Uh-Oh, Maybe We Made A Mistake in Amarillo, TX

We arrived Monday afternoon, after a (thankfully) un-eventful day of travel.  You know we went to the Big Texan for Dick's steak dinner as soon as we were set up and dog walked, and I wrote about that experience here.  (I know you remember, but some of my readers are older than you, so they need a reminder!)  And Tuesday, bright and early (for us!), we rode on down and spent the day in Palo Duro Canyon.  You can click back there, if you want to revisit the park with us...Yesterday, we went back to the town of Canyon and walked around the square, to check out Connie's humble home town.  Those were HER words, not mine!

We were greeted by this cowboy, as soon as we got off the Interstate.  Within moments of me posting him on Facebook, Connie commented that she knew exactly where we were!  Good thing, 'cuz we didn't!  LOL

There were several historic buildings around the (sorry Connie....) rather nondescript and somewhat plain looking courthouse.  It looked like your typical red brick governmental building from the 60's.  

This was the plaque on "The Canyon News," the first city newspaper.

The next building over sported this plaque, dedicated to Iowa natives Grace Winkleman and Clyde Warwick, who both came to Canyon City, in 1908 and 1910 fell in love, and married in 1911.  They seem to be both pretty accomplished folks, and active in the community.

Of course, we stopped in a the bakery.  I thought these sandwich cookies and decorated sugar cookies took the cake!  (see what I did there??  Yup, we'll be here all week, folks!)

There was one other thing we did while we were in town.  OK, truth be told, *I* did it.  Poor Dick had no prior knowledge, and he'll be the first one to say so!  He was perusing the booths in the thrift store, while I waited for him outside.  There I was, sitting on a bench, in the shade, minding my own business.  One of the only other two shoppers in the whole town, pulled up in his red pickup truck, parked right in front of me, hopped out, and stood on the sidewalk, just upwind of me, and took 3 last, deep drags on his cigarette.  When he was done, he simply tossed the lit but into the street, in front of said pickup truck.  Now, there I was, witness to it all, so what was I to do?  You all know how much I hate cigarettes, and litter, and the two combined....so I sat there, in a moral dilemma.  I could pick it up and run after him, suggesting that he dropped something valuable, 'cuz if it had been trash, surely he would have placed in in the trash can RIGHT NEXT TO HIM...but, this is Texas, and people do carry here.  He could be carrying, and it was possible that would just pi$$ him off, and he just might shoot me.  That would leave Dick to navigate and drive by himself; that wouldn't be good.  I could just pick it up and toss it in the can...but how would that change his behavior?  And would he even know how much he had annoyed ME?  Probably not.  So, I did the next best thing.  I stepped on the butt, to put out the fire, picked it up, and danged if the back window of the pickup truck wasn't open.  Yup.  I tossed that thing all right....right into that back window.  Wonder if he'll ever figure it out?  Or will he just be left to wonder how in tarnation that thing got in there?

From Canyon, we Googled Sam's Club and found it not far off.  A pack of bar soap and a bottle of Clorox II turned into that, plus a bit more (of course) and we were off to WalMart next.  It sure seems like the whole town of Amarillo is under construction!  At WalMart, we picked up my lettuce & other salad veggies, some bananas, and totally forgot the All and my dishwasher pods.  Drats!  That's OK; I'm sure we'll be out that way again before it's all said and done.  We returned to the camper and gave the dog a much-needed bath.

So, today is Thursday, and it's supposed to be hotter 'n blazes, at about 100 degrees before the rain showers set in this afternoon.  We decided to stick a little closer to "home" today, but being so hot, we'd leave the now-clean Bailey in the window.  (For our new friends, Bailey is the dog Princess, and she sits up in the window sill when we are gone, surveying both her camper and the world outside her window seat.)  Off we went to Amarillo Botanical Gardens.  

After paying a nominal admission fee ($3 each, can you believe it??!!), we entered the gardens and found this beautiful mosaic wall.  Each tile was about a half inch square, and some of them were even iridescent.  I could see a quilt like this!!  In someone's future, not mine.  I have not the patience, nor the room to make such a treasure.  But, I admired it all the same.

There were about 31 different garden areas, and I just fell in love with the bubbling rocks and waterfalls in the Japanese garden.  If we ever get a house again, we will definitely make one of these water features.  Maybe after we do some other fixup type projects, but eventually.

 
 Each of those rocks ringing the pond had its own bubbler, and there were fish and a little wood duck residing in the pond.

The walkways were a riot of colorful blooms and butterflies!  Each time we neared a plant, about 10 butterflies would rise up and settle back down within moments of our passing.

 The Dinner Plate Hibiscus were my favorite color!

The dahlias and zinnias were in full bloom in the heat of late morning.

This little musical frog cracked me up and just made me happy.  There were a couple of water lilies off to the right...

Once we entered the conservatory, we were greeted by a cooling mist and this beautiful specimen of golden Shrimp Plant.

There were signs warning us not to harass the resident pheasants..so we didn't.

Someone's getting fresh bananas every day!

These little ducks are permanent residents too, but they didn't even make a dent in the mosquito population!

This is a Kapok Tree, and those thorns were SHARP!  Don't ask me how I know that, just trust that I know it to be a fact.

Dick is admiring a Tree Fern.  Lookit the size of that beast!  Well over Dick's head!

I thought this was a Turk's Cap flower, but, nope, it is not.  Not sure what it was, but it was pretty!

This plaque was placed in the Palo Duro garden, which also contains another stunning mural.  I particulary like this homage and love story to a gentleman's departed wife.

We were ready to leave, and went back to the office to chat with whomever we could fine.  Actually, we were't just wandering amilessly, we were checking out the classrooms and the view from inside the auditorium.  We stopped to chat with one of the ladies, and she introduced us to the horticulturist for the park.  She had him show us photos of his Red Gold Pheasant, who normally hails from China.  Once we saw his photo, we knew we had to travel back into the conservatory and find that bird!  We walked back in to the conservatory and took only about 3 steps!  There he was, with at least 3 of his babies!

He reminds me so much of the painted bunting we spotted in Aransas Pass, a couple of years ago.

The Gardens only took up the morning, so we had lots of time left to look around.  We weren't far from the Cadillac Ranch, so we rode on out to see what made it so special.  Just like they said, you can see the landmark from I-40, and there's really nothing else around but half-buried Cadillacs.  There are no directional or advisory signs, nor are there any plaques explaining WHY they are there.  Click on this panorama photo to get a true sense of how flat the prairie is and how much land is visible at any given time.  The photo was taken halfway between the installation and the road.

So, why ARE they here?  Here's what RoadsideAmerica has to say about the art installation:

"Standing along Route 66 west of Amarillo, Texas, Cadillac Ranch was invented and built by a group of art-hippies imported from San Francisco. They called themselves The Ant Farm, and their silent partner was Amarillo billionaire Stanley Marsh 3. He wanted a piece of public art that would baffle the locals, and the hippies came up with a tribute to the evolution of the Cadillac tail fin. Ten Caddies were driven into one of Stanley Marsh 3's fields, then half-buried, nose-down, in the dirt (supposedly at the same angle as the Great Pyramid of Giza). They faced west in a line, from the 1949 Club Sedan to the 1963 Sedan de Ville, their tail fins held high for all to see on the empty Texas panhandle.

That was in 1974. People would stop along the highway, walk out to view the cars -- then deface them or rip off pieces as souvenirs. Stanley Marsh 3 and The Ant Farm were tolerant of this public deconstruction of their art -- although it doomed the tail fins -- and eventually came to encourage it.

Decades have passed. The Cadillacs have now been in the ground as art longer than they were on the road as cars. They are stripped to their battered frames, splattered in day-glo paint splooge, barely recognizable as automobiles."

Oh, and the wind blows and blows and blows!  We offered to take a picture for another couple, and they took ours in return. 

If you want to keep it, you'd better hold on to it!!

The paint is several layers thick, and you can hardly even see the details of the cars anymore.

People are invited to come with cans of spray paint and add their story wherever the mood strikes.

If you look really hard, you can see how the paint just drapes and hangs off the previous layer.  It reminds me of stalactites in a cavern!

This is what remains of a tire and wheel.

All the way out the dirt path to the cars, people have painted their feelings in the dirt.  It was amazing to see that most people refrained from walking on that half of the pathway.

Some of the artwork was even pretty darned good.

It was simply amazing to see how many people were out here.  There was only one other lady visiting the Botanical Gardens with us, but this place was CRAWLING with visitors, young and old, couples in love, families, and even a group of 4 that spoke only Russian!  Build it and they will come, I suppose.

On the way back to town, we stopped in at the Cadillac Ranch RV Park and Gift Shop.  Oh yes, there's a gift shop around every corner here in Amarillo.

This one's Cadillacs were still intact and retained their original paint jobs.  Each one had a mannequin inside...there was John Wayne in the blue one, Willie Nelson in the middle, and Elvis Presley in the pink one at the end.  According to Driver, who knows these things, the blue and pink are circa 1959, the middle one was from 1957.  I'd say that makes them old as dirt, but then, what's that make me?  (Dirt, I suppose, as I was born at the end of '56!)

Howdy, y'all!

Bigfoot lives! And I'm not talking about Driver!

We headed back to Historic Downtown Amarillo and once again, found ourselves on Historic Route 66.

The business is gone, but the sign remains.  I'm pretty sure it used to be a car dealership.

Of course, you had to know I'd find a fabric shop.  Last time I was able to pet fabric was in Maggie Valley, NC, when we took Barb & Bob to the quilt shop, instead of attending that square dance meeting.  (Sorry, John Ide, not sorry!)

Once inside, I have to admit, I was somewhat disappointed.  All the fabric was on huge rollers, and was of the upholstery kind.  Not exactly anything I'd be using or wanting for my limited stash.  But, this chair caught my eye.  It looked like it would fit right in at the Cadillac Ranch.  Certainly was colorful!

As we walked back to the car, we came upon some barred windows (only thing I've ever seen barred before was our Barred Rock rooster, so this was a new sight for me!) and this warning sign upon the door.  Soooo, what's this all about?  And why would the U.S.Army have to know about a spill??

Well, here's what Wikipedia has to say about the subject:

"Trioxin is a yellowish, whitish, or greenish vapor (caused by sulfurism) which makes your skin feel as though it it is burning. It has been known to be typically stored under pressure in large steel drums. It was originally developed by the Darrow Chemical Company for the United States military as an herbicide to destroy marijuana plants; however, the Army was quite surprised when the gas also restored function to the nervous systems of cadavers, dismembered body parts, and even dead animals and insects. Moreover, trioxin appears to be toxic, and a single exposure to a concentrated amount can both kill a person and revive them again.

Zombies created by exposure to trioxin retain all of their former intelligence and abilities, including the abilities to speak, run, and reason. Human behaviors and emotions fade as the brain shuts down leaving only the base instincts to feed. Like normal cadavers, they suffer the effects of rigor mortis. They also crave human brains; one zombie explains that brains are required to stave off the pain of decomposition. Unlike other zombies, the only known ways to destroy zombies created by trioxin are by incineration or electrocution. Attempts to destroy the brain or even completely dismember a trioxin zombie have invariably failed."

There's lots more info at that link I shared above.  So much more, that I'm not sure if it's satire, truth, or just someone's imagination run away!  I'd be interested to hear your opinion.

Right next door was the Neon Moon.  We had thought it was a local bar, and when we saw two old ladies (OLD ladies) walk in, we thought to ourselves, now there's a couple that's gonna get snockered, and here it is, only noon!  Well, turns out, it's a quaint little gift shop.  Gail, these toothpicks are so you!  I told the clerk about your ant-skewers and she wants to stock them in her shop too!

After we visited all the interesting shops in the area, we headed for "Madam Queen," the 5000th steam locomotive produced for the historic Santa Fe Railroad.  You can click that link up there for all the engineering details, but it's numbers, and you all know how I feel about that!  Suffice it to say, it (this sort of engine/boiler configuration) worked better than all the others they had up till this time, but, alas, it came out in 1930, just after the Great Stock Market Crash of '29, so communities were har pressed to invest in the new technology at that time.   This particular locomotive was converted from coal to oil in 1940, and after 1,750,000 miles, was retired and gifted to the city of Santa Fe.  She was moved to Amarillo in 2005, where they were going to build a protective housing.  You see how far along they are on THAT project...

So, you're still reading, and you want to know where we made a mistake, right?  Yeah, well, see, we only booked a week here in Amarillo.  But there is soooo much to see and do, I don't think we'll have enough time to take it all in!  Tomorrow, we intend to hit the Fint Quarries, we found a REAL fabric shop that is beckoning, there's the American Quarter Horse Museum, the Museum of the Western Prairie, and so much more.  And at 6:30 pm, at the Starlight Event Center, right next to our RV park, there is a Creedence Clearwater Revival Tribute Band playing.  

Bad Moon Rising

Have You Ever Seen The Rain

Till next time - I know a lot of you are traveling now, so be safe out there.  Got some crazy drivers out on these roads!