We spent the weekend in Lubbock, Texas, my husband's birthday was the excuse - if we needed one!
Lubbock is a biggish city (pop. around 230,000) in the north western part of the state, known - by those who know - as the Llano Estacado. Buddy Holly and Mac Davis are a couple of Lubbock's famous sons - each has a road or avenue named after him. Lubbock houses three universities incuding the huge Texas Tech University. The city's nickname, Hub City, stems from the fact that it's the economic, education, and health care hub of a multi-county region, the South Plains, and largest contiguous cotton-growing region in the world.
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"Gem of the South Plains" is how Lubbock is described in the visitors' blurb. Now, "gem" is rather over-stating it! I think Mac Davis's song, "Oh Lord it's hard to be humble...." has been taken to heart by the department putting out visitors' information leaflets.
Another example of "hard to be humble": on a local Tex-Mex cafe a signboard proclaimed "come and try our world famous burritos" - when translated from Mac Davis speak = "come try our burritos, people around here seem to like 'em".
Lubbock, even with around 230,000 inhabitants is like an overgrown small to medium sized town, it doesn't feel at all metropolitan. The people of Lubbock are super-friendly (no Mac Davis speak there!) They are even friendlier than in our S.W. Oklahoma hometown - where they are pretty friendly. Whenever one passes someone in a street, store, parking lot in Lubbock, there's an exchange of smiles, greetings, sometimes a wee wisecrack....even to us, total strangers. This is the sunny side of Texas. We won't talk about the shadow side today....
John Steinbeck on Texas:
The weekend's weather was on our side. We left home Thursday, in heavy rain, temperatures struggling to reach 50 degrees (Fahrenheit.) Rain followed us for 100 miles or so, until we were around halfway to Lubbock, when the skies cleared. Friday and Saturday we had clear blue skies all day, temperatures reached the mid-80s, remained so as we drove home on Sunday.
Photographs from my husband's pocket camera :
We saw this large, solid concrete, very heavy zodiac sculpture for sale in the outdoor area of an antiques mall. If we'd had the space in the car, and arms strong enough to lift it, it might have come home with us - not sure where I'd have put it though.
One astro item I did find and bring home, from a used book section of an antiques store. More on this tomorrow.
In an antiques mall where husband searched for more vintage photgraphs for his collection, this gorgeous old juke box with 78 rpm records. Price $14,500 !!!
And a Buddy Holly LP going for a song - $250
Buddy Holly, like Mac Davis, was born and raised in Lubbock. The Buddy Holly statue was down for cleaning and repair so a pic from Texas Tripper.com :
And a little something that nearly put me off my breakfast in a down-home cafe across the highway from our motel:
Lubbock is a biggish city (pop. around 230,000) in the north western part of the state, known - by those who know - as the Llano Estacado. Buddy Holly and Mac Davis are a couple of Lubbock's famous sons - each has a road or avenue named after him. Lubbock houses three universities incuding the huge Texas Tech University. The city's nickname, Hub City, stems from the fact that it's the economic, education, and health care hub of a multi-county region, the South Plains, and largest contiguous cotton-growing region in the world.
""Gem of the South Plains" is how Lubbock is described in the visitors' blurb. Now, "gem" is rather over-stating it! I think Mac Davis's song, "Oh Lord it's hard to be humble...." has been taken to heart by the department putting out visitors' information leaflets.
Another example of "hard to be humble": on a local Tex-Mex cafe a signboard proclaimed "come and try our world famous burritos" - when translated from Mac Davis speak = "come try our burritos, people around here seem to like 'em".
Lubbock, even with around 230,000 inhabitants is like an overgrown small to medium sized town, it doesn't feel at all metropolitan. The people of Lubbock are super-friendly (no Mac Davis speak there!) They are even friendlier than in our S.W. Oklahoma hometown - where they are pretty friendly. Whenever one passes someone in a street, store, parking lot in Lubbock, there's an exchange of smiles, greetings, sometimes a wee wisecrack....even to us, total strangers. This is the sunny side of Texas. We won't talk about the shadow side today....
John Steinbeck on Texas:
"I have said that Texas is a state of mind, but I think it is more than that. It is a mystique closely approximating a religion. And this is true to the extent that people either passionately love Texas or passionately hate it and, as in other religions, few people dare to inspect it for fear of losing their bearings in mystery or paradox. But I think there will be little quarrel with my feeling that Texas is one thing. For all its enormous range of space, climate, and physical appearance, and for all the internal squabbles, contentions, and strivings, Texas has a tight cohesiveness perhaps stronger than any other section of America. Rich, poor, Panhandle, Gulf, city, country, Texas is the obsession, the proper study and the passionate possession of all Texans."
-John Steinbeck, 1962.
The weekend's weather was on our side. We left home Thursday, in heavy rain, temperatures struggling to reach 50 degrees (Fahrenheit.) Rain followed us for 100 miles or so, until we were around halfway to Lubbock, when the skies cleared. Friday and Saturday we had clear blue skies all day, temperatures reached the mid-80s, remained so as we drove home on Sunday.
Photographs from my husband's pocket camera :
We saw this large, solid concrete, very heavy zodiac sculpture for sale in the outdoor area of an antiques mall. If we'd had the space in the car, and arms strong enough to lift it, it might have come home with us - not sure where I'd have put it though.
One astro item I did find and bring home, from a used book section of an antiques store. More on this tomorrow.
In an antiques mall where husband searched for more vintage photgraphs for his collection, this gorgeous old juke box with 78 rpm records. Price $14,500 !!!
And a Buddy Holly LP going for a song - $250
Buddy Holly, like Mac Davis, was born and raised in Lubbock. The Buddy Holly statue was down for cleaning and repair so a pic from Texas Tripper.com :
And a little something that nearly put me off my breakfast in a down-home cafe across the highway from our motel:
