Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
PANHANDLE & PLAINS
The vast open stretch of the Texas Panhandle and Plains is a region of long drives on lonely
two-laners. Its cities are few and small. The scope and scale make this a place where people
tend to think big, but some of the area's purest pleasures are in its details: the scent of sage
after rainfall, a flint quarry plied by Texas' first inhabitants thousands of years ago, or the
wistful love songs written by young troubadours whose legacies ultimately reached far bey-
ond the Plains.
And it's not all tumbleweeds. Midland is at the heart of the Texas energy boom, Lubbock
embodies the region's rich music heritage with its favorite son, Buddy Holly, and Amarillo
keeps cattle king of the Panhandle. Natural wonders include America's second-largest
canyon, Palo Duro, where the Comanche fought on long after other tribes gave in. But the
region's greatest assets are the tiny towns seemingly lost in the past. Slumbering in the sun
are forgotten architectural gems and small-town cafes that have you itching for the next
mealtime.
TOP OF CHAPTER
Permian Basin
The Permian Basin is a flat, physically charmless region of Texas with a lack of vegetation
so pronounced that early settlers named one small town Notrees. Instead, you'll see (and
smell) forests of oil rigs, pump jacks and petroleum tanks, which have ruled the boom-and-
bust economy here since the late 1920s. This is a place where all those testosterone-fueled
pickup ads could be filmed.
Although it will never make a top destinations list, the basin's twin towns of Midland
and Odessa are excellent places to learn about the oil industry and the roots of an American
political dynasty, the Bush family. The growing towns are edging towards each other across
the 15 miles that separate them along busy I-20.
Midland
POP 114,200
 
 
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