Our RV Adventures

We left Valley View RV Park in Ft. Sumner, NM about 9:30 am after getting 107 gallons of diesel at a Valero. It was $3.09 a gallon, which is better than the $3.69 I paid in Washington State a few weeks ago, but not as good as $2.89 in Salt Lake City about a week ago. And of course it was $2.74 when we got into Texas today. Oh well.

About an hour later we passed thru Clovis, NM, our daughter-in-law Linda’s home town, though we didn’t really get to see a lot of it just passing through.

Then, about 10 miles later we were back in Texas and the Central Time Zone, for the first time since late February.

It’s good to be home, and “back to civilization’” as Jan says.  Of course, Jan defines “civilization” as any place that has a nearby WalMart. And today in Clovis was the first sign of a WalMart in 4 days.

Compared to the RV park from Hell in Magdalena night before last, the park in Ft. Sumner was a Rivera resort.  And they were both the same price, $20. Here’s a couple of photos of the Ft. Sumner park.

The kind of funny thing about here in Ft. Sumner is that, although I had no usable cell service, just a signal, but with no bars, I had good Internet on my Verizon AirCard, which is supposed to use the same signal band. If I tried to make a phone call, it would try to connect and then just drop out. Funny.

And,although it’s hard to tell from this photo, the Amarillo Ranch RV Park we’re now at here in Amarillo for the next two nights is even nicer, and only $16.50 with Passport America. Whoopee!

After arriving at Amarillo Ranch RV Park about 2 pm we got set up, and then a little while later headed out for some shopping. Our first stop was Sam’s Club, and after that we headed toward Kohl’s so Jan could find some sandals for Brandi’s wedding.

But we discovered that the Kohl’s was way west of town about 12 miles away, and we’d decided we wanted to eat at the Big Texan Steak Ranch, which was the other way, before it got too crowded. So we headed back toward the RV park, and the Big Texan, which is is about a mile on the other side. We’ll do Kohl’s tomorrow.

Let me tell you, the Big Texan is big!  It not only has the enormous two-story restaurant and gift shop, but a small casino with slot machines, and a motel next door.

Jan was apparently too hungry to get up close and personal with Big Tex here,

like she did with Babe the Blue Ox in Klamath, CA last month. Maybe next time.

The Big Texan claim to fame is their 72 oz Steak Challenge.

Free Steak!  I’m going to have to check this out.

The decor can be described as “Western Chic”, but who cares if the steaks are good.

And here’s where the action takes place. It’s up on a stage, complete with two live steaming Internet WebCams to record all the action.

And here’s the deal.

You have 1 hour to eat a 72 oz Sirloin steak, shrimp cocktail, salad, baked potato, and a dinner roll.

If you do it, it’s all free.

If you don’t, it costs you $72.00.

I assume they get their money up front.

Yikes!  That’s not a steak, that’s a roast. That’s 4 and a half pounds of meat!

I don’t know if you have to eat the two raw jalapenos or not.

The oldest person to complete the challenge was a 69 year-old grandmother.

The youngest was an 11 year-old boy.

The record time is 8 minutes 52 seconds by Joey Chesnut, the World Champion Hot Dog Eating Contest Winner.

And a Bengal tiger once ate the 72 oz  steak in 90 seconds. Don’t know what he did with the baked potato and shrimp cocktail.

We found out later that they have this limo that will come over to the RV park and pick you up and return you.

This is probably a good idea if you plan on trying the Challenge, since you’ll probably be too stuffed to drive, win or lose.

For our part, Jan had the 9 oz Filet, and I did the Quarter Challenge, with the 18 oz. Ribeye.

Unfortunately I was  too hungry to take a picture first, but 18 oz. of steak is big!

And, although I finished the 18 oz. steak, salad, baked potato, and a roll, I don’t think i could handle 3 more steaks and a shrimp cocktail.

I told Jan that I’d be willing to starve myself for a couple of days and give it a try if someone else wanted to foot the bill.

We were certainly too full for dessert, but we’d heard they had really good carrot cake so we ask for a slice to go.

And this is what we got.

When they say Big, they mean it.  It fills the whole container!

As we staggered out to the truck, almost too stuffed to walk, our daughter Brandi called to check up on things since we had had spotty cell service for the last couple of days

Then it was back to the rig, to just sit around and digest.

More tomorrow…

but we probably won’t eat again ‘til Thursday.

Quote of the day:
For a while we pondered whether to take a vacation or get a divorce. We decided that a trip to Bermuda is over in two weeks, but a divorce is something you always have. — Woody Allen

Q

We pulled out of the RV Park from Hell about 9:15, which was doing good because we didn’t get up until 8:30.

The place was so tight that Jan had to get out and guide me so I wouldn’t hit the fence or drag the toad along the handy-dandy railroad tie standing upright at the corner of the site, seemingly for no other purpose than to make it almost  impossible to pull out. They have 4 pull-thru sites side by side. If all 4 of them had been full then 2 of them would have to back out because there was just not enough room to make the turn. Even with only two rigs there i missed the fence by less than an inch with my mirror.

But finally we were on our way.

A little while after passing thru Socorro we starting seeing fields of these cactus plants with many of them in bloom. I think they’re Tree Cholla.

The road was pretty good, and the trip was uneventful, which was nice.

But it was boring,boring,boring. Endless stretches of scrubby desert, dotted with towns that died years ago but nobody told them, just on and on and on…

It makes you start yearning for an Interstate with a billboard or two.

But the real reason that it’s so boring is that we’re here,and Nick and Terry are still back in Show Low. Which means our fun has pretty much ground to a halt.

Course I sometimes wondered if Nick just keeps us around to provide content for his blog and GypsyJournal newspaper. That, and to fix things he’s broken, of course.

For example, if you check this article out, you’ll see this perfectly innocent picture of two people having fun…well, one of us is having fun.

And, of course, Nick uses it for his own nefarious purposes. Laughter at our expense…well, Jan’s expense anyway.

She’s the one who looks likes she’s plugged into a light socket.

It’s going to be a long, boring six weeks before we see them again, so we’ll just have to see what other content Jan and I can come up with for Nick.

We got to Ft. Sumner about 1:30 pm and got parked. Although it’s plain, it’s so much nicer that Magdalena last night.

It’s 50 amp, the water works, and we’re not parked in what looks like a junkyard, and it’s the same $20 price.

After getting set up, we visited the Billy The Kid Museum right down the street. Not only to see the museum, but to pay for our site, since that’s where the RV office is, too.

For me, the best part was looking at all the old rifles and pistols they had on display. Jan really enjoyed reading about John Chisum, of Chisum Trail fame, one of her ancestors.

We asked the guy at the museum about a good place to eat. We knew we were in trouble when he said, “That’s a good question.”

Apparently there are none. At least none that were open right now.The only one that was open…kind of, was the Rodeo Grill, which closes at 4 pm.

It was now 5 pm. There are no other restaurants in town open this time of year. This is a town of 2000 people.  Get with it.

We finally tracked down a grocery store and picked up some stuff for supper. And, along the way we scoped out a Valero gas station to get some diesel tomorrow morning on our way out of town.

Tomorrow we make a 170 mile run to Amarillo where we’ll be for two days, before heading down thru Abilene on our way back to the Austin area.

More later…

Quote of the day:
If we don’t change direction soon, we’ll end up where we’re going. – Professor Irwin Corey

qqq