Road Trip: Amarillo by morning

It was night when we finally arrived in Amarillo and checked into the hotel. After settling in, we headed out to explore some of the city. Route 66 passed through Amarillo, running along Sixth Street. Just west of downtown, the area has been successfully revitalized. The old buildings there are now home to many shops and bars, which were busy since it was Saturday night.

We headed over to Amarillo's downtown and stopped to get pictures of the Santa Fe Building. Built in 1930, the building sat empty and vacant in the 1990s until the county renovated it for office space. It is a neat old building, with an old theatre sitting across the street.


I woke up early the next morning to catch a sunrise - this was actually taken from the door of the motel room...


After that I headed to get the free breakfast at the hotel and was delighted to see that they offered waffles in the shape of Texas. When I last passed through Amarillo, on a road trip three years ago, we stayed at a different hotel that also offered Texas-shaped waffles. I don't know if it's an Amarillo thing, since I've never seen that at hotels in Dallas. But I was disappointed that none of the other hotels we stayed at during the trip had state-shaped waffles (and Colorado would have been easy since it's just a square).


We didn't have time to stop at Amarillo's main attractions - the Cadillac Ranch and the Big Texan Steak House (we would on the way back). But we continued on west and would soon visit an old ghost town along Route 66...