Things to do at Amarillo and Wichita Falls, Texas

On the way back from New Mexico, we stopped at Amarillo to visit Palo Duro State Park in the panhandle of Texas. There are few things to do around the city.

Cadillac Ranch
Cadillac Ranch is an art installation on the west side of Amarillo along route 66. It consists of 10 cadillacs that were half buried nose-down in the dirt. It was invented by a group of people driven the cars from San Francisco into a field owned by billionaire Stanley Marsh who wanted a piece of public art. It has since been a popular tourist stopover for spraying paints and creating their own art. There was also a trailer selling spray paint at the location.

It was beautiful during sunset. We preferred the Texas warmer weather than the snowing weather that we just experienced in New Mexico few hours ago.

Muffler Man
Further to the east of the Cadillac ranch is the Muffler Man (aka 2nd Amendment Cowboy) guarding three Cadillacs behind. It is currently owned by a RV park

Route 66 Historic District
Route 66, the Mother Road of America. There is over one mile of art galleries, antique and collectible stores, restaurants in historic buildings. The historic strip is located on 6th Ave. between Georgia and Western St. There is also a visitor center if you need more information.

Palo Duro State Park
The main purpose of our stop at Amariilo. Our visit to Palo Duro State Park was beyond our expectation. It is gorgeous and this park has one of the best landscape and views of all the national/state parks we have been to date. It deserves a separate post of its own.

Wichita Falls
On the back to Houston, we stopped by Wichita Falls for a brief visit and roamed around this small town. The original falls (the namesake of the city) was flooded in the 1800's and this new man-made falls was constructed in 1987. It is located inside Lucy Park. It took us sometimes to actually find the entrance to the falls. There are some parking areads on Sunset Drive inside Lucy Park. Take the Wichita River Trail (it is a concrete trail) about 1 mile walk to the Falls and back.

A brief walk to the falls was very relaxing and the falls was beautiful even in a gloommy day.

World's smallest skyscrapper
We always heard about the new tallest skyscrapper being constructed beating the last one. But do you know about the world's smallest skyscrapper? The 4 stories high skyscrapper is located at 701 La Salle in downtown Wichita Falls. An interesting of history can be found here.

Not far away from the skyscrapper we saw this. We joked that it is the world's biggest shopping cart.