Halfway to everywhere, just shy of nowhere...

On Tuesday,  we drove out to Adrian, Texas (pop. 166) whose motto is 'When you're here, you're halfway there'. We visited the Midpoint Cafe and Gift Shop, the town's only restaurant whose claim to fame is that it is located at the geo-mathematical mid-point between Los Angeles and Chicago, the end points of Historic Route 66. We stopped in for lunch and some great Texan hospitality from our adorable waitress. The friendly new owner of the place, Dennis, was more than happy to take our picture with the mid-point sign and chat us up about all things Route 66. He also suggested a great museum back in Amarillo for us to see, the Jack Sisemore Traveland RV Museum. More on that later...

Boot Hill Cemetery

Old Tuscosa Courthouse

After lunch, we turned north into endless flat farms and ranches to see if we could find Tascosa, a former county seat and gamblin' town back in the day. After 1875, it became a supply and shipping point for several huge Texas ranches. Evidently, the likes of Billy the Kid, Bat Masterson, Pat Garrett and Kit Carson enjoyed a bit of card playing and such, earning it the nickname of the "Cowboy Capital of the Plains". The town was also the site of the infamous "cowboy strike", where a number of participants died in a gun battle and are now buried in Boot Hill Cemetery still overlooking where the town once stood. There are only two remaining buildings from the original town, the Oldham County courthouse (now a museum) and the chapel (now a schoolhouse). The land where the town once stood is now Cal Farley's Boys Ranch, a nationally known home for boys and girls, established in 1939 when the last Old Tascosa resident moved away. We visited the museum and saw artifacts from Tascosa's colorful past, complete with playing cards from the gambling halls, barbed wire from the ranches, implements from Native Americans, and a ton of other interesting stuff.

1936 Alma

1945 Tear Drop Kit

Next we headed back to Amarillo to see the RV museum we heard about earlier. We were not disappointed. What a little gem! The owner, Jack Sisemore, stopped us in the hall to ask where we are from, how we're doing, how we heard about his museum, etc, etc...just a really nice, friendly guy. We toured the museum and found one interesting RV after another. There were little travel trailers, pop up campers, drivable RVs and even the red bus from the movie 'RV', starring Robin Williams. It was so cool (the museum, not the movie so much)! It was especially interesting to see the upgrades in creature comforts added to the newer models, but none of them was particularly 'new'. They ranged in year from 1936 to 1976, with some particularly loud fabric choices in a couple of the younger ones. So much fun!

While we were enjoying the museum, we were insulated from a big storm that passed over us...lots of rain, wind and even quite a bit of hail. All small hail, though, thankfully.

1948 Flxible Bus used in movie 'RV'

When we left and headed eastward back to the campground, we saw two rainbows, one high in the clouds and very dim, and the other right on the ground and really bright. Wow. A double rainbow...how cool!

After all that excitement, we retired to the tin can to again listen to the planes roaring overhead. This time we were deafened by the 4-engine AWACS (a big plane with a 30 foot rotating flying-saucer-looking radar dome attached to it) flying RIGHT overhead again and again. Wow, that was loud.

Big Texan Steak Ranch

AWACS

We headed to dinner at the very well-advertised Big Texan Steak Ranch, a monument to overdone roadside advertisement sporting repeatedly a challenge to eat their 72 oz steak dinner in one hour and it's free. Mercifully, neither of us opted for the challenge, and instead chose their 50th anniversary sirloin steak dinner. It was fantastic...cooked perfectly and tasted awesome, with plenty to spare for at least one more meal. Yum. What a great day!