Passing the massive Grain Producers silo in Plainview. It was built to hide grain from bandits. People said 'why don't you hide it underground or in a building' but the farmers said 'That's too obvious. Sometimes the best place to hide something is in....'
North to Amarillo.
Silos rise majestically above the landscape, the cathedrals of the plains.
Cathedrals of the plains. Oh golly, that's dead poetic, isn't it?
Amarillo is the main attraction today. Just passing through, but there's lots still to see on the way.
Jobsiteland, probably.
Old church and relatively humble skyline.
The TV broadcasting centre and the city's centrepiece Golden Game Truck Company building.
The downtown looks a bit more impressive from this angle. The way through involves two one-way streets linked with plenty of narrow side roads - ideal terrain for exploration with a crawler tractor in tow.
Luckily the pavements aren't crowded with people. Nice mural. Are those cats fighting over a rabbit?
Looks like a superhero rabbit attacking a demonic dog and cat. Must be a pet shop. Great to see art reproduced like this.
SCS are rightly quite proud of Amarillo - it has a lot of personality which you don't see if you don't take the north-south route through it and explore a bit. So there's a video point. I didn't get another picture of this fine brick edifice, so it'll have to be this one with the 'Press ESC to skip cutscene' text which totally unnecessarily appears on all screenshots taken in 'video mode' even when you can't see the writing on screen. You can crop it out, but in this case it would have cropped half the truck. Whatever.
Construction work, with a guy shifting uncomfortably as he waits for a colleague to get out of the portaloo.
Another view of the TV station. Need to turn right twice now and head back northwards once more. It's a little strange that the one-way streets are on opposite sides to where they should be - they cross over each other at either end of the downtown, so you are always driving on the left-hand road whether you're going north or south. The other road is a block away, so it doesn't feel strange, but why have them cross over each other at each end in the first place? No doubt there's a good reason for it, and it adds to the personality of the city.
Another side street.
At the northern end, the road dips under the railway lines.
Suburban housing north of the downtown area.
Shabby part of town. Don't much feel like staying there. Not when I have my palatial sleeper cab. With microwave.
Turning to double back onto the southbound one-way road.
Heading back into town, the road goes over, not under, the railway.
Very nice place, Amarillo. We'll leave it behind and head to Dalhart in the penultimate set of the tour next time.
Cheers! Krigl
