Retirement (again) part 2

We started the next stage of our vacation; final destination Mission, TX. On October 12th, the first leg of our trip us south to Red River, NM to visit Jim’s sister Judy and her husband Gil. It was his birthday took and she cooked an amazing dinner and had several friends over. For those of you who have followed our blogs in the past, you know they remodeled an old building into an incredible house and they’ve added some beautiful finishing touches. We met some new friends and were able to get in another season of aspen colors.

This had been the year of driving roads we haven’t traveled before. This time we drove west from Red River to Eagle’s Nest and then through Cimarron  Canyon where we joined I-25 south of Raton and then took Hwy 56 out of Springer to Clayton NM and across northwest Texas into Amarillo. (Red River pictures)

Many of you have probably driven through Amarillo or you’ve seen the billboards for miles around about the Big Texan restaurant. We’ve never eaten there until this time. We stayed in an RV Park right down the road ( Overnight RV Park --$30, really nice; 806-373-1431) and they sent a limo to pick us up. Not just any limo but one with a huge set of longhorns mounted on front!

The Big Texan is the home of the 72 oz steak. If you eat the whole thing in an hour it’s free. But if you don’t its $72! AND you have to eat the baked potato, salad, roll and 3 butterfly fried shrimp. They’ve been doing this since 1960. Amazingly, a competitive  eater (Molly Schuyler, 120 pounds) ate 3 of them in 20 minutes and set a new record, earning $5000. (Big Texan website)

We didn’t try it but our steaks were awesome. Almost everything they serve is homemade and comes with a fresh jalapeno pepper.  We had fried mushrooms and Rocky Mountain Oysters for appetisers and they were the best. They have a whole menu of handcrafted beers also and serve them in all sizes including a 101 oz tower of beer, $20. It has a spigot on the bottom for easy serving. The restaurant are on I-40 east which is part of the original Route 66 so the gift shop has lots of memorabilia, Texas bling and snakes ( yes that’s a really big, live rattlesnake ) (Big Texan  pictures)

The next day we headed east to Childress and then south through the Hill Country into Anson. It is just north of Abilene out in cotton country. Very flat and a taste of the scenery to come. We stayed with friends we met working at Amazon, Randy and Evelyn.

The last leg of our trip, on Oct 16th,  took us around San Antonio and south into the Rio Grande Valley to Mission, TX, just a few miles from the Rio Grande river. Wendye and Shelley leased a lot in an RV resort here for the season, so we came down to check it out and enjoy some R&R.