Hello, all! Trying to catch up on my travel blogging as part of my New Year's Resolution. Good luck to me! Have about a dozen outstanding trips to catch up on...decided to start with last May's road trip to Texas. That was a fun one!
We set out from Quartzsite with the intention of visiting a few tourist attractions we always seemed to miss on other trips. First stop was Meteor Crater Natural Landmark. It is located near Interstate 40 and old Route 66 near Winslow, Arizona. It is billed as the best-preserved meteorite impact site in the world. It is the result of a collision that happened approximately 50,000 years ago with the energy of more than 20 million tons of TNT. Here I am posing on its rim. The photo really doesn't convey the size of the crater.
After lunch the same day, we drove to The Petrified Forest. I'd been asking Noah to take me there for years, but he always insited there was "nothing" to see there. Being the rock nut that I am, I had to disagree, and I'm glad we finally went. There were lots of awesome "rocks." Here I am posing at the visitor center located near the park's entrance:
The next day we stopped at the El Rancho Hotel in Gallup, New Mexico. We'd been seeing billboards for it along the way and decided to stop and discover what it was all about. Turned out to be quite interesting.
The hotel was built by the brother of old-time movie director D.W. Griffith, opened in 1937, and used as a base for movies filming nearby. Lots of Hollywood stars stayed there including John Wayne, Ronald Reagan, Spencer Tracy, Kirk Douglas, Jane Wyman, Katherine Hepburn & many more. The inside was filled with old photos of past guests and lots of other memorabilia:
Noah did a lot of fishing at his nephew's place out on Lake Graham. Here he is with one of his fish:
There were a lot of (delicious) fish fries during our visit. They like to EAT in Texas!
One day, we took a trip to Dallas to visit the Sixth Floor Museum at Dealey Plaza.
Here is a photo of the "X" from street level (much easier to see):
During our time in Texas, we took a side trip to Branson, Missouri. On our way, we made a couple of sight-seeing stops. First was the Eisenhower Birthplace in Denison, Texas:
Eisenhower was born in this house in 1890, the first U.S. President to be born in Texas. However, he didn't live here very long. His father worked for the railroad and was renting the house when Eisenhower was born. Eisenhower's family returned to Kansas when he was 18 months old.
Also went to Bentonville, Arkansas to visit the Walmart museum located at the site of Sam Walton's first Five & Dime. I highly recommend the experience. (Sam Walton was a genius innovator & definitely doesn't deserve the bad rap he seems to get nowadays). Here I am standing beside Sam's pickup. This is the car he drove till the day he died.
In Branson, we took in a number of shows and attractions. We visited Silver Dollar City, took in a dinner show on the Branson Belle (a paddle wheeler that cruises Table Rock Lake),
...went to an escape room (didn't escape!), and finally went to Dolly Parton's Stampede Dinner and horseback riding show. On the day we returned to Texas, the entire state of Oklahoma was under a severe tornado watch. All the schools in Oklahoma City were closed and there were travel advisories warning people to stay home! We got up super early and raced back to Texas. Thankfully, we were able to outrun the tornados and avoid being carried away to Oz!
One of our last days in Texas, we went to lunch at the most amazing cafe in Woodson called The Woodson Inn (very original, huh?) The food was incredible! Melt-in-your mouth brisket and the most ridiculous chocolate sheet cake I've ever eaten...and I ate way too much of it, let me tell you! Driving by, you might miss it, but if you're ever in Woodson, be sure to stop, you won't regret it!
On our return trip (we had to go back to Arizona to attend Buck Knife's HS graduation in California at the beginning of June before we could get back to our summer digs in Wyoming), we made a couple more stops (mostly eating ones, but not all!)
We had dinner one night at Del's Restaurant in Tucumcari, New Mexico. It was rated the #1 restaurant in Tucumcari by Trip Advisor & after eating there, I had to agree. I enjoyed an amazing jalapeño soup/stew and have been dreaming about having it again it ever since! Here's Noah outside before dinner:
The next morning, I went for my morning walk along Old Route 66. Tucumcari is like a real-life museum of old motels and curio shops from the hey-day of the famous highway. Here are just a couple of the cool photos I took that morning:
Our next stop was the La Posada Hotel in Winslow, Arizona. We stopped there for dinner in The Turquoise Room.
The La Posada Hotel was one of the last Harvey Houses to be built. It was opened in 1930 and closed in 1957. Since it closed, the building passed through many hands, and was almost demolished, but luckily was saved and restored. The dining room looks out at the railroad tracks. If you'd like to read more about this awesome building, check it out here:
http://laposada.org/history/
The final stop on this trip was Montezuma's Castle near Camp Verde, Arizona south of Flagstaff. We'd tried to visit the previous December during our Christmas trip to Sedona, but unfortunately, it had been closed due to the government shut-down. Bummer! But this time, we were able to get in and finally see the cliff dwellings:
Archaeologists believe this dwelling was built sometime between 1100 and 1350 A.D. by the women of the (so-called) Sinagua Indians (you go, girls!) Anyway, as always, I was awed by these ancient ruins. The stories these places could tell!! I'd love to hear them!
Well...that was it for our Texas roadtrip of 2019. I had a spectacular time & am looking forward with great anticipation to the Texas roadtrip of 2020 scheduled for this coming April.
Happy Trails to all,
Buckskin Lily
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