of Fame. Over the years we have owned almost exclusively quarter horses. We did have a couple of learning experiences with Arabians and Thoroughbreds but the quarter horse was always the horse of choice at our place.

We didn’t know what to expect walking in. As we entered we saw two full walls of pictures of the hall of fame inductees; both human and horse. We only recognized one or two of the human inductees.  We recognized most of the horses and actually owned some from the bloodlines of many of them.

Two of our best horses were out of the Dash for Cash and Clabber bloodlines.

Barb wanted to take this guy home!

Then it was off to the RV Museum.

This was free and was actually very cool as some of the items displayed brought back memories from our childhood.

This bus was actually used in RV The Movie

It is said that no visit to Amarillo is complete without stopping by Cadillac Ranch. Frankly we were expecting a little more. We have seen pictures on many blogs. A row of Cadillacs buried in the dirt spray painted all sorts of crazy colors.

The Home Depot in Amarillo sells more cans of spray paint than any other in the country. Like all the other tourists we walked out there, spray painted our names on a car and took a selfie….

Then it was time for lunch, but where to go? A quick check of Diners Drive-ins and Dives said that the Coyote Bluff Café was the place to go. It was also rated #1 in Amarillo on YELP as well so how could we not go? Well when we pulled up to the outside of the café we were second guessing the decision.

But in we went…..

Barb got the Burger from Hell and me, I just got the boring Old Fashion Burger. Both were good. Barb’s was hot, in fact so hot she could not even taste the burger.

So how do you top all those adventures? Why you go see the Huge Pair of Legs Statue of course! According to Roadside America the statue was “Inspired by a similar set of big legs in the Egyptian desert, Stanley Marsh 3 (who commissioned the nearby Cadillac Ranch) paid a guy named Lightnin' McDuff to build the legs. A joke plaque claims that the rest of the body was destroyed by jealous football players from Lubbock.”

This is what we actually saw when we got there…….Barb did not even get out of the truck.

People have taken to spray painting the legs as well!

To top off the day we went to dinner at The Big Texan Restaurant.

Barb and the big cow (Barb is on the left)

The Big Texan is known as being the home of the “free” 72oz steak. That is if you can eat it and all the sides within 60 minutes.  When we were there two guys were seated at the raised table reserved for those who accept the challenge.

I had the Duke Cut Ribeye while Barb had the Palo Duro Prime Rib. Both were very good and well worth the price.

Of course Barb had to get a flight of beer!

As we were eating we kept an eye on the two gentlemen at the challenge table. Time went by 50 minutes, 40 minutes and they kept eating. As the clock hit 10 minutes and one of the guys got up from the table my curiosity got the better of me and I had to walk over and look. He had over ½ of his steak left while the other gentleman had ¼ left. As time expired neither of them were able to complete the challenge and left with several Styrofoam to-go containers.

Stuffed, exhausted and bloated we went home and directly to bed. This bring us full circle to the beginning of this post when I woke up in a panic.

Day 2 included only one adventure, the gun show was going on this weekend so how could we not go? We each bought ourselves an early Christmas present. I spent the afternoon organizing the belly while Barb spent most of her time inside the rig doing a deep cleaning of the kitchen and bathroom.

The next day we packed up and drove 30 minutes south to Palo Dura State Park. We have heard from several readers that this was a must visit when in the area. Known as the Grand Canyon of Texas we were skeptical as all we saw was flat land since entering the state. Even when we were with a mile of the park we did not see any “canyon” but once we got to the park it was evident how the park got this nickname.

We only spent one day here so we spent our time driving around and getting acclimated with the park. We were able to squeeze in one hike on Rock Garden Trail. Both the dogs and us are not used to ths warm weather (67 degrees)!

Bonus, the trails are dog friendly!

Cactus growing from a crack in the rock

Lots of cool rock formations

How did this rock get on its side?

We even found a geocache!

We stayed in site #85 I the Mesquite campground. Both 85 and 88 were nice sites that are big rig friendly. No cell or Wi-Fi service down here, you will have to drive back up to the entrance gate if you want to make a call. This park will definitely be on our route on future trips!

Site #85

We would have stayed longer but we have big plans for the week. Our friends Red and Pam are just a short 6 hours south so we are going to run down and see them. But wait, you thought we were hanging around this area so we could run back to South Dakota when our shed is delivered? Well, Barb made a few phone calls and was able to get it delay until we return in April so now we are free to travel as we wish. Look out central Texas, here we come!

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