Amarillo and Wichita Falls

Our Wichita Falls and Amarillo road trip.

The Fort Amarillo RV Park is nice enough, good pull through sites, fairly level, a bit restrictive with where dogs could wander. It does have a cute gift shop called Lizzie Mae’s. I bought some lovely smelling candles, a t-shirt and a hand carved Santa figurine. Each site has a fence to separate it from the next door neighbor which is a nice feature.

Palo Duro Canyon was pretty neat except we got there during a bicycle event. You know the saying ‘share the road’? Well the bikes didn’t. There were over 500 bikes speeding in and out of trails and all over the roads. Most of the picnic areas were overtaken by the event. Sadly we couldn’t park and take Rusty for a nice walk. Palo Duro CanyonThe visitor center had some history of the canyon information, however not much in the way of souvenirs. There was another shop along the way though that did have t-shirts; overall a disappointing visit to the canyon. Considering I do not like heights, I did okay on the drive through the canyon. There is a show called Texas that they put on at 8:30 each night so we didn’t go. Two reasons Rusty couldn’t be left alone in the RV at night and I was not about to be driving up and down canyon roads in the dark!

We also drove 50 miles to go to Lake Meredith. That was a huge let down! The lake is in a canyon with red cliffs surrounding. The water level is extremely low due to the drought.  We ended up eating at a DQ that was disappointing.

In Canyon, a town near Amarillo, we found a butcher shop owned by Melvin Edes. They sell 28 day aged Black Angus heifer meat. We got a porterhouse steak, which we learned is like a T-bone but with a larger strip and filet steak. The one we got was close to 2 pounds! We don’t eat that much in a single meal so we ate the T-bone strip steak one night and the filet the next. We also bought 2 filets and some hamburger/bacon burger patties. It was way too much beef for one week. We ended up having to throw out one of the filets that didn’t last. The burgers were okay however T did over cook them a tad (according to him).

Having seen that Cadillac Ranch was one of the top attractions in Amarillo, we knew we needed to go see it – and its dog friendly! It was really close to the RV Park we were in, however it was a bit of an awkward route to get to it. The ranch is obviously a working ranch with cows off in the distance. Cadillac RanchThe Cadillac’s are about 200 yards from the road and Rusty was checking it all out as we were walking to see them. There were a number of people there leaving their mark with spray paint on the cars. The sad part is that there was a huge area next to the cars where people had just thrown their empty spray paint cans – if they could bring the cans in why couldn’t they take them back out? There’s a dumpster outside the fence easily accessible. To me it was just an okay experience.

Route 66 Historical district was also a disappointment. Granted we went on a Sunday and most of the shops weren’t Amarillo Route 66open. So we had a photo op next to the sign at the entrance of the area, got back in the car and drove down 6th street to see if there were enough shops/restaurants there to warrant a trip back. We decided there weren’t, however when exploring downtown a few days later we did go back to the area. Even in mid-day during the week, there wasn’t a lot going on and the area seemed a bit “iffy”. We did see “Austin’s Pub” though and took a picture in honor of our grandson Austin!

After seeing 6th Avenue we found Sam Houston Park and took a nice walk with Rusty. It is a pet friendly park with a dispenser for poop bags, which was good because we forgot to take some with us [and we ended up needing it]. We made a couple of trips to the park to have a nice grassy tree shaded walk.

Other than those sights and the proximity of Palo Duro Canyon, Amarillo has very little to offer tourists, especially ones traveling with a dog who has separation issues. A couple of museums and all the normal fast food places – oh yeah, a place advertising a free 72 once steak (if you can eat the whole thing in an hour)! In fairness, there is a zoo.

We left Amarillo for the drive back through Wichita Falls, where we planned to spend the night before heading back home.

The highway is pretty boring, so I’m happy that I’ve discovered another feature of my iPad that allows me to write as we go. There are no wireless 3G or 4G signals along this part of the journey. In fact there’s not a lot of anything. We played I spy with not much to spy! ‘F’ for what? ‘S’ for what? ‘H’ for what? ‘R’ for what? We did get tricky every so often, like H for herd since I saw a bunch of cows. T guessed heifers. He spied S for street and then for sky. Once we got through those there wasn’t a lot different to see. Signs at rest stops along the way warn you to watch for rattlesnakes! Scary when you have a dog that needs to walk around a bit. Luckily we didn’t see any!

T just announced he feels like he’s finally comfortable with driving ‘arvey and can take on longer distances without overnight stops. Yay! Just need to leave early in the morning and stop at a rest stop or two along the way. We are over halfway to Wichita Falls now and if it weren’t a Friday we could make it home tonight by 5:00. Rush hour is just not something we want to encounter on a Friday night! A road sign a few miles west of Wichita Falls reads ‘warning hitchhikers may be escaping inmates’. Hahaha.

Wichita Falls RV Park was a good stop coming and going. They seem to be sprucing up the place. The pull-through sites are good and long. The dog park is really cute with a bunch of fire hydrants painted bright colors for the pups to use!  The Wichita River flows at the back of the RV park and just a block away is Lucy Park that features a very pretty waterfall and other things to do, although we didn’t. We’re told there is a level 3 drought in the area. The river bottom showed this morning as T was taking the morning walk.

DISH for the RV could be accused of fraud. We have a pay as you go subscription for RV use and received an email from DISH informing us that we could buy this piece of equipment that would turn our receiver into a DVR. So $100 for the external disk drive and a $44 activation fee later we find we can record only what we are currently watching and if the TV is off it will record. Aren’t DVRs used to record another show while you watch something else? The ‘customer service rep’ didn’t provide service and when T asked to speak to the supervisor, he didn’t either. The other thing that irks us is that we had access to DFW local channels when we made our first trips- east Texas, Louisiana, Houston. When we were talking to DISH to activate the DVR the rep changed our zip code to Wichita Falls and after that we no longer get DFW based channels.

Overall, this has been a worthwhile trip for more than one reason. My highlight though is finding the box with manuals for the RV and finding the sun shades for the front windows.

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