Blogs from Amarillo, Texas, United States, North America

Ok here’s something I forgot about 3 days ago. When I was coming across one of those big mountains on my way to Carlsbad, I kept thinking something’s different. Then I realized that I wasn’t on a desert mountain like the others I had been across. This was a mountain with tall deep green pine trees marching up the slopes. And they were all pines, no spruce or deciduous and it was cool and refreshing like being in northern Ontario. It put me in mind of the Black Forest in Germany where all the evergreens are of such a dark green that they almost look black. I left KOA Carlsbad at 8 a.m. this morning driving past acres of pistachio orchards. Unfortunately it’s too early for them to be flowering because they are stunning pink in ... read more

This will be a short post -- we were both exhausted today. As we left New Mexico and got closer to Texas, the land started changing. The beautiful mountains gave way to very. flat. land. We tried to capture it in the photos. Amazingly, we saw NO police through all of CA, AZ and NM, then literally saw about 15 in the brief time we drove through Texas! I know we didn't see the best parts of Texas, but my impressions were too many cops, very flat land, lots of cattle, and the worst interstate quality we've seen yet. What DID fascinate me was the wind turbines. They are EVERYWHERE and literally went on for miles and miles. My research indicates that West Texas A&M University began wind energy research in 1970 that led to the ... read more

On Friday, we continued westward through OK under bright blue skies and wind whipped clouds. Made a pit stop in Yukon OK, home of Garth Brooks ?free tire check at Discount Tire - Mike, who moved here from MI, was super nice and friendly! Crazy ? strong winds - 2 hands on the steering wheel driving along wide open fields with huge wind turbines everywhere...quite a site to see. Road sign: Hitchhikers may be escaping inmates ? Alrighty then....we will not be stopping to pickup any hitchhikers! Welcome to Texas - The Lone ⭐️ State Rest areas are huge and look awesome...guess everything is BIGGER in Texas ? Checkout the Texas Longhorn! They are HUGE... You can see for miles...75 mph highways surrounded by farmland, ? ranches, ?, cotton fields, ?. We planned to camp in ... read more

Geo: 35.2072, -101.834We left Decatur this morning and drove just to Amarillo for the night. We will make it the rest of the way home tomorrow. We were in Childress at lunchtime so we stopped in at Top Notch Texas BBQ. This was the third time that we have been there, but it was the first time that it has been busy. The other times there were only one or two tables besides us. Now we have a favorite restaurant in Childress. Never thought about being able to say that. I have a favorite in Boyd, too. I may make special plans to go back through Boyd so we can eat at gogogumbo again on another trip to Dallas. When we checked into the Homewood Suites, we were given a room that had a strong and ... read more

Geo: 35.2072, -101.834We made it to Amarillo by late afternoon, after leaving home about 10:30 so I could stop and get my nails done on the way out of town. Philip dropped me off and went for gas then dropped our leftover groceries at Erin's while I was busy at the salon.We checked into the Hilton Garden Inn then had dinner at Dyer's—delicious as always. Phil worked on school stuff during the evening, but didn‘t have a lot to do. We made it an early night.... read more