Wonderful Barbeque!

September 3, 2016 / Ed Armstrong

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It has been a while since I have been able to enjoy some fantastic Texas barbeque, so I looked for some of the best places in Amarillo. I first tried going to my favorite place, Spicy Mikes. However, Spicy Mikes had a fire and has not yet reopened. I looked on Google Maps and picked Tyler’s Barbeque. It is highly regarded by the “barbeque experts” and I have really enjoyed it on previous visits.

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As I entered the door at 6:00 pm on Friday evening, a family of four came in right behind me. The owner came out and said “You folks are the last ones to eat. We have sold out of our food.” He put a big sign on the door that said “Sold Out.” I was quite amazed. It was barely early evening on a Friday night and they were out of meat. When I ordered, the nice lady told me they had pulled pork and brisket remaining, but there were completely out of ribs and sausage. That was okay by me as pulled pork is my favorite barbequed meat.

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The meat was perfect and their barbecue sauce was fantastic! I loved it! Their beans were also great too! It was a wonderful meal that I enjoyed tremendously! I took my time eating and was the last customer to leave the restaurant. I love Texas barbeque!

American Girl

August 28, 2016August 28, 2016 / Ed Armstrong

Charlene was show casing the American Girl dolls. Quite impressive!

I learned about the American Girl store today. I had never heard of it before, but they have some very impressive, and expensive, dolls. I was quite impressed with the details available in all the accessories. John showed me that you could buy outfights for the girl that matched the outfits for the dolls.

I was impressed with the detail of the tent trailer!

I knew it was a high class operation when I saw that the prominently displayed a tent trailer. I loved our tent trailer growing up and we certainly enjoyed another tent trailer while our kids were young.

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I also saw a group of girls having a birthday party and I talked with a lady who was styling a dolls hair. I had never seen that before. We saw a young girl smile ear to ear when she told us it was her doll that was having her hair styled.

Dallas World Aquarium

August 28, 2016 / Ed Armstrong

Charlene and I enjoyed the Dallas World Aquarium

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We met John and Michelle in Dallas and visited the Dallas World Aquarium. I was not sure what to expect since the reviews noted that it was not a typical aquarium. I came away quite impressed with the range of animals they had.

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This sign was at the exhibit of the cute playful otters!

I think the otters, monkeys, manatee, and turtles were my favorites. The crocodiles were absolutely enormous. For me, the highlight of the aquarium was the shark tank tunnel. We were inside a glass tube and the sharks swam over and around us. It was absolutely incredible!

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I absolutely loved the shark tank tunnel. I could have spent hours watching the sharks swim all around us. It was quite impressive!

Galleria Area of Dallas

August 27, 2016 / Ed Armstrong

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We had a nice time walking around the Galleria mall and I ordered my first Dos Equis beer. It was served with lime and tasted great after a day of driving. The Grand Lux Café was superb and we ordered two different pasta dishes. I had a chicken pasta with tomatoes and mozzarella. It was fantastic, but I could not eat the whole portion. John and Michelle will be driving her later this evening and we are looking forward to seeing them!

Fantastic Mexican Food!

August 27, 2016 / Ed Armstrong

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We stopped in Wichita Falls, Texas yesterday for lunch. One of the most wonderful aspects about traveling is getting to try new places to eat. Our typical criteria is to find an independent restaurant that is highly rated on an Internet website. We first found a barbecue place that we thought we would try, but they did not take credit cards. Too bad for them as they lost our business. We next found a Mexican restaurant that was highly recommended.

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The restaurant did not look super fantastic from the outside, but we knew we had found a wonderful place because there were many people inside with Spanish as their primary language and a table filled with local police. We figured if those two groups came to this restaurant, we knew we had stumbled upon a great spot. We were not disappointed.

The food was not the typical Sonoran Mexican food we loved in Arizona, but it was fantastic. Charlene and I both ordered pork burros in red sauce. The restaurant also had a wonderful salsa served with homemade chips. Soooo good!

Jake takes on the Big Texan!

July 24, 2016 / Ed Armstrong

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One of the famous landmarks in Amarillo is the Big Texan restaurant. There are signs promoting if for hundreds of miles in different directions. It is a busy place and serves nice food.

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Today, Jake visited the Big Texan and saw the many aspects to the restaurant. We had a chance to take photos all around.

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Jake Experiences Cadillac Ranch!

July 23, 2016 / Ed Armstrong

We enjoyed being with Jake at Cadillac Ranch.

Today we were able to buy some spray paint and take Jake to Cadillac Ranch, one of the strange, but quite famous landmarks in Amarillo.

Jake had fun writing his name, and it was perfectly okay to use spray paint on someone’s car!

Jake had fun writing his name and other key people in his life!

Jake certainly loves his Mom!

Jake loved sending a message to his Dad too!

Jake loved sending a hello to sister Macy!

Jake sent a hello to brother Ben too!

In true Cadillac Ranch fashion, when finished spray painting on the cars, you pass your remaining spray paint to other visitors who did know to bring any paint. It brings out the playfulness in everyone when you are able to legitimately paint cars with whatever colors or saying your heart desires.

Jake and I had a fun disagreement about which way the sign was pointing!

Texas Hill Country!

May 29, 2016 / Ed Armstrong

Check out the horns on these guys!

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We had a quick stop in Tucson and then headed back through New Mexico. We stopped in Anthony, Texas and it was very windy! We headed out the next day and made a beeline for the Texas hill country. We stopped in Van Horn for lunch at the famous Chuy’s restaurant.

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We stayed in Fredericksburg for the night, but I wish we could have stayed longer. Sometime we need to go back and spend time going through the wineries in the area. I did have a chance to walk to a local fresh fruit stand and see the fresh peaches for sale.

Our Fredericksburg site was quite roomy, but we endured a huge storm during the night!

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We next drove to Leander. This is in the northwest suburb of Austin. I have been trying different RV parks in Austin to find the best place to stay when visiting John and Michelle. Leander seems to be a very nice community that is not as busy as Georgetown, where we stayed on our last trip. It was wonderful to see John and Michelle! I would like to figure out a way to spend more time in this area.

It is so fantastic to spend time with John and Michelle!

We Got to Meet with John!

April 18, 2016 / Ed Armstrong

The Horned Frog mascot taught us how to make their Horned Frog symbol!

The TCU campus is beautiful!

This weekend was absolutely wonderful! Charlene and I drove to Fort Worth, Texas and John met us there too. It was so incredibly fantastic to hug John and see the special sparkle in his eyes. It is truly special to spend time with your son!

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We ate lunch and then walked through the campus on Texas Christian University. They have a beautiful campus. The Horned Frog mascot taught us how to make the Horned Frog symbol. It was fun to see the plaques about their recent success of their football program.

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We next drove to the Fort Worth Water Gardens and enjoyed a leisurely time walking through the park. My favorite was the pool where watered flowed down from multiple directions. It must be quite popular in the heat of the summer!

The Fort Worth Water Gardens are very beautiful!

This pool had water flowing down the walls and was very peaceful.

This was my favorite pool with the water flowing from all sides.

Whew! We finished the Southern Loop!

March 14, 2016 / Ed Armstrong

This is our trip to Southern Texas and then east to see the southern US.

We finished our loop through the Deep South and made it back to Amarillo, Texas! We were gone almost 7 weeks on this trip. We drove 2,157 miles to go from Amarillo, to the Rio Grande Valley in southern Texas, and then east to Savannah, Georgia. We next went to Gaffney, South Carolina so I could attend Camp Freightliner. I now have the t-shirt showing that I survived Camp Freightliner!

This is our return trip back through the Deep South!

We drove 1,593 miles to go from Savannah, Georgia back to Amarillo. We traveled through 11 different states! We did not spend much time in Arkansas or Oklahoma on the return trip. We put in some long driving days to get back to Texas. We saw some wonderful sights along the way, however, still have many more places we would like to visit!

Driving a total of 3,750 miles through 11 states is certainly a long trip. Next time, I would like to spend some extended time at many of the locations we visited. Now, I need to plan our next trip!