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.