For the trip home, we had three and a half days to get from Indiana to Southern California. There was not other way to do it: Get to St. Louis then hook up with the interstate highways that basically follow the path of Route 66, and go the maximum speed limit.
We always stayed in motels (I highly recommend the Holiday Inn Express!) that have a breakfast buffet so you can grab and go in the morning. We did that at all the inns we stayed at during the entire trip.
We left Indiana late Sunday afternoon, and got west of St. Louis and it was time to pull off the road to our first night at, yes, a Holiday Inn Express to bed down.
But, we found plenty of fast food places along the way including McDonald’s. Laugh all you want, but the Big Mac, fries and a Coca Cola were a staple on our drive many times. At this one, in southwest Missouri, they had a very unique mailbox out front. McMail anyone?
You’ve got McMail.
From Missouri, unless you want to take a long time, you pretty much have to take two of Oklahoma’s turnpikes: The Will Rogers Turnpike then the Turner Turnpike. Between the two of them the cost was a total of nearly $10.
This is a restaurant that crosses over the Will Rogers Turnpike. Don’t worry, you can get to it from the turnpike without having to pay an additional toll. We didn’t stop. We could go 75mph legally on the turnpike and I didn’t want to take my foot off the gas.
On the Will Rogers Turnpike.
From Oklahoma we kept motoring as I had one thing on my mind: A steak dinner at The Big Texan in Amarillo.
Steak!
This is the fourth time I’ve stopped and had a meal there – always dinner, never breakfast. I know how to time my cross-country drives!
I’ll take mine medium please.
As you might know, The Big Texan has been around for a long time. Part tourist trap, yet part restaurant. The place is a hoot.
Decor in the Big Texan is, well, touristy.
If you look around the walls in the restaurant you definitely know you’re in Texas, and not Kansas anymore.
Kind of reminds me of the Country Bear Jamboree at Disney.
This place is about one thing, beef.
Some longhorn long horns.
But The Big Texan is famous for something else, the possibility of getting a big meal for free!
Yep, 4.5 pounds of meat. It could cost you nothing if….
A free 72 ounce steak cooked to perfection? Wow, there’s got to be a catch.
He wishes he was young enough to try eating it.
Take a look at the size of that piece of beef.
Big beef, 72 ounces. It’s almost 2 inches thick.
The rules are that once you start eating it, with all the sides that come with it, you have 60 minutes and have to eat everything all gone – or it’s gonna cost you. More than $100!
And if you try, they put you on a raised platform where everyone in the restaurant can watch you eat.
Eating on stage. Check out the 60-minute timers.
You’ll want plenty of liquid to wash it down with.
Big beer at the Big Texan.
And if you finish, they weigh you and put your name and weight on the list of those who did it. Yes, your name, city and age too.
Big eaters get their name on the wall.
Dad can’t really eat steak any more, so he had some soup and some macaroni and cheese. I had a Rib-eye with a baked sweet potato and macaroni and cheese, along with some rolls. I washed it down with a glass of red wine.
In the evenings, there are people playing music roaming the restaurant floor. They’ll play a tune for you for tips.
Country and Western all the way inside The Big Texan.
Because of the season, they had definitely decked the halls with decorations.
Merry Christmas at The Big Texan.
Oh and if you’re staying in town at one of the motels, they’ll even come and get you and return you to the motel in one of these.
Okay, we got back on the road the next morning, and got to Flagstaff where we spent the night, then it was time for the final push to California and home. Interstate 40 in California is a very boring, long drive as the speed limit is more like 65mph or 70mph.
But when we got to Barstow, we need to stop and eat, and you know what that’s all about…In-N-Out.
You know you’re back in California when you find one of these near the interstate. Or can I call them freeways again?
Then it was time to get home, and we did in short order arriving at my sister’s house in Santa Ana where Dad resides at approximately 2 p.m. Wednesday afternoon the day before Thanksgiving.
Home again, safe and sound.
We set out on this trip on October 29th, and got home on November 21st. The odometer on my car at the start read: 52,532. At the end it read: 59,696. That means the car traveled a total of 7,164 miles during that time.
Now that includes me driving from Madison, Indiana to Orlando, Florida and back so I could go to IAAPA, the theme park convention, and that was 1,904 of those miles – and without Dad. That was a five-day detour on my part.
But still, a lot of travel and a lot of things and a lot of fun time together.
Counting the states I went through to get to the convention, here are all the states traveled: California, Nevada, Utah, Colorado, New Mexico, Oklahoma, Kansas, Missouri, Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky, Tennessee, Georgia and Florida.
Would I do it again? Absolutely. Who wouldn’t want to go on a long, easy going (for the most part) trip with their parent or parents? You find out all kinds of stuff you might not have known about them when it’s just you and them in the car.
For now, it’s onto the next Adventure in the Daddy Zone!
Below here are links to all the previous posts about this adventure, in reverse order.
Click here to read about Columbus, Indiana.
A tour of Madison, Indiana – Dad’s hometown.
The Indiana Eades Thanksgiving Feast.
Arriving at Madison after I went to Orlando.
Attending my niece’s wedding in St. Louis with my Dad.
Day 11, all about trains in St. Louis.
Day 10, from Kansas City to Marceline to Hannibal Missouri.
Day 9, we visit a cousin in Kansas City, and see Harry Truman’s place.
Day 8, from Dodge City to Eisenhower’s home to a Kansas City cousin and great barbecue.
Day 7, from Las Vegas, New Mexico to Dodge City.
Part 2 of Day 6, from Chama, New Mexico to the Rio Grande gorge.
Part 1 of Day 6, from Utah to the Continental Divide.
Day 5, driving through eastern Utah.
Day 4, and evening at Evermore Park in Utah.
Day 3, going from Las Vegas to Utah.
Day 2, Las Vegas with a side trip to Hoover Dam.
Day 1, The adventure starts with a visit to Eddie World and getting to Las Vegas.
