Thursday, March 6, 2014

US50 Phase 1: A couple more days in and around Amarillo


Oct 30 Museum day

Today was all about the Panhandle Prairie Historical Museum located at the West Texas A&M University in Canyon,  a town south of Amarillo not far from Palo Duro Canyon.
 
This is a pretty big place covering three floors and a variety of subjects. Being associated with the university it contains a number of eclectic collections donated by alumni. Of course there’s a lot about the history of the area but there are also various art collections, a car museum, a CCC museum and even a textile museum that focuses on children’s clothes. This one had a very interesting bit about the whole boy/girl –  blue/pink thing, which at one point not so long ago was the other way around since pink is a more active color than the calmer blue therefor more appropriate for boys. Apparently it’s only since 1940 that girl-pink/boy-blue has been the standard.

All told I was in this place for something like 6 hours and missed lunch!

One thing to note. Do not drive a large rig to this museum. It's obvious that the university does not have anywhere near adequate parking and as a consequence the residential streets for three or four blocks to the south of the university are lined with parked cars. There are a handful of nearby parallel parking slots reserved for museum visitors but these are only suitable for small to mid-sized vehicles.


 

Oct 31 Chillin’ in Amarillo

It was a pretty lazy day in and around Amarillo today. I wandered through a section of little shops along the original Route 66 on the west side of downtown, hiked 5 or so miles of city park trails and checked out the arboretum. The arboretum was pretty small and this isn’t the best season, but was nice anyway.
 
Winding the trip down now with one last stop planned to check out Abilene before heading home.

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