I know we're not doing Texas justice - this state is ENORMOUS, and we're just going through the panhandle (which - c'mon, have you ever seen a panhandle like that? It's obviously the Texas Top Hat), but we just didn't have the time to spare to venture any further south. Alas, I feel like I've seen enough to definitively say that Texas rest areas suck. At best, they have a couple park benches and some garbage cans. No shade, no bathrooms, nothing. Just a long area for truck drivers to sleep and some park benches. Yuck.
We hit some more Route 66 stuff today, starting with a mile-long stretch of historic buildings in Amarillo. There were some pretty cool murals on basically every building, but a few favorites are added below.
Our next stop was The Big Texan. We'd been seeing billboards for this place for what felt like 50 miles outside of Amarillo, advertising a free 72 ounce steak! All you have to do is eat it and all of the sides in less than an hour and it's free. Can't finish it, and it's $72. Yeesh, I'll pass. This was another Route 66 mainstay, and they had signs about their founding. When I-40 was opened and Route 66 traffic died, they had to move their restaurant or risk going out of business, so they moved. But they have several fun things to both draw people in and honor their Route 66 heritage. I think my favorite was Big Tex-Rex, a giant dinosaur cowboy thing.
On the way out of town, we stopped at The Cadillac Ranch. Some guy half-buried some Cadillacs with their back ends sticking up, and each of the 10 cars has a different tail fin. The best part? Anyone can come in and spray paint them! These things had a THICK coat of paint on them.
One of our gas stops was a truck stop called Russell's Truck Stop just across the border in New Mexico, and located inside was a fun little free classic car museum. We didn't stay very long, but it was a fun little surprise!
Our last stop for the day was at the Hot Air Balloon Museum in Albuquerque. Albuquerque is a popular spot for hot air balloons, and every year they have a festival where, on average, 600 hot air balloons get launched. We saw this museum in the area and it seemed like a fun little departure from some of the other museums we've done and we knew we had to go. We pulled in about 30 minutes before closing, so we had to rush, but this one was also FREE because they were doing some construction or something, so the price was right. 2 free events in 2 days, pretty incredible. "K" has always wanted to go in a hot air balloon, so maybe sometime in the next couple years, we'll update our wills and give it a shot! This was a pretty awesome museum and I'm bummed we weren't able to give it the time it deserved, but we were ready to crash for the night too, so it wasn't all bad.
It turns out that Albuquerque is the last time on our trip that we could have Waffle House or Whataburger (which we've never tried but came highly recommended), so we did a split order - 3 of us got Waffle House, and 4 of us got burgers. As it would turn out, today was National Whataburger Day! How serendipitous! "A" said it was probably the best burger he's ever had, and I enjoyed it, but it was definitely not my number one. Maybe not even my top 5? But quite tasty nonetheless! I am still dreaming about the Waffle House waffle with pecans and peanut butter chips though. Yum! waffle house/whataburger
