Reflections of Amarillo

The family has scattered, and life will go back to whatever we each call normal. We had several of the family over for dinner tonight, and they've now gone home with hugs and good-byes.

It's been a good time, and now it's time to reflect and move on to the next adventures.


Before I forget, I had a couple of comments from readers about the carrot cake. Rod mentioned that he has a bag of carrots and no recipe. The recipe is in the RV Dreams Family Cookbook which can be ordered from Howard and Linda.

When I went to the Cadillac Ranch a few days ago, I saw one of the cars had "Sassy" painted on the trunk. One of our RV-Dreams family members is called Sassy, so this is for her:



Over the past 3 days, we've taken a lot of pictures of family. Instead of posting reunion pictures, I want to share a couple of reflections of Amarillo:

Friday evening, as I was driving back to the motor home, I noticed a really nice sky. No time to get a picture, so I just snapped this in the side mirror while I was stopped at a red light:

We ate dinner at the Country Barn one night, and they have these geese hanging from the ceiling in the silo part of the building:

Two buildings downtown, reflected in the windows of a third:

And that's it for Amarillo. Tomorrow is travel day. We expect to revisit Garden City, Kansas, on the way to North Platte, where we'll join Karon!

Family Reunion in Amarillo

Starting off with more Amarillo Signs:

A whirlwind couple of days, and the 2008 Jones Family Reunion is almost history.

We got moved to Overnight RV Park on the east side of Amarillo yesterday morning, after the final few items got checked off our list of things that needed fixing or adjusting on the Castle. Overnight is a familiar little park that we've stayed at 2 or 3 times before. The people are friendly and the park is clean, has big pull through sites, and has private dog yards in several sites. The downside is that it's right under the flight path for the airport. The planes come in almost on top of us, and it can be pretty noisy at times.

My part of the reunion preparations was to bake my mother-in-law's recipe for carrot cake. Once we got set up, that was my focus. Betty, who passed away last October, was known at family reunions and other get togethers for that carrot cake. I said I would carry on her tradition, so I felt like I had big shoes to fill. There was also going to be a dessert contest at the reunion, so I knew there would be several other tasty desserts.

I don't know what happened, maybe I'm still trying to get used to this convection microwave oven, but whatever, when the cake came out of the oven, the center almost immediately sank into a crater. I was going to scrap the whole thing and not even take it. I even made another dessert to replace it. But, I decided, partly on the urging of Jim and Robin, to go ahead and take it. And guess what -- it won the contest! I guess once it got the icing on it, the "crater" wasn't as noticeable. Or maybe, Betty's tradition just lives on.

There were about 40 or so folks who attended this year's reunion, held today at a local apartment complex club house. It seems each year we lose a family member or two, or sometimes more. We miss the folks who are no longer with us, but sure do enjoy getting together to get caught up with everyone's news. The generations are shifting to the younger ones. I was happy to see several young people, including a one-month old baby, at this one. Hmmm, it's hard for me to grasp the fact that I'm in that "older" generation now!

We're very glad we were able to attend this reunion, in spite of the fact that here we are in "Tornado Alley" in June. Tomorrow morning we will all meet for breakfast, and that is the official end of this year's reunion.

It's time to look ahead to moving on down the road Monday morning. We're very excited to be heading towards South Dakota. On the way, at North Platte, Nebraska, we'll meet up with our dear friends, Karon & Dan. We've spent quite a bit of time with them in the past, staying in the same places. We're really happy to be able to spend some time with them again, relaxing, visiting, fishing, exploring. We'll be traveling to South Dakota together. At this point, we don't know how long we'll stay on the same paths, but we will enjoy our time with them. Can't wait!

Driving Amarillo

We went through our list with our fix-it technician here at Dickey Stout Motor Ranch in Amarillo this morning. Then we all piled into the car and took off, leaving the Castle in the hands of the professionals.

Breakfast at Cracker Barrel was first on the list. Then we got the car inspected so it's once again Texas legal. After that, we went out to Cadillac Ranch. Jim stayed in the car with the dogs while I walked the 200 or so yards from the road out to the 10 cadillacs buried in the prairie.

From a distance, the 10 cars, half buried in a field west of Amarillo, just south of I-40:

Over the years, people have delighted in spray painting them. There's so much paint on them, I think that's what is holding them together!

Once again on the road, we drove around local streets for a long time, seeking the strange signs of Amarillo. I think by now I have enough pictures to post a few each day for quite a while. We have a friend who, hopefully, will read our blog often in the coming days and weeks, as we believe he will enjoy seeing these signs. Come to think of it, I believe we have several friends who might identify with some of the expressions on these signs. I also know that we didn't get pictures of nearly all of them!

I also wanted to get some pictures of the painted horses around downtown Amarillo. Here are my two favorites:

Then it was time to go to the park. Thompson Park is the largest (I think) park in Amarillo. I know it's a very large park. Today we found they've fenced in a very spacious area for a dog park. Oh boy, those dogs didn't know what to do when I took the leashes off. Jazz kind of looked at me and trotted off. Mr. Bo Jangles immediately started claiming trees for his very own. In the center of the dog park is a tunnel. Mr. BJ is very familiar with this piece of equipment and went right through. He spent many months in our former lives attending agility classes, and actually competed in a couple of matches. Jazz has never had classes, so she's a little hesitant around the equipment. But she eventually got all the way through the tunnel.

After romping around for awhile, they visited the special doggie drinking fountain provided just for them:

We checked back in at the RV dealership to see how our work was coming along. They still hadn't solved the tv problem and needed to talk to someone at Tiffin in Red Bay, Alabama. The people they needed to contact were out, so we went back out on the roads again. I saw more of Amarillo today than I have in all the previous visits combined!

The skies started looking pretty ugly, and we decided to get back to the rig, finished or not. As we got here, the weather radio was going off with tornado warnings. The local tornado sirens started sounding as well. Scary stuff! As it turned out, we were just a little west of the worst of the storm. Just a few miles can make a big difference. We went in the shop and watched the local weather on tv with the staff here. They're very informal, so had no problem with us being in there with the dogs. A tornado touched down just east of Amarillo, at a Flying J Truck Stop along I-40. I'm glad we were still here, as that's close to the area we are going to be staying once we leave the dealership.

The storm moved south. We relaxed a few minutes before it was time to go visit the family. The next couple of days will be filled with family reunion activities!

Elk City to Amarillo

Back in Texas! It was a short travel day, and quite uneventful. We are spending the night in Dickey Stout RV Ranch so the rig can be looked at first thing in the morning. We have a few minor items to be taken care of under warranty. While they're working on the Castle, we'll be out and about in the car.

This was our sky in Elk City, Oklahoma, last night.

Sweet Jasmine, snoozing next to me on the couch:

Texas, Yeee-Haawww!

I don't know too much about him, but Stanley Marsh is a well-known, eccentric millionaire in these parts. He's the one who buried 10 Cadillacs west of Amarillo. He also planted odd signs in random places throughout the town. We took pictures of some of them today. Over the next few days, I'm going to be posting pictures of these signs that sit, planted in yards, alleys, and on corners in Amarillo.

Jim's family will be gathering here in Amarillo for the annual family reunion this weekend. It should be a fun time!