Day 3 (10/17) Amarillo to Little Rock (598 miles)

"That's the tackiest place I've ever seen!" was my sister-in-law Lindsey's pronouncement when she saw the pic of Big Texan. Well....yeah! *G*. But they served up a big breakfast buffet to get us on our way in the morning.



How many places are you going to be able to get a garish slice of Red Velvet cake to go with your quesadillas and salsa and eggs and bacon and biscuits and sausage gravy? Huh? Where else?

More tackiness:




If we had pulled into town earlier the evening before, we could have gotten free shuttle service from and to our motel in one of those limos. Wouldn't that have been great??

But enough of Big Texan. Notice how cold it looks in the outdoor pics. It was. I must have totally seen the wrong temperatures on the Weather Channel or else they were completely wrong. Here I was geared up for warm weather in shorts and sunscreen, and it was drizzling, gray and in the 50's. We didn't see the sun once ALL day long. It was a long boring gray day. Not much noteworthy scenery that day at all (Gosh, all Kathy's pictures seem to be of food on plates...) The most noteworthy things we saw that day were a group of cowboys (yes, real cowboys!) on horseback herding some wayward cattle along the fence bordering the highway. That would have made a pretty good pic if we hadn't been speeding by at 70 mph. And the enormous white crucifix a few miles east of Amarillo at the Groom exit (the second largest crucifix in the western hemisphere). We were in the Bible Belt, remember. Bryan made sure my soul was headed in the right direction by picking up the religious booklets and tracts in the gas stations along our way.

We nominated the gas stop just east of Oklahoma City the Gas Station Bathroom From Hell. I think even the vagrants might have put a 'condemned' sign on this one. I was desperate to change into long pants, and guess where the only private place to do it was? I managed to pull pants out of my suitcase and carefully change into them without touching the floor (too much). Or taking too many breaths of the air.

I had been given assignments by Tim this day: Pick up beers from the states of Oklahoma and Arkansas. All righty then. After missing two exits in the surprisingly confusing town of Oklahoma City, we managed to backtrack and find this liquor store on 63rd street where I picked up 2 6-packs of Pete's Place Brewery selections. From the time we got off 40 and back on again, it was only a 45-minute detour. Not too bad. But we voted Oklahoma City roads the bumpiest on the whole trip.

This was the only fast food stop we made on the whole trip:



Our little home on the road:



The most surprising thing about Oklahoma? Was how unremarkable it looked. There were stretches where we might have been driving anywhere in lower Michigan. Except for an oil well here and there and lots of Black Angus cattle, there really wasn't a whole lot to differentiate it from what I'm used to seeing every day. I really wanted to see some armadillos. Or arma-dead-os as Tim called them for their habit of getting hit on the highways. Didn't see a one. Must have been too cold for them.

Same for Akansas. Except for a cotton field here and there, it looked an awful lot like Michigan.

Toward dark, we saw a small cluster of thunderstorms ahead of us. And it was getting warmer! When we pulled into Little Rock and checked into our Motel 6, it was downright balmy. Warmth at last.

We found our dinner destination, Grampa's Catfish House, the result of an online search by Tim. Yes, we pulled in 10 minutes before they closed, but sat down to this:



Then I found Tim's Diamond Bear Brewery beer at a liquor store just down the road 10 minutes before *they* closed and completed my assignments for the day. We just barely managed to find room for that in the back of the truck along with the other two 6 packs. He now only needs beer from North and South Dakota and Mississippi.

And then it was time for bed. Driving from morning until nearly bedtime doesn't leave much time for sightseeing and dawdling. But at least we had The Ole.