It snowed really hard on our last night in New Mexico. We could hear it hitting the trailer. The whole campground was covered with a blanket of snow and all that white lit up the night sky. A few hours before it was pitch black. This is a new experience for us. You can tell us Californians haven’t much experience living in the snow. Stop laughing all you ‘snow’ savvy people. We discussed staying in Santa Rosa another night. We just didn’t want to experience driving in snow storms again. But all was well when we woke up in the morning. Most of the snow had melted and it was slightly overcast, and cold. The drive to Texas was short and uneventful. It rained most of the way. After 3 hours and 170 miles we arrived at Oasis RV Park in Amarillo, Texas.
OASIS RV PARK, AMARILLO, TEXAS: This is an excellent RV park. It is very large with 192 sites (mostly pull-thrus). All the interior roads and sites are paved. All the sites are very spacious with room for the largest of big rigs and room left over for a patio area and parking space for a few cars. There is lots of space between the sites. The landscaped areas between each site have gravel and pampas grass. There is no green or trees. But hey, this is the desert. The park is nicely laid out and completely level. We had full hook-ups with cable TV (40 channels), but no local channels (our antenna was not working). So we had no local news and I missed my favorite show; Lost. There was free WiFi with a strong signal, but it never connected to the internet. Occasionally we did get a connection, but it was slow. Very frustrating. I needed to get on Facebook and harvest my crops in Farmville!! The owner of this RV park was on site and he and the staff were very friendly and accommodating. The owner explained about ongoing problems with the WiFi and he was “working on it”. The bathrooms were excellent! They were individual rooms with shower, sink and toilet. Very private, very clean with lots of hot water and good pressure. We rated this RV park a 4 (out of 5). It would have been a perfect 5 if we had WiFi and local channels.
DAY 14 – MARCH 16 – THE AMARILLO ZOO & BOTANICAL GARDENS:
Amarillo has a small zoo that was established in 1955 on 15 acres with over 60 species of animals. It was very nice for a small zoo. It even had lions, tigers, and bears. But there were no elephants, giraffe, or zebra.
It was not the right season for visiting gardens, but we went anyway. Being that it was still the winter season and most of the plants looked dead, the entrance was free. The gardens are very small, but nicely laid out and would be a nice garden when everything is blooming. There was a nice tropical conservatory that was newly constructed. It looked like they were expanding as there was other construction going on. We will have to visit again at a later year.
After dinner we treated ourselves to a movie. We saw ‘Alice in Wonderland’ (without the 3-D glasses – it was just as good). A great magical movie!
DAY 15 – MARCH 17 – PALO DURO CANYON STATE PARK:
About 20 miles outside of Amarillo, in the middle of all this flat land, is a big hole and Texas’ ‘best kept secret’. That hole is a canyon of "spectacular geologic wonders and panorama of colors”. You drive down into it on 16 miles of roadway (one way). It is full of campgrounds (some with full hook-ups) and lots and lots of trails for hiking, horseback riding and bicycling. This is a beautiful, fun place and it’s on our list to return to it and camp there.
HISTORIC ROUTE 66: On our way to visit Palo Duro Canyon we made a stop along Route 66 to check out ‘Marsh’s Cadillac Ranch”. This is a row of ‘dead’ Cadillac’s sticking nose first in the ground. Stanley Marsh created this artistic attraction that consists of 10 Cadillac’s, from a 1949 Coupe to a 1963 sedan. They are buried in a simple line at the same angle as the Pyramid of Cheops in Egypt. It was originally installed in 1974 in the outskirts of Amarillo. But development crept closer. By 1997 several mega stores and a Cadillac dealership became neighbors. That same year Marsh moved the whole thing two miles down the road. People are invited to spray paint their names or their own art on the cars. Unfortunately the area is littered with spray paint cans, even thought there are a few large signs asking people to not toss the cans, but deposit them in a large trash bin outside the gate.
Yesterday when we visited the zoo and gardens, we drove through downtown and noticed a lot of life size painted horses. After visiting the Canyon, we drove downtown and walked around and took pictures of all of the horses we could find. We believe the project was done this year and it is called “Hoof Prints of the American Quarter Horse”. It was sponsored by the American Quarter Horse Association.
HAPPY ST. PATRICK'S DAY
We had forgotten that St. Patrick’s Day was upon us (and I am half Irish!) so we were unprepared for it when we realized it was today. We did wear green and we saw several people wearing green too. But we could not find any Irish pubs or restaurants advertising corn beef and cabbage (guess there are not a lot of Irish people in Texas). So we stopped at a grocery store to see if we could find some fixings for a corn beef dinner. All we could come up with was a package of sliced corn beef deli meat and Brussels sprouts and potatoes. So that night, Dave fixed us an Irish dinner and we enjoyed our feast with a glass of wine (sorry, no green beer).Our visit to Amarillo was fun and very pleasant. We like Amarillo. There are lots of things to see and do here. We also found the people very friendly. We were smiled at a lot and also greeted by several passing people. We did not notice a Texan drawl accent at all. I guess the Panhandle is not ‘southern’ enough. We will be returning some day to visit again.
Oklahoma Facts: Became a state in 1907. Often called “Little Dixie”, but has a Midwestern feel due to the acres of wheat and grain elevators. It covers 69,919 square miles with a population of 3,450,650. The capital is Oklahoma City.
State Flower: 1893 – Mistletoe, 1910 – Indian Blanket, 2004 – Oklahoma Rose
State Bird: Scissor Tailed Flycatcher
State Animal: American Buffalo
State Tree: Redbud
State Song: Oklahoma (Rogers & Hammerstein)
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