Westward Ho!

We had decided to stay over in Melissa Texas for an additional day, due to the massive storm front that was contributing to the terrible tornadoes in the mid-west. Thankfully, we had nothing worse than a few downpours and rumbles of thunder. I have been very grateful for the weather we have had during our journey west, as I was apprehensive about the possibility of severe weather.

Saturday morning we attended our nephew Tyler's soccer game. It was a lot of fun watching those little tykes run around the field...and they're pretty good!

Tyler even managed a breakaway in the last quarter, and with the family and team mates enthusiastically shouting encouragement, he wound up and proceeded to give the ball a really good boot...unfortunately, it was such a strong forceful kick that it went up and over the goal! Oh well, better luck next time, Ty.

Sunday was our extra day, and being rainy and dismal, we had a lazy morning complete with pancakes, and then caught up on a couple of television shows we had fallen behind on. After the storms rolled by, we spent the afternoon at Al's sister house, playing games and having a great BBQ dinner. The it was back home to the trailer in into bed early, as we had our longest day driving since we started our journey west.

Melissa to Amarillo is 365 miles, mostly on the same road! We went north for about 30 miles on US75, then headed northwest on US82, turning into US287 all the way to Amarillo.

I've heard many times that its a long boring ride across Texas. Maybe it was my first time, but I found it interesting. Long and flat, yes, but to have those vast vistas as far as your eye can see, I would have to say it was almost like viewing the Serengeti plains on our African safari. Some of the ranches were beautiful, and Casey did have quite the day watching for cows (he's fascinated by cows for some reason.). I did find driving through some of the small towns rather sad, though; so many shuttered stores and abandoned properties. 

We arrived in Amarillo around 4:30PM, and stopped at the KOA Amarillo. Its not pretty or scenic, but for a quick overnight with full hookups, it will do :-). Very nice folks running the campground as well. We got set up just in the nick of time too...these clouds were not looking too friendly:

A brief but intense thunderstorm rolled through, with some pretty good winds. It cleared out pretty quickly though, and we headed out to treat ourselves to a dinner at The Big Texan Steak Ranch, a restaurant that's been featured on a couple of Food Network shows, and Al had seen it on the Man vs. Food show a while ago. The challenge there is to eat a 72 ounce steak dinner in one hour and receive your dinner for free. No, we did not take on the challenge, but the steaks were excellent and it was a fun place to treat ourselves. 

Tomorrow we head out for our second to last leg of our journey to Colorado, Raton New Mexico. We're going to stay there for a couple of nights, and then head onto Chalk Creek Campground. A new state tomorrow, what fun :-).