Day 7 – Chandler, OK to Amarillo, TX 336 miles (1207 miles so far)



We woke up bright and early in Chandler to the news that where we were this time yesterday morning was having crazy storms and tornados and the chance of thunder and lightening where we were was 60% so we decided to power in the opposite direction. So we left the Pecan capital of the world behind and headed west.



Our first stop of the day was at Arcadia where there is a famous round barn and POPS which sells over a thousand different bottles of fizzy juice, it also has a 66 ft high pop bottle sculpture outside, ace! We settled for 6 bottles of juice, a tshirt each and a bottle opener and headed on our way.



We were heading towards Oklahoma City and K finally got her drive through Starbucks that she had been wanting since our California road trip 2 years ago.



Next, we headed to Garth Brooks home town of Yukon, which has a main street simply called Garth Brooks, poetically we did hear Garth on the radio when we were quite close by. As we are in the heart of ‘indian country’ we went to a MASSIVE shop called Cherokee Trading Post that sold lots of authentic native american handycrafts and a lot of tat.



We were going to stop for lunch in a town called Hydro but sadly the place we were going to go has shut down. It wasnt a wasted trip though cos we saw a tortoise crossing the road, faster than you would think too. Our next stop was Clinton home to the Route 66 Museum which was only $3 and really good, lots of old fashioned things and photo ops combined with facts. We also had lunch in Clinton at a diner called Dairy Best where we sampled the Oklahoma speciality of Fried Onion Burgers, and K got her new fave drink sweet iced tea (I had homemade limeade, scrummy).



We drove through a lot of cute little Oklahoma towns, there were constantly eagles flying over head and at one point there was one sitting in a field at the edge of the road. Also, the song isnt wrong, Oklahoma is home to a lot of ‘waving wheat’.



We went into Texas via a ghost town called Texola where there were a lot of abondoned buildings and gas stations. We then drove though a town Shamrock which was home to a beautiful Art Deco motel/cafe called the U drop Inn. We passed a museum dedicated to barbed wire called the Devil’s Rope Museum but sadly it had just shut for the day.



The next town that we came to was Groom which features a leaning water tower or ‘the Leaning Tower of Texas’ and the largest cross in the Western Hemisphere! This was essentially a Jesus theme park, we found it very hard to keep straight faces as the americans somberly took pictures of it. There was a statue to represent each of the stations of the cross and also one of the last supper. There was a wishing well thing which I threw a coin in, but it landed on a rock, I think that sums up my relationship with God.



We stopped at Bug Ranch which is a homage to Cadillac Ranch which we will see tomorrow, 5 beetle cars buried nose first in the dirt. It looks cooler than it sounds!



We then arrived in Amarillo, sadly Route 66 took us all the way around town and it took us ages to find the Big Texan steak house and motel where we are staying tonight. This place sums up Texas, our room has saloon doors into the bathroom, the beds have big cow print throws on them and the motel is done up to look like a western town. We have been looking forward to this for months and it has not disappointed! We then mosied over to the Steak House, home to the free 72oz steak dinner , if you can eat it and all the sides in an hour (2 guys tried and failed whilst we were there). Picture a Texan steak house and you have this place – exactly! K and I got a 21oz sirloin prepared for 2 and I can honestly say it is some of the best meat I have ever eaten, it didnt have ANY fat on it all. We also got our drinks in souvenir cowboy boot shaped glasses to take home.



Now we are sitting in the bar trying to connect to the wifi, but it isnt working so well so i will have to attach this later.



As of tomor we are going to be cutting down on the miles.