Amarillo to Lubbock
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Amarillo to Lubbock
At the Figure 3 Ranch near Amarillo, you can ride a wagon to the rim of the extraordinary Palo Duro Canyon for a Cowboy Morning Breakfast, where cowboys will cook your grub over a campfire and show you some roping tricks. Plenty of horseback riding and hiking await, too, in the stunning Palo Duro Canyon State Park, carved into the High Plains by the Red River. Also in the Panhandle Plains, you can examine the history of ranching at the National Ranching Heritage Center in Lubbock.
Lubbock
Long before Lubbock gave the world such musical greats as Natalie Maines, Butch Hancock, and Joe Ely, it was the hometown of the legendary Buddy Holly. Look downtown to see the Buddy Holly Statue and the Walk of Fame that honors such West Texas celebs as Mac Davis, Waylon Jennings, Roy Orbison, and Bob Wills. For regional history of a different bent, head over to the Texas Tech campus and its Ranching Heritage Center, where the story of a tough, honest way of life throughout the Panhandle Plains is told on a spread containing dozens of authentic ranch structures relocated from several West Texas ranches. You'll taste the pride of the Panhandle Plains at Llano Estacado and CapRock wineries, whose tours and tasting rooms show off the best of these High Plains wines. At day's end, prowl through the restored Depot District to find plates of steaks and barbecue, as well as a selection of country, alternative, and blues music venues.
With even a cursory glance at the vastness of the Panhandle Plains, its canyons, mesas and spires, gulches and arroyos, and unending horizons, you have to wonder why John Wayne, Clint Eastwood, and all the others didn't make all their westerns right here. Every inch a geographic drama, the mighty Panhandle is etched up top by the Canadian River, a little lower down by the Salt Fork and Prairie Dog Town Fork of the Red River, and the Yellow House and North Fork draws of the Brazos River. Said streams, of course, slashed deep into the earth an array of impressive canyons, such as the Palo Duro, second only to the Grand Canyon in size. Unfolding through four counties, Palo Duro spans at least four geologic ages and was the site where Charles Goodnight and John Adair founded the JA Ranch in 1876.
Lubbock offers 1,041 economical, 1,121 moderate, and 1,062 first-class accommodations.