Amarillo By Morning

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When preparing to travel, lay out all your clothes and all your money. Then take half the clothes and twice the money. ~Susan Heller

 Today we left Dallas about noon and headed for Amarillo (The Capital of the Texas Panhandle). The snow was mostly gone but that didn't stop us from almost getting rear ended by a tractor trailer before we got out of the DFW area. All traffic had come to a screeching halt due to a minor accident and the semi right on our back bumper had to swerve to miss us as he franticly tried to bring the 80,000 pounds of truck to a quick stop! We even bypassed our next exit getting over the near miss!! Not off to a very good start to our trip. Next as we filled up somewhere in NW Texas as I turned the pump on the handle had been left with the auto fill clip on and I sprayed Sheila's feet and legs with gas before I got it stopped and into the gas filler on the car! We rode with the windows down after that just in case we burst into flames...no not really...but we did have to get rid of the gas fumes! Then things went pretty normal and we were spotting big eared mule deer and Northern Goshawks along the now almost empty highways nearer Amarillo until we both spotted a small herd of cattle DEAD in a pile right on the side of the road! I kid you not! The ground was all torn up around them like someone had tried a half assed burial with a  backhoe and there they were piled one on top of the other, horns and legs sticking in all directions! At first we said nothing and just looked at each other as if to say, "did you SEE that?!" Then we BOTH said outloud, " did you SEE that!!??" What the hell could have caused that? We only guessed that maybe the night before last in the snow storm a trailer full of  cattle left the road and wrecked. There were no signs of any trailers or vehicles but I guess they maybe cleared it all away and now only had the bloated carcasses to deal with. It was truley a bizzare sight! Next we pulled into the motel we found for 31 dollars in the Room Saver Book and when we got to this fine establishment there was a huge Mexican Wedding going on....AND....again I am not making this up....an African party of some sort going on across the lobby from the wedding! Sheila asked the lady behind the counter if we were free to join either party and the lady said it might be best if we waited a couple hours...."by then they wont even notice you in there!"  I said YEAH RIGHT!