Sunday - May 2

Sunday

Driving, driving, driving, all the way from Flower Mound, Tx to Amarillo. Oh man, it had been two years since I'd been through west Texas. I forgot how starkly beautiful it is. I think it must've rained a significant amount while we were in Europe, because the fields were a deep, vibrant green, stretching out as far as you can see. And the sky, well, this is what I was talking about when I said I wish I had more photos. It just seemed enormous. This is all I got, a crude shot from the camera on my Macbook:


The clouds looked as though someone had fattened them up and then stretched them out, pulling them in small wisps down, closer to the earth. It is unspeakably refreshing to drive down a highway free from the sea of fast food restaurants and strip malls. Just open land, all around.

The second highlight of the evening was definitely this place

photo by M. Muller.

The Big Texan. It's the ultimate tourist trap with a gimmick that only the insane would find too good to resist: if you can finish their famous 72 oz. steak, you get it all for free. Ok. Please. Take one moment to remember that 16 oz. makes a pound. Alright. Now consider this steak once more. 72 oz?!?

So of course we went in...And it is hilarious. A country band of very, very, very old men wander about the space, serenading tables with old country classics and hits. The double bass player seems the sassiest, with a furry monkey hanging from the instrument's scroll. The jolly-looking lead singer sauntered by our table, gruffly asking "you folks ready for a song or are you still studyin?" We looked up from our menus and laughed. "Still studyin," he replied. "There's a test on the back."

After paying $15 for chicken strips, macaroni, and a salad, and throwing in $3 for a pitcher of beer, I handed the waiter a twenty dollar bill, silently wondering if I'd lost just a little bit of my mind for paying so much money for what was essentially a Dairy Queen chicken finger basket. Oh well. DQ doesn't have about 50 different taxidermy animals starring down from the wall, complete with a brown bear climbing out of the wall. Or, I should add, an arcade shooting range game where successfully shooting a tiny plastic target likely animates a stage of zombie, disturbing saloon puppets. There was definitely a five dollar charge to sit among the bizarre, but maybe this time it was just about worth it.