July 30, 2013 - Tuesday

We left Amarillo later than we wanted to, but the day turned out perfectly. The international American Quarter Horse Museum and Hall of Fame was our first stop. I won’t bore any of you with all the Quarter Horse facts we learned and brushed up on, but it was a pretty interesting place. Of course you had to want to learn about horses in order to enjoy it. The museum was bigger than we thought it would be and everything in the museum was very nicely done(all exhibits, interactives, plaques, timelines, etc.) The tour was self-guided and we had a lot of fun looking at everything in the museum. We did learn that the start of the Quarter Horse came from a few different horses all put together(in a sense) to make one outstanding QH. They were originally a mix of Arabian and mares known as the Chickasaw Indian Horse.  In case you didn’t know, the AQH gets its name from running a very quick quarter mile. “Mile” was dropped and they became American Quarter Horses. Fun facts on horses for the day—that’s all, I promise.

My trainer, Robyn, suggested we try eating at The Big Texan in Amarillo. It looked kinda cheesy but she’s never steered me wrong. :) We stopped in and it was awesome! The entire place was decorated like an old saloon and the servers were dressed accordingly. It looked nice the way it was decorated. They had a few things to keep you there for awhile. There was a laser gun area where you’d pick up a rifle or pistol and try to hit the targets. There was a HUGE rocking chair, a maze, a few other small entertainment pieces and a really nice gift shop. The lunch specials were 14.00 for different types of steak. I had prime rib and Chris had rib-eye, plus you get two sides and rolls-we thought it was a good deal. The reason I mention exactly what I got was because it was one of the best prime ribs I’ve ever had. The horseradish sauce and au jus made it scrumptious as well as the little bit of seasoning they used-mmmmm! We were so glad we stopped.

Our next stop was the barbed wire museum in MacLean, Texas. Sounds interesting, right? :) Well, it was actually pretty impressive. The museum was housed in an old bra factory which just looked like a big open shop that had been partitioned off for the museum. There was a tribute to Route 66 and The Dust Bowl, too. Apparently, there were over 350 patents for different types of barbed wire but only 50 were mass produced. Barbed wire really tamed the West since people cold now fence things in or out. You’ll see some of the cool things people have done with barbed wire and its uses below. We also drove by the “U Drop Inn” in Shamrock, Texas. This old place along 66 was what Ramone’s body shop was modeled after in cars, looks almost identical.

We traveled to the National Route 66 Museum in Oklahoma. We didn’t get there until 4:20 and they closed at 5, so we looked quickly and took pictures-it was also pretty awesome. The neat thing about this museum was that they created store fronts and a road to look like Rt.66. You couldn’t enter all the stores but they appeared to be completely finished on the inside, whether it was just a painting or a small store front with desks, cash registers and trinkets.

Chris was focused on eating some good BBQ for dinner tonight. The place with the best reviews in Oklahoma City was The Iron Starr. It was a newly redone restaurant made to look industrial but had a classy feel. The prices were reasonable and the 24 hour dry rubbed, smoked ribs were tasty!

We were only 20 minutes from the Oklahoma City, KOA, so we got there quickly after dinner. This is the first state we noticed significant humidity-felt like home. I should have taken a picture of our site. We got there after hours(8:30 PM) so they left our information on the bulletin board for us-KOAs are great for this reason! However, they called our site B-16 but on the campground map it appeared to be where a maintenance building sat and there was no campsite number. Well, it was where a small shed with electrical/media equipment was and we had about ½ of an actual site. We really didn’t want to unhook from the tahoe since we planned to leave the next morning. Luckily I have Chris, a very talented truck/trailer operator. He showed them. Chris was able to back in and basically just about jack-knife the tahoe and camper so we were off the road and still hooked up :-) I never could have done this(intentionally) so I’m thankful for Chris! Our site had no fire pit, and we couldn’t buy any wood since we got there late, so Chris agreed to watch The Hobbit with me.  He wasn’t left with much of a choice since we couldn’t do a whole lot outside and I had the TV remote and we didn’t have a cable connection.

 

 

July 29, 2013 - Monday

Today we left Albuquerque and headed to Amarillo, Texas. It was only going to take about 4 hours of driving time to get there but there wasn’t a whole lot to see along the way. Chris and I did make a stop at “The Big Blue Hole” where an 80 ft. deep artesian well with crystal clear 61 degree water was formed. Scuba divers come here from all over the West to practice scuba diving.

We stopped at a little Mexican restaurant called La Cita along 66. There was a giant sombrero marking the entrance of the restaurant. We have now eaten at 4 different places on 66 which is pretty cool for us. When we got into Texas and closer to Amarillo, the ground became extremely flat. I understand how it is so easy for tornados to touch down here. We stopped at a Western wear place and headed to our campground. All along 40, there were signs for a “free 72 oz. steak” at The Big Texan. There was even an old limo with horns on the hood that would pick you up at the campground and take you to dinner.

Since we have been so busy, we decided to hang out by the pool at the KOA in Amarillo and make dinner at our site. The pool was the perfect temperature and the weather was hot but beautiful with a constant wind. It was windy the entire night. The wind was sort of creepy. Although it was sunny in Amarillo, the wind was the kind of wind we get in PA before a strong thunderstorm. I’m not sure if it’s always like this, but it was definitely unusual to us. We stayed up until midnight drinking Lone Star beer(the national beer of Texas) and watching the heat lightning in the distance.

 

 

July 28, 2013 - Sunday

We left the Williams KOA and headed east. Chris reserved a site in the Albuquerque KOA for us tonight and there were a few stops we wanted to make along the way. Route 66 was our general route. Since a lot of 66 has been demolished and 40 became the major interstate, we took 40 and got off anywhere we saw a “Historic Route 66” sign. We stopped to see the Meteor Crater and read about how it was formed. The hole left in the ground was pretty impressive. There were many neat towns with cheesy route 66 gift shops and neon signs. One town had wig-wams you could rent out to sleep in, too.  Of course we had to stop and stand on the corner in Winslow, Arizona. :-)

The Petrified Forest National Park was our first big stop. What happened to the trees was an interesting process but the park itself was kind of drab. I mean, how long can you look at a rock? I can’t remember exactly how many, but years and years ago these trees were covered in silt and rocky material and over time(thousands of years) the rock infiltrated the tree and basically left a rock tree and there is no wood left but it still has the shape of a tree. When it’s polished, it’s really pretty and you can still see the rings in some of the trees. We saw The Painted Desert after visiting The Petrified Forest. The desert was really pretty with all different colors streaking through the rock. In order to make up time, we did not stop at this visitor center, since we could drive right through the park and see everything. We also passed through an interesting thunderstorm. It’s different out here because oftentimes you can see where the storm starts and where it stops. We watched the storm move across New Mexico miles before we actually went through it.

Right before we got to Albuquerque, we stopped at a Mexican/Indian store that was highly advertised on billboards along 40. There were actually a lot of Mexican and Native American gifts in the shop, and surprised us with all the neat things they had.

We arrived in Albuquerque after eating New Mexican cuisine at Sadie’s in old city Albuquerque. Everything was spicy and we did not realize until after that New Mexico serves an interesting mix of regional food that is almost always served with red or green chili peppers-now it all makes sense. We love spicy, but it got to be a lot after several bites of spice. The servings were huge and neither of us finished ½ of our meals. I was happy to try food here and experience a completely different taste with influences from Native American, cowboy chuckwagon, Spanish, Mexican and Mediterranean.

When we got to the KOA we left everything hooked up and went to bed so we did not have to hook everything back up tomorrow.