Ahh, the panhandle!

We took a mini vacation to Amarillo, Tx last weekend. Most people wouldn't choose Amarillo for their only vacation for the summer, but we love it there. We love Palo Duro Canyon, which is the reason we go. The only other times we have been there was on our way back from California in 2004 and on our way back from Colorado last year. In the canyon there is a musical that is performed on an outdoor stage with the canyon as the backdrop, pretty cool. It is a true musical about some portion of the history of the panhandle. We LOVE it! We have seen the musical three times, and this past year it was a repeat form the last year, but it was still great.

Here is a picture of part of the canyon

We took pictures of the stage, but we were borrowing a camera (ours is still broken) and for some reason the pictures did not come out. The highlight of the show was that Macey was amazing through it. First we ate a YUMMY steak dinner in the canyon at about 6pm. Then we walked around and listened to the live music before heading in to the show. The show started at 8:30pm, and Macey usually goes to bed around 8pm. She literally sat on my lap and watched the entire first half of the show, just over an hour. I was amazed. After the intermission she was getting a little restless, but she still wasn't very noisy, so we watched as much as we could. I could tell she wanted to sleep, but the stinker just won't close her eyes. Anyway, with about 15 min left of the show I got up and took her to the back so we could watch and walk around. Kevin came out 5 min later and we decided to leave early. By this time it was about 10:45pm! Macey is a little trooper!!!

Our only family picture at the canyon

Macey and Kevin swimming at the hotel pool. It was pretty warm during the day, but like California, it cooled off at night and the mornings were very pleasant.

Here we are at Cadillac Ranch. It was windy (as you can see by my lovely hairdo) but people were armed with their spray paint leaving their marks on the cars anyway.

This is in front of The Big Texan. It is a famous restaurant in Amarillo. The meal we ate before the musical was provided by them. Then the next morning we ate their breakfast buffet, both were SO yummy.

Kevin rode his bike while we were in the canyon on Saturday, and Macey and I took a short walk before we just about melted (in a canyon there isn't much of a breeze). We all went for a short jog on Sunday morning because it was about 65 degrees, something we are not used to in the summer. On Sunday we also found a really cool museum in a nearby town, the Panhandle Plains Historical Museum. I do not typically like museums, but I was totally impressed with this one. It had everything in it, sports history, lots of oil stuff, geological explanations of the canyon, everything about the panhandle, it was great. We spent well over an hour in there, and again Macey was great. She realized that her voice echoed in some of the rooms so she got a kick out of herself by shouting!

I'm going to brag about Macey one more time and then I'll stop, she is quite the little traveler. If we were to drive straight it would take about 6 hours to get to Amarillo. Obviously with an 11 month old you have to make some stops. On our way there we drove late at night so we made two stops and she only cried for about 30 min of the 6 1/2 hours in the car. On our way home we stopped quite a few times, and we had to go around a bad accident when we got back to the metroplex, all in all it took us 8 1/2 hours to get home. Macey only fussed the last 30 min of our drive, and honestly if I wasn't an adult I may have been fussing with her, it was a LONG ride home!