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Published: August 4th 2015
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Our less than comfortable close call with Vegas now behind us, and we are headed to Amarillo, pronounce Am-uh-rill-ow, like pillow. I keep saying "amari-yo, (or yellow in Spanish - I speak enough to be dangerous), and Kathi keeps calling it Armadillo. Potato - potahto, who cares, it's the first stop in Texas, and we headed to that place. Keeping a close lookout for the TX border, we finally see a giant Lone Star sign. We pulled over for the photo and waited patiently for the other car ahead of ours. It's over 100 out, so we're staying in the AC as long as possible. Texas Dept of Roads and Transportation must know about the crazies like us who leave the road to take the picture because the sign was fairly far off the side of the freeway. Every other sign photo was little bit more of a dangerous endeavor. Since we are such bad selfie takers, the photos took a bit longer and when we got back in the car - there were 3 more lined up behind for their turn! Good bye fellow crazies and hello Texas - 1245 miles from where we started. Another few hours of driving
(Texas IS really big!) and it's Amarillo for the night. We must go through our usual 45 minutes of hotel apps (usually hotels.com works the best, but we've had good luck with hoteltonight.com and going directly to the hotel website as well. Armadillo was posing a particularly difficult search because everything seemed really expensive for the 2.5 star, mediocre ratings every hotel seemed to have earned. $200 for the Days Inn and no vacancies anywhere. We search on hotel.com and book it, literally, in the lobby while we wait in line. The party in front of us were very unhappy having booked and paid earlier on Expedia and there was truly no room at the inn. We held our breath when it was our turn, and were suddenly very happy we had an actual key - cha-ching! to our over priced room in what we are now calling Armpit-dillo. Our first impression of Texas is a bit lacking with the hotel nightmare and only food choices being Hooters, IHop, or Taco Bell. It reminded us a little too much of Hays, KS, and if you know me or Kathi or Jef - we'd rather be in hell. Question - when
in hell, where does one go to cool off? of course, Walmart! Kathi needed shampoo and a flatiron for her hair and Walmart is looking like her only option at the moment, so in we went. As we left, a greeter said goodbye. Kathi's husband, Neil, insisted Walmart didn't employ greeters anymore - the proof is below. She was lovely and her one tooth smile was genuine. We said goodbye to Am-a-whatever, had a celebratory breakfast at IHop, consulted our paper maps, and sped the hell out of Dodge toward Wichita Falls, TX. We had misgivings about going to anything remotely reminding us of KS (go back and re-read our thoughts - truly, hell), but we had no choice if we were going to stay on that particular freeway. I saw a sign that said "World's Littlest Skyscraper" and had to see. We drove through a rather deserted section of Wichita Falls and I think we found it. Not a soul in sight and no sign, but we're pretty sure. Cool street art in the form of a giant metal shopping cart and some smoking babies hanging out playing dice painted on the wall. Local hoodlums, right Will? Once again,
Breakfast at IHop
Pretty good, too. we are on the road and once again, distracted from the road...this time in the form of the biggest pecan and fudge store I've ever seen. Not that I've seen that many - but this was the Walmart of Fudge and Pecans, and I wish I had that shopping cart! Everyone else calls the place The Pecan Shop and if you are ever in Henrietta, TX, make sure you stop in. All the pecan samples you can ever want (toffee, honey roasted, spicy, salted, OMG so many ways) and some really good home made fudge (including watermelon. Don't knock it until you try it!). If we buy 4 pieces, we get a fifth for free and we
needed a pound and quarter of fudge in the worst way! It should last us until Dallas...or at least to the freeway.
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