Day 27: Amarillo, TX
Welcome
Yesterday we spent the day in Amarillo, Texas.
Our Holiday Inn Express was perched on the western edge of Amarillo. A freshly planted field began right at the edge of our carpark, and further, past that, telephone poles stretched out in a gradual line, following the highway north towards the border.
One of the downsides of staying at hotels that have good bus parking is that they tend to be a great distance from anything interesting. When we are staying at one of these places the first thing we usually do in the morning is to try and figure out what restaurants are within walking distance. The scale on Google maps is often very deceptive, and when you think you are right next door to something the width of the roads and the breadth of the carparks all add up to significant distances. The closest place to us was Chuy’s, a chain Tex-Mex restaurant, about a ten minute walk away across a busy major highway and a dusty field of trash.
Trash Field.
This wasn’t really what my body was crying out for but Tex-Mex cuisine was on the hit list after a strong recommendation from a few nights ago. The interior of the place had a strong decorative vision with sequined lampshades, brightly-coloured teracotta tiles, and many paintings of dogs dressed up in human clothing. I ordered the only thing on the menu I really could, the Elvis Presley Memorial Combo. I noted it down on my list of good jazz band names while I waited for my food. The members of this combo were a seasoned ground-beef enchilada with Tex-Mex sauce, chicken enchilada with Tomatillo Sauce, cheese enchilada with Ranchero Sauce, and a crispy taco and homemade tostada chips dipped in queso.
I felt pretty lethargic for the rest of the afternoon after consuming about two thirds of that meal. Later in the day I managed to summon enough energy to head out for a run. I headed north through a sprawling suburb of medical facilities, rehab centres, and research labs, before arriving at the eponymously-named Medical Centre Park. At the north end of the park I found what I wanted: the 9th Street Trails, a series of mountain bike paths criss-crossing a small hilly patch of land on the edge of town.
There were plenty of hoof-prints around and I saw the odd Cotton-tail scampering into the underbrush as I approached, both contributing to me feeling like I was in Red Dead Redemption. I reached the end of the trail and there was a spectacular view of the endless, flat prairie stretching out to the north. A perfect spot for a fire and a save point.
It wouldn’t be a proper run without a good bridge sighting, and on this occasion this was provided by the 9th Street Trails North Pedestrian Bridge, a plank-on-pole design that crosses the 9th Street Trails Drainage Gully with a respectable 3.5 main span. Not to be missed if you are in the area is this bridge’s baby sibling, the 9th Street Trails South Pedestrian Bridge which is a similar design but uses wooden beams instead of poles as the load-bearers.
Apart from being in Red Dead Redemption the most exciting part of my day was probably my walk to Target. It was just across the freeway (on the map) but it was a good twenty minute walk. Liz papped me crossing a series of traffic lights that get you under Interstate-40.
Sidney Gish has a real knack for finding the best parts of what I would normally consider quite a boring corner of town. She paid a visit to Cavender’s Boot City and did a great job of documenting it.
I tried to take some sunset glamour photos of Golden Sparkle Face to give to Rob. It was harder than I thought but here are the results, anyway.
Gabe planned a proper Texas outing for us in the evening, a trip to the nearby steakhouse. It was another heavy-hitting meal and while most of us gave a pretty good attempt at watching The Two Towers, Gabe suffered a severe meat fatigue and had to head straight to bed. It was a great evening though and I’d still like to award him 6000 boints for his efforts.
I’ll leave you with this photo from our Holiday Inn Express, which although was somewhat lacking in lobby facilities made up with it in other areas.
My first ever TV equipped bathroom experience.