Last Day in Fort Worth, Palo Duro Canyon, & Our Drive to Santa Fe

Yesterday for lunch Sam and Madelene took John and I to a delicious restaurant called The Vine Greek Taverna.  The owners of the restaurant were from Cyprus, and being Greek myself, as all Greeks are when they meet one another, we were instant friends!  The family was so friendly and the food was delicious.  Sometimes I am disappointed with Greek food at restaurants because I’m so used to Yiayia’s (my grandma’s) delicious Greek food, but this was very good!

John and I in front of the restaurant and my new Greek friend, the owner of The Vine

After lunch, we checked out some of the Fort Worth museums!  We went to the Kimbell Art Museum first, which was an amazing museum with some great pieces.  Their art ranged from Picasso to Monet to Renoir to Mondrian.  For a free museum, they had unbelievable artwork.  It was a blast!

Some awesome museum architecture

A Picasso on the left and on the right, one of my favorites, Abstraction by Piet Mondrian

  

We then walked over to The Modern, which was one of my favorite modern art museums that I’ve been to.  It was huge and they had some incredible pieces, as well.  Some of my ultimate favorites were ones by Andy Warhol, who I am more impressed with every time I see another one of his pieces.

Once we had enjoyed several hours at the museums, we decided we needed some beverages and I had a deliciously warm treat called the Candy Bar Latte at a really creatively decorated place called Brewed.  It was fabulous!  And since the day was a bit cold and overcast, it was the perfect drink to warm me up! 

We followed our drinks with one of Sam and Madelene’s favorite restaurants, a vegan place called the Spiral Diner.  Even though John and I haven’t ever tried a vegan restaurant, we were excited for the new experience! (And I was pumped to have some vegetables after all of the barbeque and fried foods we’ve been having!)  I had a delicious salad and John had a warm hummus wrap.  Both were impressively yummy, we were both pleasantly surprised and enjoyed our first vegan experience!  My salad even had “cheese” on it! 

Sadly, after dinner we had to say goodbye to Madelene, as she wasn’t able to join us for breakfast this morning due to work.  We said our goodbyes to Sam this morning after another great meal at Yogi’s.  We had such an amazing time in Fort Worth and had the best time hanging out with family!  Thanks to everyone that was so hospitable and showed us a fabulous time while we were visiting Texas!  We were both impressed by how much we liked the area and the city of Fort Worth!

This morning after breakfast, we headed out on a very long drive to Santa Fe.  Driving through Texas took FOREVER!  You don’t realize how big Texas is until you’re driving through it and seven and a half hours of your ten and a half hour drive are spent passing billboards, empty land, and small towns with populations of less than 3,000 people.  There were also no radio stations for quite a bit of the time in Texas – I have never seen my radio scan through completely and after not finding any stations for a bit, we gave up on looking.  It was a very interesting experience.

On our way through Texas, to break up the drive, John and I decided to stop at Palo Duro Canyon near Amarillo, which many people refer to as the mini-Grand Canyon.  Unfortunately, the weather was pretty overcast so the photos didn’t come out too good, but it was a really neat park.  John and I had an awesome time exploring some of the park and seeing the sites, and it was nice to have an activity to break up the long drive!

After Palo Duro Canyon, we went to a local barbeque place for another round of Texas barbeque before leaving the state!  We got ribs, potato salad, and tried a bowl of Green Chili Stew.  All were delicious and John was happy to get one more dose of barbeque before we left! 

Although much of our drive was gloomy and drizzling, the weather began to brighten up the closer we got to New Mexico, and when we were near the state line, the sun began to shine!  We were able to take some AMAZING shots along the way and we even stopped several times on the side of the highway to take pictures.  New Mexico is one of the most beautiful states I have ever had the pleasure of driving through!!  Although incredibly barren, the land is beautiful, and unlike Texas, there are very few signs of any type of civilization.  It was really incredible.  

We began closing in on Santa Fe as the sun was setting, so instead of going straight to the hotel, we drove straight to a park and were able to capture the amazing sunset!  It was an unbelievable end to a long drive.  The spot that we found gave us an amazing view of the sunset and we were so excited to be able to take some fabulous pictures!  We are finishing up our night with a late dinner and this blog post!  Tomorrow we will be exploring the sites in Santa Fe!