This is a view of the back of a rest area in Texas. I am the small dot to the right of the right column.
Oklahoma has many small casinos along their exits.
The is the second of two blogs we are posting Thursday evening since we were tired yesterday and didn't provide anything for you.
We left Yukon after getting gas at those great prices ranging from $3.13 - $3.29. We had barely gotten on the highway when we saw a herd of longhorn cattle...an amazing site. The horns were HUGE! We also saw a few oil rigs and started our 4 hour drive over a 7 hour period of time. We decided to take the Charles Kuralt way of traveling and get off the beaten path. We stopped at an Indian shop along the way which turned out to have some very nice and expensive gifts (bet you were expecting some cheap unnecessary plastic objects).
Some portions of our drive today on I40 were also part of one of the original and historic highways in the U.S. Does anyone remember Route 66? It was the major path out west in 1930. So as the song goes, "Get your kicks on Route 66". And we did!
We saw so many Casino billboards along the highway we just had to check one out. We missed the Kickapoo Casino but ended up at Sugar Creek Casino. It was small with mostly slot machines but had 2 small blackjack tables. The non-smoking room had 22 machines. So now, we've been there and done that. No need to talk about our winnings. We saw there was a state park 5 miles down the road so off we went through a small town called Hinton and to the Red Rock State Park. Portions were a little steep driving up and down lined with walls of very red rocks (duh!). There was even a section for repelling from one of the walls. It did not look one bit safe.
We headed into Texas (listening to Indian flute music) with ranches and farmland on both sides of the road as far as the eye could see. Soon we happened upon rows of high-tech windmills that were spinning "up a storm" due to the high winds that are typical of being in the Panhandle (the rectangular area at the top of that big state). We saw plenty of the smaller familiar windmills that were always in the Westerns we saw on TV and in the movies. In addition to the herds of cattle, it appeared that most everyone owns some horses.
We don't know how to describe the beauty of the land. We stopped at the prettiest and largest rest area with an exhibit in the foyer and a large patio on the back with that beautiful view. Is everything really bigger in Texas ? At this point, we would tend to agree.
We arrived in Amarillo early evening and are staying at a Marriott that is in an historic office building downtown. The building facade is very pretty and you can imagine an office lobby when you enter but our room looks like a Marriott.
We are off to Santa Fe tomorrow morning.
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