Thursday, April 7, 2022

Great Southwest Spring Break {Day 1} March 11th

We had dreams of visiting the Grand Canyon while living in Kansas. We figured we were close enough, we wanted to make our way over there. Well in planning our spring break road trip, we realized it would have been A LOT of driving, too much in fact. So we decided a trip like this would need to be broken up. We'd do the drive, just as far as New Mexico, and then plan another trip after we move back to Minnesota where flying places is easier. We could fly to Vegas, get in Nevada, rent a car and hit the Grand Canyon (Arizona) AND Zion National park (Utah). Three new states for the kids, two for me; so that trip is TBD. 

So plans for this trip got hashed out and trust me we were not lacking time spent in the van. Plan was leave Wichita, drive through OKC, stay in Amarillo, TX for two nights, then on to Albequeque for two nights, drive to south New Mexico and stay near Alamogordo for two nights then play it by ear and head back maybe staying overnight on the way back, with a flexible get home day. We had roughly ten days to work with. The van needed maintenance a couple weeks before where we learned the something (can't remember now) was about to go out. So we scheduled to get that fixed because it was something that if it did go out we'd be stranded not something good to have on a half-cross country road trip in the middle of the desert. 

Okay, so Friday arrived, kids were off school for spring break. I had my Friday morning six A.M. muscle pump class to teach then we loaded up and headed out. We had taken Harpo to the boarding place the day before so didn't need to worry about that. We left heading south to OKC.

As I mentioned here, Emma had fallen out of bed the night before and got a nice wound on her eye brow.

I had made state line bags for the kids with snacks in them. They'd each get their own bag as we crossed a state line (3 lines total - only on the way there) and each bag had trivia facts for that state. First up Oklahoma. 


We stopped for lunch at this fun little placed called Chicken Foot. 


Texas state line bags, new state for the kids! (Thomas is asleep)


Then back on the road to head for Texas. We arrived at our hotel in Amarillo and had a quick swim before dinner across the street at the infamous Big Texan. 



We had about an hour wait, well the lady said hour to 1:20 but it ended up being maybe 45 minutes. 



Kids got their kids meal served in these cowboy hats. That was really fun. We didn't order Thomas a meal and instead he was sharing my sides, but our server was great and brought an extra plate for him. 



So the big deal with this place is the free 72oz steak... if you sit and eat that and a whole meal within an hour. There are all these rules you'll have to check them out on their website here. But we did get to see one guy when we got there, then another tried while we were eating. We were also sat RIGHT next to this couple, so it was fun to chat with them. Kids avoided the two seats that were next to them so Kyle and I sat in those. Here's a video of the room. 

Was time to hit the hay, so we walked back across to our hotel room and went to bed. I think I'll combine the next two days in the next post to finish off our Amarillo time. 

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