Day 16 – Dallas (Texas)

I think everyone was feeling pretty seedy the next morning on the way to Dallas.
The bus ride took about 4 hours to get there with our usual stop offs for food and snacks etc and arriving in Dallas in the afternoon.

imageimageimageSo what I know about the city of Dallas…It’s known for it’s historical importance as the center for the oil and cotton industries. It’s positioned along numerous railroad lines which made it easier back in the day for the transport of cotton, cattle and later on oil – in North and Eastern Texas.
Dallas and Fort Worth (which are nearby) were developed due to the construction of these major railroad lines.
The airport here in Dallas is also the third busiest airport in the world and is larger than Manhattan Island in NYC!dal6Dallas is known for their Dallas Coy-boys and Cheerleaders. Not to mention they apparently have some of the ‘Best-looking woman in the states’ which I guess the boys on the trip were soon to find out.
7-eleven-officeYou know the store 7-Eleven? Well that was started in Dallas as an ice-selling operation. (So basically they just sold ice) until 1927 when they started selling milk and eggs to customers. Eventually they sold gasoline in 1928 and then the ‘slurpee’ drinks in in 1965 along with many other goods as time went on.imageWhen we arrived in the city of Dallas, we did a quick drive-by to the spot where President John F Kennedy was shot and killed years ago. (But more on that in my next blog)imageimageThe above picture is a photo I took of the Reunion Tower in Downtown Dallas.
It’s 171 meters tall and is one of the most recognizable landmarks in Dallas. It was a free standing structure until the construction of the Hyatt Regency Dallas in 1998.imageWe also stopped and took photos of these bulls at Pioneer Plaza.
The bulls honor Dallas’ cowboy past by celebrating the trails that brought settlers to Dallas. It has a flowing stream and waterfall with a re-creation of a cattle drive in the form of bronze statues of longhorns being driven by three horse riding cowboys.

imageimageOur hotel we stayed at in Downtown Dallas – Spring Hill Suites – was probably one of the nicest Hotels so far. It was walking distance to the Dealey Plaza, Dallas Aquarium and American Airlines Center which is the home to sports and concert events.
It was probably the first Hotel we stayed at that we got a couch and TV in a separate room. Faaaancy.

Once we’d all settled into our rooms, myself and a few others went for a little walk.
I think we were trying to find cowboy boots because we were all going out that night but the only store that sold them (which was close by) the boots were $150+
Considering I have no room in my bag I’d have to throw them out and I couldn’t justify spending that much money on them for one night. 😦

That night we all headed around the corner to Ellens Southern Kitchen for dinner where we had the most delicious meal.
I think I’ve just eaten so much crap food lately that it was good to just have some veges and meat. This meal was included in our ‘Contiki price’ like quite a few of our other dinners. (I love all these included meals)
I had a chicken fried chicken (haha I know) with a creamy gravy, broccoli and sweet potato fries (slightly like Kumara)imageimageAfter dinner we all got Uber’s and headed off to this line-dancing type club called Cowboys Red River.homeRedRiver
imageI think a few of us just thought it was going to be a pub with us attempting to line dance with a few old geezers.
We were so wrong! The place was massive, it had a main stage where a country singer was singing with a band, a big circle in the middle of the club where everyone line- danced and a bar in the middle of that.
c34cdcd8000508d2c18bd5cb051c5275-450-190There were around 5 bars spread around the club and all the girls who were either dancing or working the bar were so pretty!
They also had an area of pool tables for everyone to play a few games.
I did attempt a few dances, played some pool and did more dancing when they played more  of the ‘latest pop songs’ haha.
Every local girl knew all the moves to every line dance so it was hard to keep up and act like I knew what I was doing.imageimageMost of us ubered home when the club started to close.
Lucky for me I got to have a bit of a sleep in as I didn’t sign up for the Stadium tour the next day (optional activity)

Overall it was a really good night! 🙂
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Day 15 – Amarillo feat. Santa Fe (New Mexico)

This morning I got a bit of a sleep in. We had the optional activity of doing a hot air balloon ride in Albuquerque but I was too scared/too poor to do it haha.
Those people who were doing it had to be at the bus by 6.20am so I’m glad it wasn’t me! 😴😴Swimming_Pool-_EveningWhen I eventually got up (9.45am departure) I washed my hair and tried to vigorously scrub the fake tan off my legs.
I love staying at these hotels though. It’s nice to use the towels they provide instead of your own. There’s nothing worse than a damp smelly towel in your bag for half the trip!
We stayed at the Best Western in Albuquerque (picture above) and it was pretty good.
All the places we’ve stayed on Contiki so far have been much better than I imagined. I thought we’d be staying in little 2* motels or something but I’ve been pleasantly surprised.

imageOnce on the bus, I had some skittles for breakfast and played some music on my iPod on the way to the capital of New Mexico, Santa Fe.
We did stop off at this cow boy type shop to buy some shirts and boots for the rodeo we have coming up in Texas.

imageThe shoes were soo expensive though. Like $100-$700 so I didn’t buy any (i also have absolutely no room in my bag for any more shoes)
I did however buy a brown checkered shirt for the rodeo which I now think may be a bit too small for me.imageimageAround lunch time we stopped off in Santa Fe which is another ‘cute’ town I can add to my list. It’s the fourth largest city in the state but it felt like the nicest small town.

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imageWhen we were wondering around, we all got fajitas from this fajita stall. I wasn’t sure about the chicken in mine so i picked a lot of it out and gave it to the birds. I’m very funny when it comes to meat…It has to be thoroughly cooked or I won’t eat it. That’s why I never eat steak, and whenever I have chicken I have to see if it’s white all the way through. You’d think I had a bad case of food-poisoning in the past or something but I’m actually just weird. :/

imageAfter feeding myself and the birds, I went across the road and looked in a few shops (bought myself a magnet) and then went to Haagen Dazs and got myself a small caramel type sundae which made me very full and sleepy on the bus.
I’m like a baby when it comes to food! Eat then sleep, eat then sleep… zzz

imageimageOnce on the bus, it was onwards to Amarillo, Texas!
We had a stop off at a gas station on the way for gas and snacks. These little stop offs are going to make me fat (not to mention my poor food choices, refer back to me eating SKittle for Breakfast and Ice-cream for lunch. Ahh…)
The gas stations just sell candy and chocolate and hot dogs and all things bad for you.
This time I defiantly didn’t buy anything.imageWe played a few games on the bus (in between me watching Orange Is the New Black on my tablet) One game we had to transfer a ball between 2 teams but you couldn’t use your hands.
The other one we had to unwrap a star burst wearing gloves.image

imageHalf way through the drive we had a surprise stop off at the Cadillac Ranch to spray paint some Cadillac’s.
The Cadillac ranch isn’t actually a ranch, it’s a public art installation and sculpture created in 1974 by architects Chip Lord, Hudson Marquez and Doug Michels. They were part of this art group called Ant Farm who put these Cadillac’s in the ground as a display for everyone. Suddenly people started spray painting the Cadillac’s so the guys made it so anyone can just come and spray paint them.
The cars are visible from the highway, and you can get to them though private land by driving along a frontage road and entering the pasture by walking through an unlocked gate.

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imageOur tour guide provided us with spray cans so everyone went crazy spraying the Cadillac’s and writing our names on them. big-texan-motelWhen we finally got to our Motel, The Big Texan (which was so cool by the way) we had about half an hour to get ready for dinner at the Big Steak Ranch.imageimageAt the restaurant they do a Steak Challenge so a couple of people signed up for that from Contiki. You have to eat a 2kg (72oz) piece of steak as well as a side of shrimp, a bread roll, some salad and a baked potato.SONY DSC

imageUnfortunately the boys didn’t finish it in time so had to pay the $70 (well all of us on Contiki helped them pay as it was for our entertainment also)
There was another guy who did it afterwards from the public and finished everything BUT half of the potato. He just couldn’t do it and had to go and throw up. 😷imageimageimageAfter we’d finished our meals, it was off to the dance floor to break out some line dancing, play some beer pong and drink a few drinks.
Safe to say I got a bit drunk last night and ended up falling asleep on top of the drier in the laundry room.
Anything is comfortable to sleep on when you drink I swear.
I did make it to my bed around 5am and then got up before 8.30am to catch the bus to Dallas.
*sigh* all in the day of being on Contiki.
X

Day 14 – Albuquerque

Tuesday:

Waking up the next morning in Durango, I got up to be on the bus by 9.30am to go river rafting!
A few of us from Contiki went rafting and the rest went horse riding. (You got to choose what one you wanted to do)
We were all pretty hungover from last night and the river rafting was really easy and casual so it was just what we needed I think.
I did jump into the river and it was pretty cold! So that woke me up.

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I didn’t take my camera with me, so this is just a Google Picture of what it’s like

It took over an hour but it was nice just to float down the river and yarn about our New Zealand and Aussie accents to our American tour guide.
As we were floating down the river, I saw these little squirmy things in the water underneath the sand. Our tour guide said that they were like little snakes but they were harmless. This got us talking about snakes and I announced that we had no snakes in New Zealand but Australia was known for them.
One of the guys Ben then quickly said “No, I used to live in New Zealand and we have snakes”
Then the other New Zealander, Dave chimed in “Yeah there’s lots of snakes”
Me “Uhh, no there are defiantly NO snakes in New Zealand”
Dave “Oh course there are! I’m sure you’ve seen plenty”
Me “What the fuck, I have never ever seen a snake in New Zealand”
Dave “Yeah, the Trouser Snake”
Me “I have never heard of that type of Snake, You must be thinking of Australia”
Ben “Oh yeah Australia defiantly has them as well but I also know that NZ does”
Me – Getting annoyed by this point “What! No we don’t have ANY Snakes. I know this because my Mum has a massive phobia of snakes and that’s one of the reasons she moved to New Zealand from Australia”
Dave “Well I don’t think she got away from the Trouser Snake”
By this stage the boys were laughing but I still couldn’t figure out how they thought we had Snakes in New Zealand.
Even our Tour Guide joined in “Oh yeah! No we learnt about Snakes in School and New Zealand defiantly has them”
I was actually getting angry because I knew I was right and they were wrong.
It wasn’t until they made a little hand motion towards their nether-regions about 10 minutes into this conversation and said “You know, the Trouseeer snake” that I finally clicked what they meant.
*Sigh* they got me there.

Once we were all finished with rafting and horse riding, I went and got some food from the supermarket and we all met and boarded the bus to Albuquerque.imageAlbuquerqueAlbuquerque is the biggest city in New Mexico and it’s no wonder as they have around 270 days of sunny blue skies every year. Albuquerque is also known as The “Hot Air Ballooning Capital of the World” as it’s home to the International Balloon Fiesta, the world’s largest gathering of balloons from around the world. This event takes place during the first week of October every year so we were about a month too early to see this!
Breaking Bad was also produced in Albuquerque for all you Breaking Bad fans 🙂

We arrived here around 5pm this afternoon.
To be honest apart from the rafting, it’s been a very basic day. We’ve had a few stops on the way to get food etc… but it’s pretty much been a bus day which involves sleeping, listening to music or watching a movie on the bus.imageimageI’m now currently in bed at a hotel in Albuquerque. We all had a buffet dinner (lasagna, fish, chicken and salads to choose from) and then we did some karaoke at the Hotel we’re staying at. (Well I just watched the karaoke as I have a terrible singing voice)imageI went to bed pretty early as I wanted to finish doing all my washing, write up a blog and call my best-friend.
Not all the places you stay at have washing machines and driers so when you have a hotel stop that provides laundry it’s first in, first served!

Now that I’ve written this, I defiantly think it’s sleep time!!
😴
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