Part 4. It’s Amarillo in the rear-view mirror.

We are preparing to head out of town on our pilgrimage to here. The back-ordered part we needed for the truck arrived.  The dealer got it installed, tested, and all the systems are looking good. We’ve got a full tank of gas and we are hitting the road in the morning.

Our time in Amarillo has been sweetened by the welcoming and generous hearts of the people who call this place home. There’s a nostalgic feel to this town which sits on the remnants of Route 66. Today, the theme bars celebrate road trips, Harleys, vintage Cadillacs, and James Dean. Bruce Springsteen even wrote a song that immortalizes the public art installation of eight Cadillacs (see our earlier blog) and it could as well honor the town itself.

The PPHM in Canyon, Texas is a treasure of a museum that should not be missed.

In this closing blog, I want to note that we spent nearly a full day at a great museum called the Panhandle-Plains Historical Museum. It is one of the best examples of a regional museum that presents the full and complex history of this remarkable part of the country called Llano Estacado. It’s a high plain that includes the eastern range of New Mexico, the southern part of Colorado, the panhandle of Texas and part of Oklahoma and a bit of Kansas. The Museum sits on the campus of West Texas A&M University, like a gem waiting to be discovered. If you are ever in the area, do check it out.

This is a great local place known, for good reason, for their great barbecue.

And then, there is the food that we discovered here. Yes, friends, we still travel looking for the best of local good food and we found some here. The barbecue at Tyler’s was great – tender and juicy, and served with the freshest potato salad we’ve had in a long time (they make it every day onsite from scratch). Great spicy barbecue sauce really livened up the ribs!

Here’s a happy surprise – a great French bakery in town.

Peter found the treasure of a real French bakery in town, called Frank’s. The baguette he brought home was barely one hour out of the oven, still warm and sweet-smelling and screaming for butter (and later, at cocktail hour, it met up with a great blue cheese with very happy results).

This is a very happy face…

We just returned from our final evening celebration in town, hot fudge sundaes at the iconic ice cream place that several people recommended, called Malcolm’s. Here they create their sundaes by scooping out a crater in the middle of the ice cream and filling it with hot fudge, topping with whipped cream – oh yea, that’s what I’m sayin’. Sprinkle some sliced almonds on top and we’re talking pretty fine.

There is a song by Texas singer-songwriter Mac Davis from 1980 that some of you may recall. He sings of leaving his hometown of Lubbock, thinking that happiness is seeing it in his rear-view mirror. And then, life intervenes and he discovers that in fact, “happiness is Lubbock, Texas growing nearer and dearer…”

We really are pretty unreliable when it comes to predicting what life has in store for us and so sometimes just showing up and taking a good look at what is right in front of you can reveal the most surprising of treasures. Thank you, Amarillo, for all you have shared with us.

Catch you next time, and thanks for tonight’s farewell sunset…

Peter and Liz are on a pilgrimage to here traveling across the U.S. in their Airstream.