Here we are, on the road: We’re in Amarillo, TX

June 1, 2013 Lorraine’s Report

Hello once again from Amarillo, TX. We are in a small, Passport America location, east of Amarillo, and it is pretty well nothing to write home about. But we do have 50 amps, water and sewer. So no complaining from me.

Well, we are slowly making our way East, and Sunday, we will make our way into Oklahoma. That is why I'm writing this afternoon. Yes, we are heading into that storm bound area and I just don't know what to expect. We are hoping to see one of Chuck's co-worker’s, Dan Jackson from when he and Chuck hired on at Atlantic Richfield which became BP in later years, both hired on the same day. Dan lives near Oklahoma City and hopes we stop by to see him. It is pretty scary to me, especially since I have never been in that kind of storm. Let's hope we get through this all okay.

Last Sunday we went to Albuquerque, NM. We enjoyed the stay while in Albuquerque, and I know Chuck really liked the area, he has wanted to tour this area for a long time. We toured the town and came across a man who was selling Native American art; he invited us out the next day to one of the tribal Pow Wow's about an hour away from Albuquerque.

Of course we had to head out there on Monday. It was a nice drive and we enjoyed the Pow Wow. It had the drumming, dancing and all your arts and crafts.

Afterwards, Chuck took us to the 66 Casino. We enjoyed the buffet which was $6.66 each. Not sure if we were up or down, but had enjoyed the day.

Tuesday found us going to a different park in Albuquerque It was on the east side, We set up and went exploring some more. I suggested that since there aren't too many Costco's left in the area, that we get another new GPS. Chuck agreed, and we got a new one, seems to be working okay. I don't know why they go south, but they most definitely do. The gal kept saying "recalculating, recalculating, recalculating”, over and over again; time for a new one.

Afterwards, we went over to Sandia Casino and enjoyed ourselves. Both of us were up for the day.

Next day I had laundry and we had gotten our mail, so that was the order of the day. We had a quiet evening home, resting etc.

Thursday found us touring, running errands and then Chuck took us over to another Casino-the Hard Rock Casino. We both ended up with more money that we went in with. After more running’s, we walked into the mall and I got another migraine. As I said before, I'm tired of all the headaches, and I wish they would go away. They really wear me out.

Friday we got on the road by ten am, and hit Amarillo, TX , pulling into Amarillo by 2:30 after loosing one hours time. We had been watching all the numerous bill boards on the road, and one that caught our eye was the 72 ounce, the Big Texan. If you can eat it with their salad, baked potato and the meat, then it is free. We had to go there, and one man took the challenge. Of course, he wasn't successful, but it was nice to see.

Today we went down to the Palo Duro canyon. While it is not the Grand Canyon, it was another sight to see. It was enjoyable to me and the area is pretty.

So that is it for me. See you down the road.

Lorraine

6/1/13 Chuck’s report

Yep, we are back in the Great State of Texas once again, this time up in the panhandle, first time we’ve been up here. We are planning on tomorrow (Sunday) being a travel day so wanted to get the blog written and posted today. With all the tornadoes the last two weeks, we didn’t want folks to think we didn’t post on Sunday because we were in one. We haven’t seen any on our trips so far although we have had a couple of storm threats that made us evacuate to a storm shelter. Most of the campgrounds here in the Mid-West have a storm shelter and we try to discuss with the folks at the front desk about where/when and such when we check-in, just in case.

Last Sunday we were in Albuquerque and made a short tour of the town. We found the town easy to navigate and only ran into heavy traffic during one of our trips into town. Someone told us they don’t have regular heavy traffic like most big cities but I must say I’ve never seen so many people make two/three lane changes on the freeway like here.

We stopped by the Native Cultural Center in the afternoon and found we had just missed the Native Pow Wow they had going on during Memorial weekend. But one of the venders who was putting his stuff away told us about one scheduled on Monday a few miles out of town. We were able to find out some information about the tribes in the area, seems they are made up of 19 separate Pueblos or tribes. The Pow Wow was going to be held at one of them.

Monday we headed out to the Pow Wow, about an hour’s drive North of town. We’ve been to lots of Pow Wows since we’ve been on the road and this one was small and low keyed. In fact, most of the dancers and drummers didn’t even dress up in their regalia. But we walked through the different vendor tents and watched a couple of the dances anyway. We also toured the area a bit, interesting to see the actual Pueblo and the way they live. They asked for no pictures to be taken so can’t show what we saw, however.

Later we stopped by one of the casinos in the area, Route 66. When we signed up for our player’s card, we got a scratch card to see how much free play we would get. Lorraine got $15, I got $25 in free play that we could use on most of the slot machines, good deal. In fact, I actually left with some of their money and Lorraine was only down a couple of dollars.

The park we were staying at on the West side of town would only allow us to stay there for two nights using our Passport America half price discount. But there was another park just to the East that accepted PPA so we headed there on Tuesday morning. This park is more of an overnight or permanent type park, no amenities like swimming pool or such but for what we needed, it was just fine. Plus they accept PPA for up to a week, we only wanted to stay for three days so that fit our needs too.

We also had our mail forwarded to this park but when we checked in they didn’t have it, only a note from the postman saying we had to pick it up at the post office. As this was in a small town, that was no problem so we got our mail. We continued on into ABQ for more touring and Lorraine suggested we go to Costco to exchange our GPS that had been acting up. Once again, Costco was very good about returning something, no problem. The new one has been working ok but once again we lost all the saved spots we had, oh well. Too bad they aren’t like a contact list on a phone where they can be saved or added to a new device, maybe someday.

After our Costco stop and tour through a new section of town, we stopped off once again at a new-to-us casino, Sandia, where once again we got free play by signing up for a player’s card. This is a big place, lots of machines and table games just waiting to take your money. But this time both Lorraine and I both managed to leave with some of their money.

Thursday we headed back into ABQ once again, this time to check out Old Town. I wasn’t sure what to expect but it ended up being lots of shops full of jewelry, Indian made stuff like blankets and such plus, of course, the typical touristy trap junk. Lorraine did manage to find some things she wanted to get while I just walked around and looked. We later stopped by a Mall because Lorraine needed to check out some things there too.

Once again, for the third time in ABQ, we found a new-to-us casino, Hard Rock, and decided to see about free play there too. And once again, both of us left with some of their money. ABQ casinos were kind to us but then again we didn’t stay in any of them too long. And I was able to tour and see ABQ, something I’ve been wanting to do since I was in the service back in ‘69. I think we will need to return here again, maybe for a longer time next time.

Friday we packed up and headed East once again, this time with Amarillo as our destination. We ran into some mid-range winds but this time it was hitting us from behind so we actually had pretty decent mileage, ha. I don’t understand why but most of the time we are driving in the wind, it seems always be a headwind.

Our park is just a few miles to the East of town and once again, it doesn’t have any amenities but that’s just fine with us. Our PPA membership is working out for us on this trip so far and the price of fuel has been less the further East we go. I don’t expect that to continue once we start to head North however but we do like the lower prices although they are still way more than we “budgeted” when we started on the road 6 years ago.

Once we got set up, I mopped the floors and washed the bugs off the front while Lorraine did her normal tasks. We lost an hour as we drove into Texas so it wasn’t long before we headed back into town for dinner. Now what should someone have for dinner in Texas except for a steak?

We had heard of, saw lots of roadside ads and even seen on TV the Big Texan Steakhouse of Amarillo and wanted to try it. This place has been on food shows and such and is the one that has the “free” 72 oz. steak. All you have to do is sit on a raised table, pay for it first ($72) then eat the steak, potato, salad, shrimp cocktail and a loaf of bread in less than an hour. If you manage to do this, without leaving the table or getting sick, they give you back your money and a tee-shirt saying you’ve completed the challenge. They said about one in 10 who try it complete it. The fastest anyone ate the whole thing was under 10 minutes but this was the world champion hot dog eater. They said one guy actually finished two meals in under an hour, wow.

But neither Lorraine or I wanted to try it so we just ordered a “normal” meal. While we were there a guy decided to try the “free steak challenge” but he was unable to complete the huge meal. He did good until he ate the potato and bread, that pretty much stopped him. Although we both enjoyed our meal, it wasn’t anywhere the best steak we’ve had. But I would go back next time we are in town, maybe.

After our dinner, we headed a few miles out of town to the West to visit “Cadillac Ranch”, a place where some rancher half buried 10 Cadillacs in the middle of a field with lots of Black Angus cows around. You have to watch where you step to get to the cars for sure. People have been spray painting these cars for years, in some places you can see how thick the paint actually is on these cars. There must have been 200 empty paint spray cans laying around the cars too. Can’t say it was one of the highlights of our trips but it was something we wanted to check off our bucket list.

This morning we headed out to see the second biggest canyon in the continental US, Palo Duro Canyon State Park. We had just been to the South Rim of the Grand Canyon a couple of weeks ago and could really compare the two. The Grand Canyon is GRAND while this one is a big hole in the ground. This one has a paved road so you can drive down and through the canyon unlike the Grand Canyon where you have to walk, ride a mule or fly to get to the bottom. The Grand Canyon has lots more color to see from the vantage points too, although this one has some color too. This is a very nice canyon but if you have the chance, I would recommend seeing this one first, then go to the Grand.

After our visit to Palo Duro we had to make a few stops before we got back to the coach. We talked about what to have for dinner and after checking on line, we settled for Hoffbrau Steak house. This is a privately owned place, they have 5 in the state they said. They don’t have the atmosphere of Big Texan but our meal was just as good. So two nights in Texas and we had steak for dinner each night. I’m liking Texas!

The weather was really nice while we were in ABQ. When we were on the West side, the temperatures got into the high 80s and dropped to the high 50s at night. The place on the East side was in the Sandia mountains so it wasn’t as warm and cooled off at night a bit more too. We did get some winds that came up almost every night but nothing too bad.

Here in Amarillo the temperature was in the mid 90s yesterday and it only cooled off to the mid 60s last night. However the wind picked up just about sunset and we finally had to bring in the slides due to the wind. But at least it was a straight wind, not like the tornados they’ve had across the US in the last couple of weeks. I believe this was the fourth time we’ve had to bring in the slides due to winds, not too bad in 6 years.

We were only planning to stay here one night and travel to Oklahoma City today. But that area got hit with some more tornados yesterday and a friend of mine. Dan, who lives nearby suggested we not head in there today. So now our plans are to head there tomorrow, actually we plan on staying nearby in Shawnee, Ok. for three days. We then will travel a few miles NE to visit with Dan for a couple of days too. Here’s hoping the bad weather has passed for that area, they’ve sure been hit hard with the last two storms.

Last week’s blog was pretty heavy with pictures but I don’t think I will have near that many this to add this week. We have seen a lot of different places this week but the scenery hasn’t been as spectacular as where we were last week. So I’ll go through them and add some then get this posted.

Native Cultural Center in Albuquerque.