Homeward Bound - Day 16

Overnight: Amarillo, TX

Today we slept in a little late and didn’t rise until 8:30 AM. We both availed ourselves of the showers next door and gussied up. Check out this picture of the nice shower & laundry building.

We stopped by the office to pay for the extra night and to get more propane. We found out that they have a great service at this campground. To get a propane tank filled, you notify them of your need and then just put your gas tank outside in front of your trailer. They come and pick it up, fill it, and return it to you. Then, you just stop by the office to pay later. Another plus at this campground was that the first night here was $33 and the second night was only $17. Although this campground doesn’t have any trees whatsoever (after all, it’s strictly desert), it was very clean and well laid out.

By the way, most of the campgrounds have been charging between $27 and $33 per night. The most expensive seem to be KOA campgrounds, and I find them to be the least desirable. In Albuquerque, we paid $39 per night at the KOA (with our Good Sam discounts).

We headed out about noon. We stopped at Red Robin for lunch. Yumm. Sure wish the east coast had that chain of burger joints.

After lunch, we headed to the American Quarter Horse Museum. The museum was well laid out and the displays included many types of information about the horses and their role in history and competitions. Several rooms included information about championship riders, some of their saddles, their horses, their awards, etc. Several items of interest to me were the explanations of what a trail drive included (like the kinds of riders and their positions), a fully loaded and authentic chuck wagon, and several actual starting gates for horse races.

The museum also had an animated (mechanical) horse doctor who talked to a mechanical (cartoonish) horse in a stall. That presentation delivered information about various ailments that horses deal with and how to avoid those illnesses. You could choose among several topics. A clever display also included a full-scale lighted diagram of a quarter horse with an x-ray panel in front of it. As you moved the panel to various parts of the horse, the x-ray showed information about the bones and muscles in that area of the horse.

Our favorite presentation was a kiosk in which we could choose any one of about 30 short clips about the various rodeo or equestrian competitions and the qualifications to win each.

We did a little grocery shopping on the way back to Homey-Roamy and then settled in to devour our apple pie and ice cream.