Three days of freezing rain and ice-covered streets in Dallas did not keep us from finding antique malls, comedy clubs, guitar stores, and a restaurant with a robot waitress. There are few things I love more than embarrassing my children and grandchildren by being obnoxious in public. I did not disappoint.
But all good things must end, so this morning we said our good-byes and headed west towards our ultimate goal of Lander, Wyoming.
It was a beautiful day for traveling. Maintaining our goal of taking back roads, we headed to Amarillo by Happy, TX. My dad was a cowboy most of his young life and spent a lot of time in Happy. He started most of his stories off with "Well, we were twenty miles south of Amarillo . . .".
Happy is not what you would call a tourist town. We made a quick stop at the Happy Game Room which is one of the "must go" stops in Happy. After a lot of prodding, I finally agreed to sing a couple of songs to a very appreciative crowd of Happy residents. This is a picture of me waiting for Marcee to pick me up after the show, but traffic in Happy can be troublesome during rush hour. I did a lot of napping today, so that last part might have been a dream . . . can't say for sure.
Anyway, we paced our time in Happy until we felt as if we had experienced all that Happy had to offer. But the truth of the matter was, it was amazing to drive for hours and not see another vehicle of any type. The roads were beautiful in their own way. There are just things you will never see from the interstate.
I have to admit that we spent most of the day listening to the news which was certainly depressing even in the most beautiful scenery. With all the talk of war and nuclear threats, I had some sense of security that we were a part of the country that would be pretty low on anyone's target list. We checked into our hotel, and while we were waiting for the elevator, we just happened to notice the bulletin board listing fun facts about Amarillo:
You can imagine how excited we were to learn that we were spending the night in the home of the largest nuclear weapon assembly plant in the U.S. Yaaay!
Tomorrow (early), we jump on Route 66 and head to Santa Fe. The Cadillac Ranch, the original Bates Motel sign, and some concrete dinosaurs are waiting for us down the road!