Blogotional

Welcome to a new weekly feature here in Blogotional, replacing the Tuesday "On The Edge Of Taste" feature which I think amused me but no one else.

This feature has grown out of two threads. The first was my recent series of postings on our trip to Europe, which as best as I could tell, people enjoyed. The other thread is how much my wife and I love to travel, and when we do, we love to try and go through the alphabet and name places we have visited that begin with that letter.

So, for example, this being the first such post, the letter is "A." And in honor of my current state of war with what is now apparently out British allies (check the comments in the link), I am going to talk about Amarillo, Texas.

This is more or less the Amarillo of my youth. I could not get an exact date for the postcard, but it looks more or less right. I was there kindergarten through 5th grade - roughly 1963-1969.

It was just a great place to be a kid. I think it is the second or third sunniest city in the country, a great place to spend all sorts of time outdoors.

Amarillo is on Old Route 66 -- famed in song! And with that came the ususal assortment of roadside attractions, the best of which is still there today. The Big Texan Steakhouse is one of those joints that will serve you a steak approximately the size of half a cow and if you can get it all down in a hour -- it's yours, for free. And yes, this should go a long way towards explaining my grand love affair with beef.

Amarillo is also dead center in "tornado alley." Lots of storm chasers, both the professional kind and the tourist kind operate out of there. As a kid we had one of the few two-story houses in town. Amariilo also sits on top of a large plateau elevated by a little under 1000 feet over the rest of the plains. I could sit in my room and watch storms 100's of miles away. And at night, I could see lightening forever. It was a grand thing when you were a small boy.

This too likely explains my fascination with all things tornado. I love to watch them on TV, and in person, though here in SoCal, that doesn't happen very often.

The would be the grand natural attraction associated with Amarillo -- Palo Duro Canyon. It is the second largest canyon in the country and it is spectacular as you can see.

It has much of the beauty of its big cousin in Arizona, though it is not so overwhelming, either in scope, or with crowds. It's that later part that makes it really fun.

The other natural wonder is the Alibates Flint National Monument. My father was a part of the move to get this area declared a National Monument. I happen to have in my possession the book of letters from scientists and civic leaders that was submitted to Congress to lobby for the designation. This is from the days when photocopies were expensive and computers unheard of. These are carbon copies on original letterhead of all the letters, bound to boot.

This is, oddly enough, my fondest memory of the town. Back in the day the spent natural gas fields around Amarillo were used to store the entire world's supply of helium -- most of it came as a by-product of gas production around there.

This is a monument to that industry that was erected during the time I lived there. My father played a key role in its construction and siting, though it has been moved since those days. Each of those arms is a time capsule to be opened at certain intervals as history progresses. It made me extraordinarily proud to see my father on the dais when it was "opened" -- something I will never forget.