Drive Across America...Day Four

Today we were in
Texas
Oklahoma
(then back in Texas)

We traveled 390 miles and this is the route we took:

View Larger Map

We listened to 'The Horse and His Boy:  The Chronicles of Narnia' 
and started listening to 'The Unexpected Return' from Lamplighter.

Today was fun, fun, super fun!

Ahh, Texas....you have donut shops everywhere.  We had to have some for breakfast today.

Rose playing with My Little Ponies under her snuggie

Our check engine light came on....we had to stop for minor repairs.  It was a broken vacuum hose.  The guy here in Decatur, TX was very friendly.

We kept seeing these 'Whataburger' restaurants, so we tried one for lunch.

The scenery from my window today

 As we were crossing this bridge we saw that this river was dried up...and there was a cow in the river bed.  Poor cow.  It was HOT.   Oh around 112 degrees.

 We drove on Route 66 for part of todays drive.  Lots of neat little things here and there.

Do you like the movie 'Cars'?  We saw the Conoco station in Shamrock, TX.  Here is my photo:

Here it is in the film:

We also saw a rusty truck with eyes and teeth painted on it to look like Mater.

 

This is my photo of a leaning water tower that is said to be part the inspiration for the leaning tower of tires in the film.

Here is Lugi's tire tower:

Okay, this was even more fun than I was expecting.  Just west of Amarillo, TX is the famous Cadillac Ranch.

which by the way, also appeared in the movie as part of the surrounding mountains:

Chad and Rose at the entrance gate with spray paint cans in hand

We got started with our 'art' right away

My creation, I painted the side pink then wrote in white

Rose's creation...her name and a smiley face

This guy painted over mine right away

so Rose painted over his

and then I painted the letters back on....it was all very fun!

Our hotel.... The Ambassador in Amarillo

Supper was super fun, too.  We ate at the Big Texan.  You may have seen it on Man vs Food.  If you can eat a 72 oz steak and sides in 60 minutes, it is free.  crazy.

These guys were up on stage, trying to eat that 72 ouncer.....they did not succeed.

Rose's drink came in a boot.

Live music came to your table

Our food :0)

The steak was very good.  Mmmmm, mine almost melted in my mouth...it was so tender.  I think this was the first meal of the trip were I ate all of my plate!

Rose's meal came with a cowboy hat!

more photos in front of the restaurant

Good-bye, Big Texan Steakhouse.....we had fun!

Today really was a lot of fun!  It is pretty neat driving across America!

Also, I had taken over 100 photos today! ...so it was hard trying to decide which ones to include here.  I hope you are enjoying coming along with us!! 

Drive Across America...Day Three

The states we were in today:
Louisiana
Texas

We traveled 337 miles.  Here is the route we took:

View Larger Map

We listened to The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe during the drive.

We had a relaxing morning at the hotel.  Since Chad was ready first, he went down and brought up some of the free breakfast to me and Rose.
We traveled to Shreveport, LA where we visited The American Rose Gardens.

Online it stated their season was May to October.  Once there they said it is April and May and they didn't charge us the entrance fee, since most of the roses were not in bloom.  How nice!  We like free!

We were the only peolpe there other than a few friendly workers. 

We enjoyed walking around the gardens...

This is in the 'Prayer Garden', my favorite garden there.

Rose had fun navigating with the map

Even though we didn't get to see a lot of roses in bloom, we still enjoyed the gardens very much.  It was beautiful and peaceful.

Then on to Texas....

We were able to stop and visit one of my childhood friends, Shawna (Laws) Hornsby.  We were driving right pass her town, so we met up for lunch.  What fun!  She guided us to a local Texas Bar-b-q joint.  It was delicious.
It was neat seeing her.  We figured that we probably hadn't seen each other since high school graduation, 20 years ago! 
When we were kids she lived a few houses down from me.  We remembered rollarskating in my basement and playing LP records.  oh my.  It was neat meeting her two children and visiting for a bit.

Me and Shawna

Shawna told us about a place we could get some yummy snow-balls for dessert on our way back to the interstate...so of course we had to try it!  Very sweet, but very good.

Driving through Dallas we noticed how lovely the wall murals and road pillars were.  They were colored and had the Texas star and some stripes on each one.

Rose doing her cross stitching as we were traveling through some Dallas traffic

Again we did Priceline.  We stayed at the 4 star Hyatt Regency...

The cushions may or may not have been used as swords.

We opted for a lighter supper...I enjoyed this spring salad

Rose and I hit the pool while Chad was grading his students online tests.

Then it hit me...oh my, I had a Crohn's pain attack from something in my salad.  (I may have cried off and on from the pain)  ...But thankfully I am all better now.   I do know of some foods that I can not eat: cucumbers, cashews, broccolli, anything scampi, lots of iceburg lettuce.....but there is more that I have not pinpointed yet.  Was it the seasame seeds?  the walnuts?  I don't know. 
But that is why today's post is a later.  I could not work on it last night.

Overall it was a great day.  We are enjoying the trip.  The drive is not overwhelming, actually it is quite enjoyable!