12 July 2021
OK, to start this story, I have to provide a little background. Jo and her ex Ken visited their son in New Mexico a month or so ago. On their way back to San Antonio, Ken found a horned toad by the side of the road at a museum they had stopped. Ken asked someone in the gift shop for a box and put the horned toad into it. Jo asked what was in the box and Ken said a horned toad – which by this time was jumping around in the box. Jo made Ken put the box in the very back reaches of the vehicle after she couldn’t convince him to release it. At last report, the horned toad is doing well in Lafayette, Louisiana with meals of crickets.
It became a running joke between Jo and me that I was going to stop in Lafayette on my way to San Antonio and pick up Ken’s horned toad for Jo to take back to the museum roadside.
Today on our way to Amarillo, we stopped for a bathroom break on I-20. It was a really nice rest stop. They had a plaque explaining about how dry west Texas has become and the importance of conserving water. They designed the rest stop buildings so that rain water would rain into a cistern which then deposited the water in an underground storage tank. That water is used to irrigate the vegetation around the rest stop.
They also had a very nice interpretive center inside the rest stop with a little natural history of the region and a little history history of the region. Included was this information.
If you can’t enlarge the photo enough to read, it basically tells the tale of the construction of the Eastland County Courthouse in 1897 and putting in the building a time capsule that contained a bible, some newspapers and a living horned toad. In 1928 the old courthouse was demolished and a new one constructed. They decided to open the time capsule. As they pulled out the horned toad it began to move. The damned thing had lived for 31 years in a sealed time capsule.
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Who says travel isn’t broadening? The photo above was sent to Ken. We await his response.
I think it was around Cisco we decided to get some lunch and we stopped at Taqueria Guadalajara where the parking lot was full. We figured all those pickup trucks couldn’t be wrong. I have to admit their taco salad was one of the better ones I’ve had. My only complaint was the stench in the back of the restaurant from the dumpsters and the number of flies inside the restaurant. I don’t think the place would pass the health inspection of Broward County but I should be safe because I’m usually known for my cast iron stomach. We’ll see.
Jo and I were in no hurry to get to Palo Duro Canyon and as it got later, we agreed to head on into Amarillo instead of the park. We were both tired and needed some down time from the jeep. We’ll get up tomorrow and do the canyon drive through and then decide if there are any trails we want to hike.
I took the time to do the laundry at the Hilton Garden Inn. The nicest Garden Inn I’ve stayed in was in California. This one is a little older and looks like it could do a redo. The receptionist was very interesting. She was the bar tender at Garden Inn but all that got closed down due to the pandemic. They still haven’t opened up the restaurant or the bar. So far, every hotel on this trip has required masks. Very few people are observing the requirement.
We didn’t even go out to dinner. The taco salad was filling and we snacked on trip food for most of the day. We are spending two nights in Amarillo so we are not in a hurry to do anything. Speaking of Amarillo, I recommend to you Jerry Jeff Walker’s version of “London Homesick Blues.” You’ll want to come to Amarillo too.
Stay tuned!