Vacation Part3 -
Yes I know this is taking a LOOOOOOOOOOOOONG time to finish... but here we go..
We left Flagstaff, and kept driving... we stopped for breakfast, and kept going and we had driven all day and went through Arizona, New Mexico, not much to see there... trust me, and we had arrived in Texas around 5:00pm and stopped in Amarillo to have dinner. The place that we stopped was a restaurant called, the Big Texan... it is the home of the 72 oz steak. that basically means that if you were up to the challenge, and I do mean a CHALLENGE... if you could eat a 72 oz steak dinner w/all the trimmings in one hour, your dinner is FREE!! Now I ask you, why in heaven would anyone want that much beef is beyond me. Don't get me wrong, I love beef as much as the next guy... or gal but yuck... that much beef... bleh.... and we called dad to let him know that we were stopping to get dinner and continue on... we got through Texas and into Oklahoma and decided to actually get a hotel room for the night and get some much NEEDED sleep. I finally talked my brother into it by saying that I would pay for half of the room... which helped up the decency of the hotel... we stopped an hour outside of Oklahoma City and found several hotels. We stopped at the first one, and it was a one of the national brands and they were about $60.00 for the night... we said that we would be back... I personally wanted that one... nice comfortable beds... a shower... yipee... we tried a couple more and they were not as nice... one was like the "Bates" motel... I walked in the lobby and thought that we were going to die in an instant... it was skanky... like one of these nightmares you have that you are going to die if you stay in these rooms by some wild maniac w/ no shirt on and he is going to be fat and "ugly"... you know those horror pictures... and I kid you not... we rang the front desk bell and out walks this fat, ugly old man w/ no shirt on... BLEH!!!!! nasty... I think he may have had a old nasty cigar in his mouth.. but I didn't stick around long enough to find out... my brother was trying to have me stay there... I told him that I would rather sleep in the car again than stay in the "Bates" from HELL motel... Thank heavens after much contemplation and a little bit of arguing we decided to stay at the first hotel... which I think was the Clarion or something in that "family" of hotels... but I digress. We finally got checked in and fell asleep about 1 in the morning. Before I go much further though, I have to back up and take you back to the rest area as we entered Oklahoma. Now, for those of you who know me, know that I am NOT a fan of NASTY, disgusting bathrooms, I don't think any of us are... and so I am not in favor, of stopping for bathroom breaks at some rest areas or state welcome centers, because of a fear that the restrooms are going to be GROSS!!! Well, we stopped at the welcome center in Oklahoma, and this was not even the case at all... these bathrooms were gorgeous... they were spotless, and was clean enough that it looked like it almost had gold plating on EVERYTHING!!! I could have slept in this thing if it were allowed... I took pics of all of the welcome centers as we entered their states... my brother wanted me to take pics of these restrooms, which I didn't, because, that is just weird... but this thing was NICE...