Western States 2012 - Day 7

June 11, 2012

Today was a “traveling day”, meaning we unhooked the water, electric, and sewer at the campground and headed out for a drive in excess of 250 miles to the next location. We went from Oklahoma City to Amarillo.

We left Oklahoma City early. It wasn’t long before we were traveling through dry, flat, arid country. Everything is built low to the ground out here so it almost gives the appearance that the buildings are trying to hide from view—few trees, scrub brush, little grass. What trees there are show evidence of almost constant wind from the south.

Since Byron does the driving while Martha works (and are we ever grateful for internet access via mobil broadband connectivity), he listens to public radio from Louisville through an iPhone application. This way he doesn't miss portions of NPR News, The Diane Rehm Show, or Fresh Air, the programming he finds interesting. And, since he’s listening to a Louisville station he is able to keep up with some of the news there.

Picnic shelter at a rest stop west of Amarillo.

When we’re stopped for a rest break one of us has to take Julie and Redford on a walk so they can stretch and rest, too.

While in Oklahoma City, we heard of the steak house in Amarillo called The Big Texan. The gimmick for this place is that if you can eat a 72 ounce sirloin with a baked potato, salad, three shrimp, and a roll in one hour, you get the meal free. By the way, the price of the meal is $72 and must be paid for before you eat it. After seeing several billboards of advertisement, we decided maybe we should check it out. After all, we were provided free limo service from our KOA to and from the restaurant. The limos were rather dated, but adequate.

Byron nor I either were enticed by the looks of the meal on display at the restaurant and opted for a 21 ounce center cut sirloin for two. We figured it would be a lot of hype with tolerable food at best. Our steak arrived in one, large slab slit in the middle enough so it could be folded over on the plate, swimming in a pool of steak juice. We were, actually, quite surprised that the steak was well cooked and good to eat. The salad was fresh, too. Quite a feat for a restaurant that handles about 300 occupants at one time.

 Inside Big Texan they have some photo areas and a lot of things for tourists to do, like look for junk.

Everything in Texas is big, of course. Here we are waiting for the limo ride back to the KOA.