The Cadillac Ranch and More in Amarillo, Texas

Next stop:  Amarillo, Texas, where we explored the tacky, the scientific, the high brow, and the natural.

First the tacky, which is often our favorite. Amarillo is on old Route 66, and stops near 66 can be funny.  So we went to the Cadillac Ranch, where ten Caddies from the 1940's through the 60's are buried headlights first in a pasture with their fins a flying. Legend has it that an eccentric rich guy buried his caddy whenever he bought a new one. The truth is that old Cadillacs were installed as an art project by what some web sites refer to as “hippies.” 

Then we did the scientific: a visit to the eight-and-a-half-ton, six-story-high stainless steel Helium Monument.  Amarillo was once known as the Helium Capital. In the 1970s Amarillo manufactured 95 percent of the worlds “tube trailers” that transport helium. In addition, large stores of natural gas with a high percentage of helium are found near Amarillo.

The monument looks like a big tripod and was erected in 1968 as a time capsule with four different compartments.  The four sections are to be opened in 25 years, 50 years, 100 years and 1000 years. The "open me in 1000 years" capsule has a bank passbook with a $10 deposit in it. Your interest may vary.

The more high brow:  We like art museums the Amarillo Museum of Art was great.  The exhibit was about Vietnam and featured sculpture, photography, painting, and ceramic and wire art. Poignant and interesting.  

And we went to Palo Duro Canyon State Park, about 25 miles southeast of town, at the suggestion of my brother, Don.  At about 120 miles long, 20 miles wide and up to 800 feet deep it’s the second largest canyon in the country after the Grand Canyon. We spent one day there and did some hiking -- obviously not enough to get the full feel for the place, but it was beautiful.  Dogs are allowed on the trails which was even better for us.

Cadillac Ranch in a pasture along old route 66. People are encouraged to spray paint the cars.  The skinny photo on the left shows the thickness of the paint. You can see spray paint cans on the ground in the other two photos. And we could smell fresh paint fumes.

From 1929 to 1943, Amarillo furnished nearly all of the world's helium from nearby underground supplies. The time capsule and monument to helium was erected in 1968, the 100th anniversary of the discovery of helium. 

Vietnam vet, combat photographer and painter Larry Collins took these photographs during his time in Vietnam.  They were so vibrant they looked like paintings.  Much later he did paintings based on his photography.

Palo Duro Canyon State Park, where we did a little hiking. The area has a connection to Cynthia Ann Parker who, in 1836 as a child in Texas, was captured by the Comanche Indians. She remained with them and later married a chief; they had three children including a son, Quanah, who also used the name Parker.  Quanah Parker became a chief of the Comanches and fought in a battle at Palo Duro Canyon. The entire history of the American Indians -- once the Europeans got to what is now the US -- is very sad, and Cynthia Ann's life is especially so. Here's a link to the Wikipedia entry about her. We also met a man at the park visitor's center who told us his great grandfather was Cynthia Ann's first cousin.

We ate a very good dinner at this restaurant near our RV Park. See the sign at the bottom for a "free 72 ounce steak?"  It's free if you eat the entire steak plus fixins in under an hour.  I overheard a waitress talking about a woman who was rewarded with the free meal -- per the waitress she weighed 118 before dinner  and 145 after. I wouldn't be eating any steak if I had to get weighed first.  Or especially after. But she must have washed her meal down with a lot of beer.