These Are The Days...: We've been to Texas and Back!

That's right ya'll we've recently been to the great state of Texas and back! We took a weeks vacation and flew down to Amarillo, Texas to meet and spend time with Steve's dad's side of the family. What a fun bunch! It was a great trip, considering they all had no idea we were coming!

While flying out from Portland, we had a beautiful view of the sunrise.

One of the first stops we made was a place called "Cadillac Ranch." There were literally Cadillacs sticking out of the ground. Only drawback to the visit... It was so windy!! Steve had to hang on to his hat the whole time to keep it from flying away! We attempted to find some spray paint cans with a little left to leave our mark, but didn't have any luck.

After a night of (much needed) rest, we set off to find Steve's dad and surprise him. They still didn't know we were there! It took a bit of driving around, but after stopping at a local gas station in Clarendon we soon found out that Ann, Steve's dad's wife, worked there! Fortunately she wasn't at work that day, so the lady called out to the house asking Steve's dad to come quickly, saying she had something to give him. What a fun time seeing his dad's face when he walked in! After sitting around talking for a while, we headed around the town. His dad showed us around and took us to his bait shop. We finished our tour just in time to surprise Lora and Carl by picking them up from school. Their faces were priceless! Let's just say they appear to be well trained in the "stranger-danger" department. But they soon saw their dad in the front seat and hopped on in! After picking them up we headed out to the house to see Ann and spend some time doing one of our favorite past times-- shooting. Lots of fun!!

The view from their house was amazing! Such a beautiful place! Unfortunately it was quite windy so Steve's dad's boat took a bit of a tumble in the lake. He had to spend some time in the following days trying to un-sink it. We took a nice walk down to the lake and stood out on the dock for a while taking in the beautiful day.

Later that afternoon we headed over to Pampa, Texas to surprise Steve's aunt Janet. She just about knocked him off the deck in a happy hug! After sitting and chatting with her for a while, we decided to surprise Steve's grandma and Don by heading out to dinner and inviting them to join us. It was great to see how excited everyone was to see us!

After all the excitement of seeing the family, we decided that a day of exploring Route 66 was in order! Although there wasn't a whole lot to look at (sadly), we had a great time stopping at a local biker stop and having some lunch in the sun. While we were sitting there, we got to witness some serious cop action! well not really, we actually spent the whole time wondering what what going on as the cops kept circling us over and over again. After a few hours we decided to take a drive around the block to see if we could spy anything else that was going on. With no luck we headed back. The next day we were telling Ann about what we saw and she said that she had read in the paper that there was an armed robbery. She was thinking maybe it was us and we were trying to pay our way through our vacation! Luckily they caught the guy so Steve was off the hook!

This was one of Steve's favorite signs throughout the whole trip. Unfortunately Sabrina was driving most of the time so when Steve gave up trying to show her the sign, he took a picture of it so she could check it out later.

Steve's family suggested that we visit the Palo Duro Canyon if we wanted to take in some beautiful sights. We had a great time driving through the canyon.

As we approached the exit to the canyon, we came upon these big guys. Some good ol' Texas Longhorns! My they are massive! We stopped along side the road and watched a lady (a very brave lady with a very long poking stick) feed the longhorns. It was fun to watch how each of them went to their separate feeding dish and ate, and if one happened to be in the wrong place, they were sure to tell him to move along!

Steve's grandpa lives on a large ranch in Oklahoma. Unfortunately the drive out to his ranch would've taken us about 7 hours, we decided that if we were going to head out that way we should probably make a couple days out of it. Unfortunately again, we didn't have that much time. So instead his grandpa was willing to meet us halfway at a restaurant called The Cherokee Trading Post. We had a great meal (with some delicious onion rings!). It was fun to sit and chat with Steve's dad and grandpa, as well as Lora and Carl. When we finished eating we wondered over to the gift shop to look around and then outside to check out the buffalo. It was their nap time, so all we found them doing was laying in the shade. One of the favorite things from this day was being able to get 3 generations of Thornton men in a picture.

Steve's Dad, Steve's Grandpa, Steve and Carl

As we left Oklahoma we stopped at Route 66, but this time in Oklahoma.

Unfortunately the museum wasn't open, but we still had a great time looking around the outside of things and Carl sure had a great time climbing on everything. He even struck a few poses for me up in the tree. It was such a beautiful day!

As we were driving back from Oklahoma Steve was able to capture this breathtaking picture of the sun setting. I think we're going to have to find a place for this one in our house!

Up the road from our hotel, there was a restaurant called The Big Texan. Their advertisement was a free 72 oz. steak... the catch.. you had to eat it faster then anyone's previous time record. Yikes! Some people had eaten it in as little as 9 min! Steve decided not to take an attempt at that one.

On one of our last days, we decided to take a drive and look at some houses. First we went around and looked at "realistic" homes. We drove around some beautiful neighborhoods with beautiful brick homes and even found some massive ones right on the golf course! (dream on Sabrina!) Then we decided to take a drive and find the historic part of Amarillo. The photos above are the treasures that we found! Aren't they beautiful!?

Sadly our trip had to come to an end... We spent the last afternoon having pizza and sitting around with all of the family. It was a very nice, laid back way to spend time with them before we left.