Uncovering Amarillo's Hidden Weirdness

Amarillo, up in the Texas Panhandle, is overwhelmingly conservative and dedicated to beef.  But there's some oddness lurking right under the surface, thanks mostly to helium baron Stanley Marsh 3.  (He thinks Roman numerals are pretentious, apparently.)

So, after waking up still stuffed with beef from our Big Texan meal the night before, we went out to see maybe his most famous project - the Cadillac Ranch.  Not to be confused with Nebraska's Carhenge, my goodness no.  The Cadillac Ranch is located just off of I-40 a few miles west of Amarillo.

You just park your car on the interstate access road and push through a fence that's kept unlocked at all hours.  Sometimes you have to watch out for cows, though there weren't any nearby when we visited - but you always have to watch for their, uh, leavings.

Sometimes people kindly spraypaint them for you, so they stand out more.

These Caddys date from 1949 to 1963, and I suppose it's up to you to interpret what the artists meant by their placement.  They're at the same angle as the Great Pyramid of Cheops at Giza, if that helps.

Obviously, graffiti is encouraged at this completely unreal monument to... the great age of the American automobile?  The American preoccupation with roadside attractions?  Tagging?

People left cans of paint near the cars, some of which weren't completely emptied, so we added our mark too.  I'm sure it's been painted over by now.

As neat as the site is, it would be really difficult to spend more than about fifteen minutes there.  We left to visit our next Amarillan oddity - a monument to helium.

Yep, that's right.  Didn't I mention that Stanley Marsh 3 is a helium baron?  There's a lot of the gas around Amarillo, apparently the largest concentration in the world, and plenty of people made lots of money off of it. 

The monument is 60 feet tall, and each arm is a separate time capsule.  These are to be opened 25, 50, 100, and 1000 years after 1968, so the first one was opened in 1993 and the last will be seen in 2968.  If anyone's still around.

We'd also heard that Stanley Marsh 3 has put up lots and lots of signs throughout Amarillo.  The signs are sort of hard to explain - they look like your average metal road signs, but what's printed on them is far from traffic regulation.

We found a neighborhood with multiple signs on each block, and drifted around at 5 mph or so snapping shots as we went.  The woman who owns this house actually opened her door right after I shot this picture and gave me the stinkeye, but when I pointed to her sign she grinned.

And yeah, Husbear really did take this one over the trunk of a cop car, while the cop had a lady pulled over and was searching her car.  Don't think I wasn't freaking out a little bit.

I'm not entirely sure what collectively these are supposed to mean, if anything, but I know I was smiling widely looking at them.  I enjoy a bit of surreality in my day to day life.  BTW, a HUGE repository of these signs can be found here, on Brandon Carpenter's Flickr site.

It was now getting on seriously towards eating time, and luckily the Mr. had spotted a likely-looking joint just a couple of blocks from the neighborhood of the signs.

When we walked in and got our menus, I knew he'd chosen well.  Though it doesn't look like anything special from the outside, the GoldenLight claims to be the oldest restaurant in Amarillo.  And it's right on old Route 66!

And it's one of those diner places from the old-mold where you can see your food being cooked or fried. 

Unfortunately, the first item we ordered was not good.  Bad, even.  I guess we should have left the longing for green chile back in New Mexico, where they know what they're doing with it.  This was basically barely-cooked onions floating in a murky, cumin-packed brew, with a couple shreds of green chile so that the name isn't completely inaccurate.

Lucky things looked up with the next arrival - the fries.  I couldn't keep my hands off them long enough for the Mr. to take his picture.

And our green chile cheeseburgers.  Nice, thin patty, a quarter pound or so - I think these are my favorite, those giant monster thickpatties are just too much for me - cooked all to hell, but still nice and juicy (greasy, really) with a melting slice of American cheese and lotsa crunchy vegetables. 

This place was a completely bona fide American burger joint, which I'd recommend to anyone feeling hungry with a ten hour drive ahead of them.

The drive?  Yeah, boring.  Flat and boring, and then dark and boring.  Lucky we had all sorts of RadioLab and This American Life podcasts to enjoy, because there wasn't much to catch the eye on the more than 500 miles back to our home.

At the house, the cats were thrilled to see us (and not entirely traumatized - thanks, Catherine!) and our mountain of laundry and the fact that we were leaving for New Orleans in four days couldn't dampen our spirits.

When's the next big travel bonanza?

Comments

[Elin]

Yeah, they do love their steaks...At the Big Texan steak house in Amarillo they serve 72oz steaks! The youngest person to eat one was only 9, and the oldest was a 92 year old woman! Jeez!

[boots]

I love those pictures, reminds me of the burning man thing, very cool indeed. Those fry's look nice too!

[Boots in the Oven]

Elin, they do indeed! We went to the Big Texan (it's in the last post - amarillo by evenin') and it was a definite experience!

boots, I can see that. Very public art. And the fries were totally wonderful!

[Krista]

it's been raining here in cozumel since the day we arrived - what i wouldn't give for some weird and easily accessible "art" to pass the time :)

[Girlie]

Oh no! Rain in cozumel? I feel for you. I hope you're still having a great time!

[chance]

Ha, loved the photos of Amarillo. My hometown has some very interesting quirks. If you dig under the surface more Amarillo is not only a hotspot for steak but Thai Food. Tons of Thai restaurants. Very strange indeed.

[Boots in the Oven]

Thanks, chance! I was pleasantly surprised by Amarillo. I wonder why so many Thai restaurants?