On April 30th, after a peaceful night in the Amarillo Visitor Information Center parking lot and another quick trip to Buckee’s next door, we drove to our next recommended destination, the Jack Sizemore RV Museum. Thanks, Dave for the recommendation. This museum was amazing! It’s a relatively small museum but has some real jewels, especially if you are an RVer. Definitely worth the time and there was no charge, although they do appreciate donations.
Entering the museum
This motorhome was featured in the Robin William’s movie RV
The inside was modified for the movie
One of the oldest RVs in the museum
Worlds oldest Airstream travel trailer
1976 FMC motorhome
The museum also hosts a few race cars …
… and motorcycles.
This was our favorite motorcycle in the museum.
After our visit to the museum we headed west to New Mexico with a quick stop at the famous Route 66 attraction “Cadillac Ranch”.
On the way out of Amarillo we stopped at Braum’s ice cream for the first time since we worked in Muskogee in 2023.
The ten cars at Cadillac ranch.
Some had paint over a foot thick.
We wouldn’t want to stay parked here very long for fear of getting spray painted.
On April 29th after saying sad see you laters, we left Lubbock bound for Palo Duro Canyon State Park in Canyon, Texas. We had heard it is a great place for hiking and Dave and Carol had given us some pointers. We arrived and checked out the visitor center which has several displays illustrating the history and geology of the canyon. It is the second largest canyon in the US. From there we drove down into the canyon to hike the most popular trail in the park – Lighthouse Trail. It is named after Lighthouse Rock (the destination) which is a 310′ tall erosion resistant spire in the canyon. The trail is about 3 miles each way and classified as “moderate”.
There is a very nice visitor center and museum as you enter the park.
Looking into the canyon
Inside the canyon
The most popular trail in the park
A highlight of the hike was seeing this roadrunner on the trail.
The trail was easy …
… until it wasn’t.
Made it to the lighthouse
After a wonderful hike we drove to Amarillo and spent the night at a Amarillo Visitor Information Center.
The Amarillo Visitor Information Center is conveniently located next to a Buckee’s.
We saw this sign in the visitor center and wondered if the streak was somehow related to the 80 mph speed limits in Texas.
Sunday morning April 26 we said goodbye to our sweet lakeside home at Johnson Creek and started a long drive across Texas. We made it to Clyde Travel Center, in Clyde, Texas a distance of about 340 miles. Because it was going to be very warm that night and we wanted to run the air conditioner all night, we spent the night in their RV park. It is much like the Love’s RV parks, but less expensive. The next morning we made our way to Abilene, TX, the “Official Storybook Capital of America”. It gets this designation due to its storybook character sculptures which you can find all over downtown. We had to stop to see Mr. Grinch and others such as The Lorax, Horton Hears a Who!, The Cat in the Hat, Green Eggs and Ham Sam I Am, and Yertle the Turtle. It was a fun stop and a great place to stretch our legs.
Abilene’s story book park
Cat in the Hat
Family Photo
Which one?
From there we made it to Lubbock, Texas the home of two more dear friends, Dave and Carol. They had moved into a new house since our last visit. We did some sightseeing such as visiting Lubbock Lake Landmark, a national historic landmark. We had great barbeque and Mexican food but most importantly we sat out on their patio and just caught up with each other. A recent death of a dear friend has reminded us to not take any of these visits for granted. They are all precious. On April 29 we said our “see-you-laters” and continued northward.
Sunset in Lubbock at Dave and Carol’s house
Hiking at Lake Lubbock
The ancient Lubbock Lake was very large. This is what is left today.
We departed River Ridge Retreat in Guntersville, AL on Tuesday, April 21. We will now be making a slow road trip toward Arizona with several stops and visits along the way. Our first state was Mississippi with an overnight stay in Vicksburg at a Cracker Barrel. We thank CB for allowing/encouraging RV’s to stay with them. Of course, on Wednesday we had breakfast with them and then continued our trek to Shreveport, LA, our second state of this trip. We had a great visit with our NOMADS friends Mark and Lisa. We got to tour their beautiful new-to-them home and park BB in their driveway for the night. Unfortunately, we were having such a great time visiting that we forgot to take pictures. Thursday morning we visited some more and had some great doughnuts – thanks Lisa. Before departing, Lisa and Mark shared with us some information on the town of Jefferson, Texas about an hour’s drive northwest of Shreveport. We don’t have a set itinerary, so we made an adjustment to the GPS and headed to Jefferson. What a gem this little town is. We parked BB in the municipal lot behind the police station for the night. Yes, it is approved if you are ever there. We began just walking around the town. There are many antique stores, restaurants, motels, ice cream shops, an old general store with about anything you could imagine and many other interesting places to stop.
Our spot behind the police station.
One of the first things we saw when we arrived
The historic and odd Jefferson Hotel
Beside the Jefferson Hotel
Jefferson General Store is one of the best we have seen.
Inside the General Store
One of the murals in town
We also met with one of the most famous Jefferson residents.
We visited the Museum of Time and Measurement and especially recommend a visit there. Mr. Ingram owns the museum. He and his wife had this huge collection in their house and decided it should be shared with the public and donated them all to the Museum. He has some amazing clocks. He has a large assortment of calendar clocks that we had not seen previously. His wife also had a collection of salt and pepper shakers. Mr. Ingram’s profession was that of a surveyor and there were all sorts of tools for that trade on display, including a four-foot slide ruler (a teaching tool) being a real surprise.
Some of the hundreds of clocks in the museum. Mr. Ingram says they all work, but he only keeps about 40 wound at any one time.
Anne remembered she used a similar old adding machine to do payroll for her father’s construction company. And now they are antiques.
One of the favorite clocks
Some of the surveying instruments Mr. Ingram has collected
There is also a huge collection of salt and pepper shakers. When we asked Mr. Ingram how they ended up in this museum, he responded “My wife.”
Mr. Ingram took the time to demonstrate an old music machine used by a traveling pastor to provide worship music.
Of course, we were very interested in the local cuisine and decided to eat at Kitt’s Kornbread Sandwich and Pie Bar. Oh my! Never had a corn bread sandwich before. Yes, we make cornbread and eat it with soup, etc. but this was different. It was so good!! Now we must learn to make cornbread that holds together and doesn’t crumble. We hope we can come close to duplicating the recipe because the owner will not share it. For dessert we visited the Red Bus Cupcakes. Nope, didn’t have cupcakes – had homemade ice cream. Oh so good!! We also made a stop at the peanut butter store and purchased some White chocolate chip and Cinnamon varieties of peanut butter. We have only tried the white chocolate chip so far. It is very good.
A Kitt’s Kornbread sandwich
Of course, we had to check this out.
Surprised?
By midday Friday it was then time to depart Jefferson, and we headed to Johnson Creek COE park where we had reservations for two nights. We spent that Friday afternoon and Saturday relaxing at our waterfront site. Hope all of you are doing well. May God bless you and keep you safe until we meet again.
RVing With a Purpose 