Texas

A Rainy Night In Amarillo

It started raining just about the time we finished setting up the trailer. We had already talked about going out to dinner tonight because we have been eating at home every night since we left Alabama. We had been seeing the signs on the highway for The Big Texan Steak Ranch, and that was where we wanted to go.

DSCN3343 — The Big Texan Steak Ranch in Amarillo

They advertise a FREE 72 oz top sirloin steak dinner–IF you can eat it all in one hour. Not just the steak–you also get a salad, three shrimps, and a dinner roll. If you don’t get it all down in an hour, it costs you $72. We had no plans to try for the free dinner, but geez, can you imagine eating four and a half pounds of meat at one sitting? Apparently, there are more than 7,000 people who have done it over the years since 1965.

DSCN3340 — The clock is ticking down the hour! Did he eat it all or not???

Darren, a young guy from Annaheim, California, came in and ordered the 72 ounce steak while we were there.Now, when you order the 72 ounce steak, they seat you at table on a stage, and when the dinner is served, they start the clock counting down one hour. I took some pictures and left him one of my cards, so I hope he emails me to let me know if he did it or not.

DSCN3334 — Darren from Annahiem digging in. Look at the size of that steak!

My dinner was a 12 ounce rib eye. It was quite delicious, but still, I can’t even imagine eating six of them at one time. I didn’t even eat all of the one I got–I brought some of it home.

DSCN3330 — 12 oz rib eye with sauteed mushrooms and minced garlic.

It came with a Texas Beefsteak tomato salad and a baked potato. FabGrandpa got the top sirloin. He brought some of his home, too.

DSCN3327 — Beefsteak Tomato and Red Onion Salad

Most of the time when we go out to eat, we don’t get dessert. But tonight, we splurged. I had a Texas Chocolate Sunday. FabGrandpa had the Black Forest Cake with Cherries. Mmmm, delish!

DSCN3337 — FabGrandpa enjoying his Black Forest Cake.

0 Shares

Wichita Falls RV Park in Wichita Falls, Texas

Karen · 7 Comments

At least we waited til after the sun came up to leave Tucumcari. We saw lots of windmills and wind turbines in New Mexico. The old fashioned windmills pump water for the many cows and other agricultural uses:

And the modern wind turbines produce electricity. If you click the photo below to enlarge it you may be able to see the turbines on the ridge across this field. I counted at least 60 of them over there. They are HUGE! A sign we saw says that each one produces 1.5 megawatts of electricity. I don’t know exactly how much that is but it must be a lot.

Ok, so I looked it up for us all to know. From this website: Oregon Power Solutions:

“…How many homes can one megawatt of wind energy supply?
An average U.S. household uses about 10,000 kilowatt-hours (kWh) of electricity each year. A one-megawatt wind turbine can generate between 2.4 million and 4 million kWh annually, depending on the average wind speed at the site. Therefore, a single one-megawatt wind turbine generates enough electricity to power 240 to 400 households….”

So, if there were 60 of those things, they could produce enough electricity for up to 24,000 homes. Wow!

The turbines were out in the fields, so a farmer could still use the land to ranch or grow cotton or peanuts, and also receive lease payments for a power company to put those wind turbines on their property. That is a good use of resources in my opinion.

Another thing that was amazing to me is that there was so many ranches and farms, and you could see at a glance what these people do to make a living. They grow cotton, peanuts, sorghum, and corn. We saw a peanut processing plant, cotton gins, feed lots, feed and seed silos, farm implement sales lots. I guess I lived in cities for so long I either never knew or forgot about all the agricultural occupations that existed. See how beautiful that cotton field is?

We saw flocks of geese flying south for the winter. That is also amazing to me how those birds know when the cold weather is coming, and take flight before the first snow.

We DIDN’T see any rattlesnakes, but this sign had me looking for them. This was at a rest area east of Amarillo on Hwy 287.

We stopped for the night at Wichita Falls RV Park in Wichita Falls, Texas. The guy who works in the office there can not give directions. We called him twice, and he failed to give correct directions both times. If you are going south on Hwy 287, take exit 1-A, get all the way over to the right, turn right at the first light, and stay on that road until you see the sign for the RV park. That guy had us running all over Wichita Falls pulling that trailer. It is hard to turn around when you have a 34′ trailer behind you, ya know? They weren’t making any dinner for us, either, so I made some potato salad.

And this was a little interesting: a collection of fire hydrants, each one painted a different color, at the RV park. Hmmmm……

We made about 410 miles today–not bad. Tomorrow, we head for Shreveport.

0 Shares

Scenic Sunday

Karen · 9 Comments

We drove from Georgia to south Texas in our pick-up truck, pulling a pop-up camper in 1997. We camped at Bentsen Rio Grand Valley State Park in Mission. This was on an oxbow lake near the Rio Grand River. You can no longer camp at this state park. We were very lucky to go there when we did.

To see more photos from Scenic Sunday, click here.

0 Shares