Steak or a Snack?
Welcome to Texas! Bring on the heat, dust, and big trucks and leave your vegetables at the border. We spent the next six days driving across Texas.
Our first day we only dipped our toes in by staying at New Mexico’s oldest winery that happens to be a couple of miles from the NM-TX border. The closest restaurants were in TX, so we took the glowing recommendations from guests at the winery for a nearby Mexican restaurant. It did not disappoint! Particularly in terms of price and the bakery. For less than $30, we had dinner, drinks and a bag full of breakfast pastries.
The next morning we headed south and spent about an hour driving along the US-Mexico border. This was a highlight for me because the border is in the news quite a bit, and I’ve always wanted to see what it looks like. The section that divides El Paso and Ciudad Juarez was the most interesting. The Mexico side was densely filled with colorful houses leading up to mountain range while the US side was speckled with a few financial institution high-rises. Along most of the border we drove by there are three different fences dividing the countries.
Just before finally starting our journey east we stopped by the Licon Dairy where they make cheeses and have a petting “zoo” with a wide variety of animals including donkeys, goats, llamas, peacocks, ostriches, turtles, and of course, cows. This was actually a Harvest Host, but we arrived early in the day, and given the days are long and it was unseasonably hot, we opted to drive a little further to Van Horn, TX to spend the night at the local Love’s Travel Stop. While the cows were certainly the highlight of the day, a close second was a well-deserved compliment from a local truck driver on Jeremy’s backup skills in the camper. We don’t talk about the driving that much, but Jeremy is truly a fearless pro and a skilled jack of all trades that makes our camper trailer travels possible.
There’s not much along several sections of I-20 through Texas, but I try to find at least one thing a day to explore along our way. Today our attractions were the Odessa meteor crater and a Stonehenge replica. A lot of conflicting info regarding the crater, but it likely fell about 62,000 years ago and the crater is ~500 feet across. We also got to see and touch a piece of the meteorite (iron) in the museum.
We spent the night at the Permian Basin Petroleum museum (also a Harvest Host) in Midland, TX and toured it the next day. It was a good balance of history of the area as well as oil, gas, and alternative energy sources in general. Our next stop was Amber Dragon Meadery in Abilene. Mead is an alcoholic beverage made from honey that tends to be a little viscous with an ABV similar to wine. We tried their four varieties available on tap and bought a couple of bottles for the road. It was an eclectic little shop filled with fermenting mead, board games, video games, and a random assortment of medieval and dragon swag. Seems like it would have been an entertaining place to be on the weekend.
Our final stops in Texas were in the Ft. Worth area. We spent Friday night in Ft. Worth Stockyards National Historic area. It is a commercial district that is also meant to preserve the area’s livestock heritage, so it includes a mix of bars, honkey tonks, and restaurants alongside resident longhorn cattle and the Cowtown Coliseum. Adding to the excitement, we happened to be there during the Professional Bull Riding (PBR) semi-finals.
Ft. Worth might be the only major city that allows overnight RV parking downtown as long as we paid for two parking spots. We’ve been to a bull riding competition before, so we opted to go to the midnight ‘bullfight’ instead. We had a full night ahead of us, so JD asked the local info booth for recommendations. Her reply was, “Do you want a steak, or a snack?” It was a funny reply, but true. In that area, and generally around TX, meal choices primarily consist of snacks (aka processed cow products and fried bread and potato side dishes) and steakhouses.
One of the local bars (appropriately called the Cowboy Channel) was showing the PBR semi-finals, so we stopped in there to watch the action and grab a drink. Interestingly, Monster is the main beverage sponsor of PBR. A definite missed opportunity by the beer PBR, which has no affiliation. However, Jeremy quickly made friends with one of the Monster reps, so we hung out with him and his buddy while enjoying the Mike’s Hard Lemonade of the 2020s. Pretty sure I was about 18 the last time I had one of those 🙂 We ended the evening at the ultimate “bullfight”, where teams of rodeo clowns tease generally well-trained bulls to chase them around the arena. Jeremy described it as “dances with cows” and has finally decided what he wants to be when he grows up!
The next morning we woke up and headed a short 20 minutes down the ride to park our camper at a Harvest Host brewery before heading to opening day of Six Flags in Arlington, TX. We haven’t been to an amusement park since our first trip together which was about six years ago and included a stop at Hershey Park. Going to an amusement park on a Saturday plus opening day was a risky move, but the lines weren’t that bad (averaged about one ride every 30 minutes). Two highlights were the Joker and Aquaman roller coasters. On The Joker, we dangled on a 4-person cart, looking outward while we were swung around the track. On Aquaman you sit in a large ‘boat’ while speeding back and forth up a U-shape track before splashing through water at the end.
Overall a fun week in Texas! Back on the road to Louisiana tomorrow. And don’t forget to check out the map of our travels.
