I already wrote that we watch Pawn Stars, American Restoration, and Counting Cars. Add to that Man vs Food, and other shows on the Travel Channel and Food Network. That said, Warren has been talking about Amarillo.
Amarillo by morning, I joked.
It was morning. We arrived at Amarillo, Texas, by 11 a.m. on Father’s Day.
What’s in Amarillo?
BBQ, steaks, more BBQ, more steaks.
The Big Texan.
Warren literally ran into the Big Texan Steakhouse. You can’t miss the big yellow building from the interstate.
For Father’s Day, Warren wanted to go to The Big Texan, home of the 72 ounce steak.
I didn’t think I was hungry, but driving into Amarillo, yep, the smells of all the restaurants cooking told me I was hungry.
The Big Texan is a huge restaurant. We parked the motorhome (and my little towed car) out with the big rigs. We were the only RV at that time. The motorhome sure looked dwarfed next to the big trucks.
A 28 foot motorhome with a towed Saturn wagon may seem big, until it is parked between the “real” big rigs.
We were greeted by the smell of steaks cooking as we walked to the restaurant.
We did not order the 72 ounce steak. That is just crazy. We did order what the menu called the “perfect pairing” in honor of Adam Richman, and 18 ounce steak, three butterflied fried shrimp, salad, and rolls.
My salad looked like a face. Face or not, it was good.
There is a face somewhere in this salad.
The shrimp were perfect. The steak too. I couldn’t eat the whole thing.
I couldn’t wait and ate one shrimp before taking a picture. The steak was perfect.
Our waitress was great and even brought us more rolls to add to the to go steaks. A stop at the gift shop for T-shirts (and the Texas sized fly swatter Warren wanted) and we were back on the road.
Check out the Texas sized fly swatter.
Headed for Oklahoma.
I’ll be honest, I had been very nervous about this part of the trip. We had looked about going into Kansas. That would be the long way to Branson. Since the Tornado in El Reno, the weather had seemed a bit better. I had been watching the weather since the first tornado in Moore. I had the KOCO app on my phone, and the URL for the KOCO weather in my tablet.
I was watching the radar on the tablet as we crossed Oklahoma. We had wind. The wind kept getting stronger. I could see that we were heading toward a storm that was approaching I-40. Just before exit 101, Warren said he needed to get off the road, the wind was getting too bad. Fortunately, exit 101 was a Love’s Truck Stop.
We pulled off, and got out of the way of the trucks. The wind did not subside. It got stronger. I had been watching the storm for some time. It was a slow moving storm, but had a lot of red in the radar. Warren decided to move the motorhome and tuck it in next to a big rig to block us from some of the wind.
And then the rain came.
And RVs, trucks, cars, everybody started bailing off the interstate.
We turned on the weather radio, and watched the tablet. We waited.
Find Hinton under the radar. We were where the road to Hinton and I-40 meet.
And then it really hit. The rain came down like crazy. Wind. Then hail. I could see the hail as purple on the radar.
I will admit, it was scary.
It seemed like it took a long time to pass.
This is before the rains hit and before we tucked in next to a big rig from Montana.
The storm dumped a lot of rain in the parking lot.
A rainbow or two tried to peak out as the storm passed.
The leftovers from The Big Texan were great during the storm.
After the storm passed us, the parking lot was flooded in places. Some trucks and RV left. We stayed put. The rest of the storm was going in the direction we were headed. We decided to just spend the night in the truck stop lot. We didn’t have any reservation for the night. For some reason, I just had never made reservations for Oklahoma.
Without power, and no air conditioning, it was warm. We had the windows open for air, but it was warm. About 1 a.m. it got really warm. Then at 1:44 a.m. the wind started again. This wind shook the motorhome. The wind passed quickly. Then rain, thunder and lightning. It became just a soft rain.
At 6 a.m. a flash of lightning semi woke me, but it was the thunder that seemed to bounce the motorhome three bounces that woke me all the way.
Mother Nature’s alarm clock.
Cowboy T-Rex knows where he can get a great steak (The Big Texan).
Anita's Blog 