Big Texan Steak Ranch...

On our way up through Texas to New Mexico, we stopped off for some lunch near Amarillo at the Big Texan Steak Ranch...

The Big Texan Steak Ranch is as Texan as you can get - it's the home of the 72oz steak, which you get for free if you can eat it in under an hour (as well as a prawn cocktail, a baked potato, some salad and some bread rolls)...

The car park was amazing, it was full of big cows and crocodiles, it had a western style motel with limos parked outside with cow-horns on them - it was all like something out of a cartoon...

 and inside it just got better, with cow hide table cloths (plastic), cow horn arm chairs, prize bulls on the walls, and a stage for the 72oz Steak Challengers to sit at...

 It all felt very touristy, but at the same time quiet genuine too as there were lots of locals just having lunch there. Despite being very tempted to try and tackle the 72oz steak, we went for a more modest lunchtime sized Texan Strip...

This was the smallest they did!

Our cups had some facts about the steak challenge - apparently the youngest person to ever do it was an 11 year old boy, the eldest was a 69 year old grandmother, a wrestler once ate 2 steaks in the hour time limit (!!!!) and the reigning champion, with an 8 minute completion time is the current reigning Coney Island Hotdog Eating Champion - Joey Chestnuts!

It was such a bizarre and wonderful place and such an amazing experience - I don't think we could have got a more Texan experience if we'd tried...