Tuesday, January 12, 2010

LA Stories: Manifest Destiny Pt. 3

After admiring our epically gross hotel room, complete with cattle-rustlin' mural by the green indoor pool, Jaime and I headed for breakfast- but not just any breakfast: A Big Texan breakfast.
The Big Texan is one of the first icons you encounter when joining Route 66 in Amarillo, and it's famous for a reason:
It's the home of the Free 72 oz. Steak, pardner!
Step right up, because if you can eat this 72-ounce steak in under one hour, it's free!
(If not, you have to pay $80 and feel deep personal shame- but you'll have leftovers for a month!)
Jay and I arrived at 10:18 in the morning, and we did not expect anyone to be attempting the challenge. We were wrong. A skinny kid and his girlfriend/aunt/milf show up at 10:30 and sit down on the deius in the center of the Old Saloon-themed restaurant. (By the way, this place is awesome- giant rocking chairs, like rattlesnakes, 15 flavors of fudge, shooting gallery, SO COOL!) The oldest, least-interested man in the world emerged from the kitchen with a scroll and announced that so-and-so was taking on the Big Texan steak challenge. He read the rules from the scroll; that the kid would have to finish the entire steak, a baked potato (not the skin) 3 giant fried shrimp and a small salad.
Meanwhile, in the back, the cooks are using both arms to flip this massive butterflied piect of meat. It was the circumference of an extra-large pizza.
They trot the steak out, and everyone in the restaurant (3 tables) gets us to see it. It's on a huge ginornous platter with jalepenos surrounding it. Stuck in the jalepenos are toothpicks with tiny Texas state flags on them. It's funny.
They have a basketball shotclock with a massive timer on it, and they cue it up at 60 minutes.
"Where you from, Kid?" someone asks, all breathless and excited. (It was me.)
"Miami," he responds, a steely determination in his eyes.
"GOOOOOO!" someone yells, as the clock starts counting down.
The guy launches into cutting this slab of beef, forking it and shovveling it into his mouth. It's obvious he's a competitive eater, and he is staring down that steak with conviction.
The cooks in the back cajole him on, coming out to watch with crossed arms.
"He's never gonna make it," they say loudly to one another.
We cheer him on as we eat our own (lackluster) breakfast, and poke around, buying postcards with pictures of the steak on them. I see stuffed armadillos for sale. We sit in the giant rocking chair, and admire someone's artwork- on the menu board, in chalk, they have written "Jesus loves Krishna" and drawn a heart around it. Jaime and I both take a photo of it, independently of each other. I rock out at the shooting gallery, where I plug a ton of audioanamatronic creatures that perform various amusing actions when shot. Dog ears flap. A zombie emerges from a grave. A pianist plays a tune.
After a while, it's time to check in on the Miami kid. He's down to the last few minutes, and, sadly, he still has a lot of steak left. Like, a LOT. I felt bad for him, but he still was chewing when the last few seconds ticked away.
We bought several flavors of fudge and went on our way, a little sad for the Miami Kid. We saw him walking back to their car with lots and lots of leftovers. He looked older, wiser, and full of steak.
Jay and I then drove to the Cadillac Ranch! It was out in a field, which was very muddy, and it wasn't quite as romantic and "ba-naaaaa" as I'd expected, but it was certainly 10 cadillacs buried nose down in the field, leaning at an angle. People are allowed to paint on them or color then or write on them however they please, and there's layer after layer of spraypaint. There was a bit of a crowd going. Jay took a call from his dad while we were there, and I made him hang up because I was afraid we were going to "miss something." I still think we might've. I didn't feel as amazed as I thought I would, but we made our mark and wrote our message to the world.
"Jaime and Jay"
"To California Dreams!"
We were there.
Then we were gone- Let the journey begin!

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