Quirky things in Texas, USA

I love quirky things that you can only discover when you travel through a country. Like how in China, they pay A LOT of attention to street cleaning. In Thailand, watermelon shakes are THE best fruit shakes. (better than strawberry)

So en route to Amarillo, Texas on my Contiki Holidays Tour we stopped by a fun place called Cadillac Ranch ;  A public art installation where visitors are free to come and spray paint to their hearts desire. You can bring your own cans but usually there are a few half full ones laying around for you to use. A seriously fun and unique pit stop on your way through Texas.

With my leather jacket I fit right in with all the spray paint.

 

Big Texan Ranch

Longhorn Ranch, Texas
Longhorn Ranch: our lodgings, across from the Big Texan Steak House.

One thing has become very apparent from my first few days spent in Texas: they love their beef.

So much so that as a group we got to participate in the Big Texan 72oz steak challenge.  (As seen on Man vs. Food, I love that show!)

Now let me tell you the detail of this challenge, you must eat:

steak

[checklist]

  • a 72 oz steak
  • baked potato
  • roll
  • 3 fried shrimp
  • and a salad,  all within 1 hour.

[/checklist]

If you succeed, you get your meal for free. If you fail, you pay $72 for the meal. You cannot get up at any point and should you need to “relieve yourself”,   well you are just out of luck.

The fastest time on record is 8 minutes held by the world hotdog eating champion. Two of our fellow Contiki tour members Matt and James decided to take on this challenge. Matt made it a good 15 minutes before throwing in the towel. It was honesty a stellar effort, far better than I could have done. James struggled through 45 minutes before the “bucket” was called, and his dreams of steak fame were over. James did however continue eating the steak AND managed to finished the whole meal under the 1 hour, he was just disqualified.

Now this monumental task isn’t impossible, one hearty Texas man jumped up onto the table to try the challenge for himself shortly after our Contiki members started. He managed to finish in 25 minutes, a ridiculously short period of time.  So it is achievable, it just requires dedication and well… a little bit of training.

Contiki USA: Video #4:  Amarillo, Texas

httpvh://youtu.be/MSABmXa4QrA