Texas, Round 2

Destination: Amarillo

Cadillac Ranch

   Well folks, It was pointed out to me by my wife that I sound like I either hate a place, or I love it in this blog, and I am going to have to admit that it is probably accurate. However, as for Amarillo, I am going to say it was a town I liked, and neither did love or hate. For the most part I would say it was a town worth stopping in. 

   As for the park we stayed at, Fort Amarillo RV Park, we pretty much felt duped in the beginning, but like most places, you settle in by the second day and before you know it it is time to move.  Most of the amenities that the pak promised on the website were out of order, and looked like they had been out of order for a long time. I was disappointed that the hot tub was not working, nor did it look like it had been for a while, and the weirdly carpeted pool area sort of turned me off from having much to do with the wet room at all. I will also add that a good 80 percent of the exercise equipment either did not work, or worked so poorly that you would be risking injury using it. We made the best of it. It just seems that they put the money they make into the nice store they have in front, and have procrastinated fixing most of the out of order park, including the dog runs which were all taped off. 

    We were right behind a Gander Mountain, which was not our usual outdoor setting, but I was able to pick up a good pair of hiking boots made by Gander Mountain, and some of the staff members were exceptionally helpful. It is hard to find the right pair of hiking boots. For a few days I tried on several pair, all having pros and cons, weighing out style and practicality. Since I wear shoes out fast, I needed something comfortable with a tough sole and good arch support. The most stylish ones were lacking in those departments, but yet I did not want to look like a gore tex warrior in the ones that did have those qualities. Finally after three days of running the staff back and forth I found a halfway decent pair that doesn't look too bad and seems durable. I also found that Gander Mountain is a lot more reasonably priced that some of the other big outdoor stores. 

    We were two miles from a store called Natural Grocers, which was a blessing to find since we usually have no choice but do most of our grocery shopping at Walmart. I was also surprised at how reasonable there prices were for a small, independent store. I would also say almost everything in there was organic, and priced the same as what is conventional for most things. I went to this place daily.

   Another place I went to frequently that was responsible for me not losing weight this week was Frank's Bakery. If you are ever in Amarillo, bring lots of cash with you as they do not accept credit card, buy one of everything without thinking, and don't look back. We have found that it is impossible these days to find a good loaf of bread in a lot of towns, let alone good pastries. The bread from grocery stores has a billion ingredients, half of which you would have to be a chemist to understand what it is or what it does to your body. I have made lots of bread in my life, and have found that you can make a good loaf of bread with just flour, yeast, water,a little salt, and lots of love. Frank's hands down competed, if not beat most bakeries I had been to when I stayed in Italy for a few months. They were tied with a couple of the bakeries in Sicily. Since they are from France they seem to take the quality seriously, but they did not do anything extraordinarily fancy. The bread was crusty on the outside and soft on the inside just how you want it with the slight taste of fermentation that comes from the dough rising at the right temperatures for the right amount of time. The pastries were made with a light and flakey croissant dough that felt like a cloud escaped the sky and landed in your mouth. The fillings were made with real fruit, not some sweet, gelled stuff from a can. Although Hana gained absolutely no weight, I am pretty sure even with all of the exercise that I may have only put on a couple of pounds. 

The Big Texan Steak House

The most well known restaurant in Amarillo is the The Big Texan, where you can sit on a stage and eat a 72 oz steak for free as long as you finish it, along with the added salad, a baked potato, and 3 fried shrimp. If there was ever a restaurant that encouraged unbridled gluttony I would have to vote the Big Texan hands down, not only because the portions are the size of Texas itself, but also the fact that everything in there is homemade and tastes so good you can't stop eating. No funky franchise flavored cardboard here folks. Real potato salad, cowboy beans, dressings, bbq sauce and much, much more made from scratch. We have all heard a mother, grandmother, or aunt say "save room for desert" many times in our lives. My advise to you is to go for the desert because it is all good. They even make their own fudge, cookies, and brownies. For the first half of the week I contemplated having my fifteen minutes of fame Cool Hand Luke style up there on that stage below the giant Longhorn Skull with glowing eyes, but I am not sure what I feared more, the discomfort of what it would do to my digestive track, or the anger of Hana when we had to pay 72 dollars for a steak I couldn't finish. That's the gamble, a dollar an ounce. Somewhere around 55,000 have attempted this feat, and only in the ballpark of 9,000 have been successful. Nonetheless, I say by all means do not overlook this place because it looks like a tourist trap. The bbq sauce was so good, I left wishing I could get a big tub of it so I could put it on everything, including ice cream. 

Palo Duro Canyon State Park

As for the outdoors we discovered the Palo Duro Canyon, which takes second place in size to the Grand Canyon. We had a good hike around the park through the trails, and fortunately did not see any snakes, although we did hear one in the brush. It was great to get out into some beautiful scenery after spending most of the week camped next to a busy highway. Maya was a trooper and stuck out the six mile hike we went on, and she got a well deserved bath in the river after. Today she was so worn out she just slept. She has been seeming like she doesn't want to walk too much most days lately. We even took turns to pick her up and carry her on one walk. As she is getting up there in age we are contemplating getting her a dog stroller so she doesn't have to be left out on long walks.

  Overall folks here in Amarillo have been pretty nice. I would say it is worth a few days here if you like to take your time with activities, and need a town to do some shopping in. 

  Since we are six months into the journey I will have a post coming soon summarizing some things we have learned along the way about living and traveling in an rv, what we like and don't like as far as where we have camped, along with some of what we have learned about ourselves. I have to say to any rv people contemplating doing this, not to over think it and just go for it, but don't have overly high expectations. Life isn't a bowl of cherries every day no matter what you are doing or where you are going in this mortal life, so I am not going to say everyday is "living the dream" to quote the overused phrase. It is just living life, but seeing a lot of beautiful places and making a few friends you would not have made otherwise along the way. Hana and I both agree that we don't want to go back to conventional life anytime soon. Speaking for Frankie and Maya, I would say they don't want to anytime soon either.

-James

The Jack Sisemore Traveland RV Museum. An awesome museum we visited, full of vintage RVs and campers that were restored by the Traveland crew. The camper I'm standing in front of was purchased from an 85 year old lady at a gas station, and took 2 years to completely strip and renovate. The process is documented in a photo album, all of which I found very interesting!

Happy Max RV, featured in the movie "RV" with Robin Williams. Beautiful!

I keep checking and re-checking the weather forecast in Taos, hoping it will change. It looks like we're in for several freezing or below freezing nights next week. (How is it colder in New Mexico than Michigan btw!?!) We are also heading into another time zone, which means I'll be waking up bright and early at 5am for work on Eastern time :'( . Yay!

-Hana