The old folks decided
to take a trip to West Texas, so us guys decided to go along, cuz that's
what we always do anyhow. We drove out in a little snow storm, but
we din't get stuck or nothing, so we finally got to Amarillo, Texas about
a little late for our regular dinner time, which is about 5:00.
We noticed by the road signs that this must be
called "The Christmas State," cuz every other town was named
"Santa This," or "Santa That."
The next morning we got up and went to see a history
museum, in Canyon,
Texas, which is about 15 miles south of Amarillo. That museum had a
lot of oil well stuff and windmill fans that they use to make wind around
there. We seen that the water squirts out of the ground through a
pipe and pushes a long stick up and down, and that stick makes some gears
and things turn the fan so the wind will blow. (In Colorado the
trees wiggle their leaves, and that
makes the wind blow, but in Texas they don't have very many trees
like that so they need these windmills to manufacture some wind).
A lot of the cool things looked pretty dangerous, so
none of us guys messed with anything there. There was an awful lot
of cool things in that museum, and I can't put in about a hunnert
pitchers, so you ken jest click your mouse thingy below to get to their
website. Don't forget to click on the pitcher to make it reel big if
you want to.
Panhandle-Plains
Historical Museum
After that museum we went back to Amarillo and
checked out the Helium
Monument, which is a famous thing around there. It looked reel cool
so me and Sniffy got out and checked it out reel
close. Near the back there
was this little faucet that stuck out of one of the legs, so since we was
both thirsty, I turned it on a little tiny bit, and got a mouth full of
smoke that came out and blew all over both of us. Then when I
decided to talk, I sounded like one of those talking birds, and so did
Sniffy, so we went back into the van and had some fun talking to the other
guys and making funny sounds that we couldn't
usually do. That magic gas wore off after about an hour and we both
talked normal again. That sure was fun!
Then we went and found an old train locomotive, and
it also looked pretty dangerous, so we stayed in the van. Anyhow,
the locomotive was behind
a couple of big fences, so they must have had some trubble with people
messing with it before.
I used to have a website link here, but then it
started taking you to a medicine store or something like that, so if you
want any more information about this locomotive, you ken jest search for "Amarillo
Steam Locomotive 5000" and see what you ken find.
Also in the area is Cadillac Ranch, which is where
some feller got tired of his
Cadillacs
giving him some trubble, so he buried them in the ground, then the wind
blew so hard that they popped their rear ends back up in the air. Us
guys jest stayed in the van cuz the wind was reely blowing hard, and any
of us would have got blown away. You ken check it out at this web
site:
Cadillac
Ranch Website
On the way away from Amarillo we stopped at a
restaurant fer lunch. I can't tell you the reel name of the place cuz the
owner might get mad at me,
so I'll jest call it the "Road Kill Grill," and tell you what
happened instead.
The old folks went in to eat, and me and Leroy went
in to see if we could find anything for us. We found some munchies
under the table and were eating when we overheard the waitress waiting on
the guy at the next table. The feller was trying to order lunch and
he asked for a hamburger without no onions. The waitress said,
"We're out of onions, could he take it without no tomaters
instead?"
The guy looked kind of funny, and he talked like he
was from New York, and those people don't have much patience with people
who say something that sounds stupid, so he told her, "No, I don't
like tomaters, so just forget it, I'll go somewhere else to
eat!" Then he got up and walked out and drove his big fancy car
away.
As he was leaving, the waitress said, "We could
make it without lettuce instead, if you would prefer."
I hope he din't starve, cuz that was the only place
to get something to eat fer quite a few miles.
Lubbock, Texas
We got to Lubbock and got a motel room next to the
Buddy Holly Museum, but we didn't have no time to go and see his statue
cuz we blasted off to head for Austin. You ken click below fer more
information on that subject:
Buddy
Holly Museum
Abilene, Texas
We got to Abilene later that day, and got to our
motel after lunch. The next day we met up with Gloria's niece,
Janet, and her husband, Mark, and their 2 kids named Jonathan, 4, and
Allison, 6, and they took the old folks on a tour of the airplanes on
Dyess Air Force Base. Mark told the old folks all about those
old airplanes, but they didn't get to start up the engines and fly them
around or nothing. I didn't get to go cuz there was a guard at the
gate to the base, and he had a big gun and he wouldn't have let me take my
gun with me, and I always feel naked without it, so me and the other guys
jest stayed at the motel. And also us guys don't get too close to
kids that age in case they have sticky hands and they might get us yukky.
And anyway, in case something went wrong with one of
those old airplanes, I din't want to get blamed, so that was jest another
reason why all of us stayed home. That's me in the pitcher, and you
ken jest see my pistol gun on my hip by my paw that's ready fer
action. I can't give those airplanes no "Heart-Pounding"
Rating cuz I din't get to see none of them, but they were probably pretty
cool.
After the airplane tour everybuddy went to dinner,
and us guys also missed that, too, and we had to jest sneak out of the
motel room and find a couple of dried out muffins on the floor in the free
breakfast room that the motel has. I also found a reel crunchy
chocolate donut behind one of the tables, and it was reel good after I
knocked off all the dust bunnies. We took everything back to the
room where there was some leftover coffee, and we had a mini picnic and
cleaned everything up before the old folks got back.
Austin, Texas
The next day we took off for Austin, and the old
folks went for a short bike ride
along the Colorado River, but it was mid afternoon, and about a million
other people also had the same idea, so they gave up due to all the
traffic on the trail and we went and found our motel.
The next morning the old folks went back again, but
it was Sunday, and all the early birds were out running, and biking, and
walking their dogs, and standing in the middle of the trail talking, and
stuff like that, so it wasn't a very good bike ride
for them, but at least it got them out of the motel for a while so us guys
could check things out again. We didn't break the big satellite dish
outside of the motel. It fell over all by itself right after we got
back into the room after adjusting it with the screw handle on the back of
it.
Our dish at home is tiny and it gets about a million
channels, but this one, even though it was reel big, it only got about 7
channels of news, 5 channels of sports, and one channel with something
else, so that's why we was trying to fix it. Sniffy said the pitcher
looked a lot better after I was done working on it, and it was great,
right up until it fell over like it did. That's when I stuck a
clothes hanger in a hole in the back of the TV and we immediately got 18
good channels that the hanger sucked out of the air!
San Marcos, Texas
We got to San Marcos the next day after getting lost
and driving along some river road where a flood reely messed things up,
and they were rebuilding a lot of stuff, then we got to a place called,
"Aquarena," and there was a lot of weird fish swimming in the
water there. It was kinda cold and we din't stay very long, so you
ken check out their website by clicking below:
Aquarena
Website
San Antonio, Texas
We got to San Antonio later that day and checked
into our motel, the La Piņata Motel, I think. The next day the old
folks went downtown to check out the world famous River Walk and also the
Alamo.
San
Antonio River Walk
The
Alamo
They walked around a little and tried to get in to
see the Alamo, but there was some shindig going on in there and it was
closed fer a while. That was reel cool...the main thing to see there
and it was closed fer a couple of more
hours, so they jest went and checked out some other things and took a
tourist bus ride that takes you all around the place. They got off
the bus at the old City Market and went inside and bought our new brother,
"Antonio," who is a little Armadillo, and I forgot to take a
pitcher of him, so I'll put in a drawing until I get a reel pitcher.
Then they caught the bus back to the Alamo area and jumped into the van
and got out of downtown before the rush hour started.
The next day they went back to downtown and me and
Sniffy got to go along. We checked
out the Alamo again, and it turned out to jest be an old, dark churchlike
building that was crowded with tourists, so we didn't do nothing
there. Instead, the old folks cruised around and checked out some
stores and stuff, then we ate lunch at a weird place called "Dick's
Last Resort," and we had a reel good lunch of hamburgers and fries
and iced tea.
After lunch we went on a boat ride down the river,
then up the river, then across the other way in the river, then back to
the starting place again, and me and Sniffy almost got seasick, but them
fries kept us in good health through all of that. |