Day 15 - Amarillo Texas and Santa Fe New Mexico

Texas Longhorn

We are now now in the big state of Texas.. It is the land of the Texas Longhorn cattle, "Cowboys and Indians" as well as oil production of course!l. However the upcoming new wealth, is in renewable energy sources, particularly large windfarms which benefit from the  strong winds prevalent in the plains states.

 We managed to get pretty close to this particular Longhorn when
 we were touring around.

A" load of Bull" and
two of the fleet of limos used to transport visitors
to and from this famous Texan restaurant.

We don't usually do "tourist-attraction hotels" but last night we were too tired to search further so we stayed at the The Big Texas Steak House Motel next to the rather kitsch Big Texan Steak House.  The meals were good and included on the  mennu (and which we didn't sample),was fried rattlesnake. The restaurant is renowned for offering a challenge to all customers to eat the 72oz steak within an hour and get it for free!. If not, you pay $72.00 + tax. I think there must be people (in the Stoke-on-Trent area maybe??) who could complete this challenge if they were to just eat the huge steak alone, but the full challenge includes eating all of the accompaniment of vegetables, salad and the big local jalapeno peppers which are served whole and seeds-in........therefore really hot!

Big Texan Steak House Motel

After our ample buffet-style western breakfast, and spending some time chatting with our lovely Native American waitress Rachael we explored the area and visited the Palo Duro Canyon State Park. Palo Duro is Spanish for "hard wood" in reference to the Juniper trees that are common throughout the canyon.

The battle of Palo Duro was the decisive battle of the Red River War known as the Buffalo War and was the final campaign against the Plains Indians; (Comanche, Kiowa and Cheyenne tribes) The cavalry captured and killed over 1,000 horses and burned the teepees and winter stores.The Indians staple food source...the Bison was also wiped out by the army and settlers in just 6 short years, rendering the tribes with little option but to surrender their independence. Although only four Indians were killed, the approaching winter without food and horses for scavenging,  meant certain starvation for the Indians and they reluctantly returned on foot to the reservation at Fort Still abondoning forever their traditional life. Tribes were sent to resrvations in neighbouring Oklahoma and their former homelands occupied by settlers.