Contiki Day 6 - Amarillo Y'All

Today we had another epic bus journey with heaps of ground to cover. Destination: Amarillo, Texas! We ironically watched the movie “twister” on the bus, as we were travelling through Tornado Alley... and there were tornado warnings all over the news. Good. We were assured that we were heading away from the areas where the warnings were in place but still, freaky stuff! 

We made a pit stop for lunch at a hugemungeous Wallmart in Wichita Falls, where we all raced around trying to find gear appropriate for the snowy conditions of Colorado! – Neither of us realised until a few days ago that we were going to be making a stop in Colorado... otherwise we might not have posted everything warm we own back to the west coast!!!  Nevertheless, we weren’t the only ones ill prepared, so a bunch of us walked out of there with some boots, gloves and thermals – basically anything warm. 

The next part of the bus journey was a bit emotional – we watched The Blind Side. 

Shortly before arriving at our hotel, we made a detour to a field just out of Amarillo called Cadillac Ranch. It’s an art installation/sculpture in the middle of a huge empty field, for the public to freely graffiti/spray paint to their hearts desire. We made our mark, and took some photos!

 

 

Our hotel in Amarillo was one out of a picture book. So cute! Very old school western style, and the exterior of the building was painted like old western shops. Inside it was heavily cowboyish complete with brown fringe shower curtain!! 

 

We had an hour of chill time before dinner, so we popped the tv on and blobbed for a bit – and freaked out a little as the incredibly high winds blew stuff all over the carpark...tornado much? Nek Minnut... IT WAS SNOWING!!!!!! Real snow. More than it did when we were in New York. Cold fluffy snow that settled on the ground and looked pretty and it was awesome! (and very cold.)

 

 

Dinner was at The Big Texan, where 9 of our group took part in another food challenge. **Google Man vs Food Steak Challenge** they each had one hour to eat a 72ounce steak (approx 2kgs), 3 shrimp cocktail, a baked potato, salad and a bread roll. Its streamed live on the web, and there was a film crew there for CBS in the Bay Area (San Francisco) who was also attempting the challenge on their ‘road to the superbowl’ piece. The guys (and 2 girls) were all eager and pretty confident, until they saw the steak. In the end, David finished first in 35 mins, followed shortly by his brother Jono who managed it in 45 – needless to say the CBS presenter gave up on his attempt and focused on the two who finished it!! Monte was over the moon as he has never had anyone from his tour groups complete the challenge. 

 

After dinner we jumped on the bus and Willie dropped us down the road at a TINY dive bar where we proceeded to take over from the locals, and drink the place dry. Literally. They ran out of Jager. 

Contiki Day 5 - Dallas

Day 5 of our contiki started with a guided tour around the MASSIVE state of the art Dallas Cowboys Stadium. The Dallas Cowboys may not be a very good sports team, but they certainly know how to build a stadium. The big screens in the middle of the field are the size of 3 basketball courts, there are millions tvs throughout the stadium and the turf is artificial with 3 different surface options so they can change the entire field within 12 hours.
Our tour included the stadium, the Cheerleader's locker room, the player's locker room, a press box, a suite and a gigantic bar.

We then jumped back on the bus and made our way to the Sixth Floor museum. This museum is dedicated to JFK's assassination and is on the 6th floor of the building that JFK's shooter shot from. It was very cool and also very creepy.

We had a look in some hilarious wild western stores, had a delicious lunch that took about 2 hours to come and checked out the grassy noll and the spot on Elm St that JFK was hit.

That evening we headed to the Historic Fort Worth Stockyards to hunt down some cowboys, have a look at what texas is all about, and have the most disgusting Bar-Be-Que meal of our lives.

Contiki Day 4 - Memphis to Dallas

Another early morning... bags to bus at 7.45 ready to leave for a long day on the road to Dallas, Texas.

We drove most of the day but stopped in Texarkana to straddle the state line between Texas and Arkansas... Can officially say we have been in 2 places at once now!

Our second stop for the day was at the Arkansas state capitol in Little Rock which was very pretty.

Once we got to Dallas we had about an hour to shower and get ready to head downtown for a fajita buffet, Dallas Haunt (a haunted house type thing) and a night of Karaoke.

The fajitas were delicious and we walked over to the dallas haunt where the dude briefed us on what to expect.... People dressed up in freaky costumes and jumping out at you to scare you. At this point Laura started freaking out and didn't want to do it anymore. We convinced her it would be fine and waited in line for the next half hour to go in. Once we got to the front of the line about to go in a crazy man dressed in a pig mask jumped out at her and got all up in her grill to the point that she punched him in the face, cried and bailed on the Haunted House.
It took 20 mins to go through and by the time I was out the other end I felt like I had lost 7 years off my life... But I did it!

We then had a very eventful evening of Karaoke and party times..

Contiki Day 3 - Memphis

Saturday 26th January - STRAYA DAY

It's Australia Day, so you can imagine how much stick we have gotten about being kiwis ... 'what time is it? what number comes after 5? can you say fish n chips?' ...

Today we got a 'sleep in' not needing to leave the hotel til 9.30am. After breakfast we all piled back onto the bus and headed for Graceland - home of Elvis. We did a tour which took us through his house and around the estate. Was so cool, but felt a bit weird going through the house knowing that he died upstairs - this area is shut off as courtesy to the family (he died in the bathroom if you weren't aware).

We saw his grave and the memorials for all his family, and left feeling a bit eerie. 

Over the road we went through his car colletion museum and got to have a look inside his private planes which were very retro - complete with gold seatbelt buckles!

After Graceland we headed back downtown, via Sun Studios

and Motel Lorraine where Dr Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated. 

We then wandered around town for a while in desperate search for Starbucks; then went to Gus's Fried Chicken so the boys could sample the finest Fried Chicken Tennessee has to offer. 

We checked out Beale street, this is where it all happens in Memphis, the city is pretty dead apart from this one street - looks like Broadway in Nashville, only smaller; and then went back to the hotel for some downtime before dinner at a famous BBQ restaurant and another night out on the town.