Dec 16th. Day 7 Amarillo TX

We had a good nights sleep last night finally, and we promised ourselves another good one tonight so we were going to make sure we stayed in a nice hotel nowhere near main roads. But that comes later. This morning we had a light breakfast and packed the car again ready for our departure at about 10:30am.
This morning we are heading in the general direction of Colorado Springs but will not get there today and maybe not even tomorrow so we will stop off at Amarillo Texas, not sure if there is anything there right now but its a good spot to stop at around 260 miles.
We were going to follow the US287 virtually all the way which was not a interstate but still a fast road but the nice thing was that is passed right through little towns unlike the Interstate that pass them by. So at around 12:30 we stopped in a very small place called Clarendon for some Petrol and a Subway. Well the people in the Subway were, well how do I say. As redneck as possible, toothless scruffy and the guy seemed to be full of cold. So As the guy handled Lorna’s Sub she pretty much binned it and shared mine. Not a nice experience and lets wait and see if we come down with colds.
The funny thing was that Lorna went into the Petrol station to get some candy and was 12 cents short so the girl said she would pay it and Lorna let here.
We had seen a nice hotel in Amarillo called the Embassy Suites Amarillo and we headed towards it, on the way we were seeing signs of an offer of a free 72 ounce Steak at  “The Big Texan Steak Ranch” so we were intrigued Just before we were due to pull off the main road it appeared and we pulled up to investigate. OMG what a place, apparently if you eat the steak meal in less than 1 hour you get it free, you sit on a raised table in front of a bank of timers and the whole restaurant watches your stuff your face. We had just missed someone doing it with nearly 15 minutes spare.
So after some videos and pictures we drove the short distance to our hotel and checked in, This place is seriously nice, all suites and as it turned out worth the extra dollars we paid. So far our hotels have averaged at around $110 this one was $123 BUT what we didn’t know was that from 5:30pm to 7:30pm there are free drinks and snacks, yes free folks, so we recon that this will end up being one of the cheapest hotels we stay in, as our drinks bill is normally around $70 with snacks.
The room is lovely and Lorna decided to go down to the gym and I got onto my laptop and updated this blog. Its 4:30pm and Lorna is not back yet and she will want a shower so the original plan of going to see the Cadillacs on the side of the I40 may have to wait until tomorrow as we will be heading for the bar at 5:29pm. We got out of the elevator and the bar area was full it was 5:30pm on the nose and there was no space at the bar and one person serving but in no time we were drinking our free drinks, we decided that as there were no restaurants nearby and we were obviously not going to be in any state to drive we would eat in the hotels restaurant.
So after 2 hours of drinking free we rolled into the restaurant and ordered 2 steak meals, it was a little concerning that there was only a few people in there and our suspicions were founded when the meals turned up, my Ribeye was a mass of fat and Lorna’s Fillet was cold and over cooked, so we called over Amanda who by now had returned quite a few meals from other tables and asked for 2 new steaks, she was great and clearly was on our side, after a while 2 new meals came our Lorna’s was fine but mine was only slightly better than before, Amanda came to the table and noticed my full plate and was devastated. She ran off to the manager and we ended up paying for one meal and was offer free deserts but we had actually ate enough from the 2 meals that we were not hungry anymore. We chatted with Amanda and she was kind enough to recommend a few places en-route so Thanks Amanda for your patience and help with our trip.