Amarillo




I took the scenic route from Santa Fe to Amarillo by directing my navigation to Las Vegas, NM. first, and then catching 287 through Childress. It’s not like it was an unpaved residential road, but it was a far cry from the major I-40. I think it only added about half an hour to the trip, but it took me through small towns of 122 population and took a lot more interesting twists and turns than the big highway. It was a fun drive. 

Amarillo was dry and windy. I was happy to stay indoors and do nothing. I had plenty of food and no responsibilities, so I just relaxed.

By placing an ad in Craigs List, I connected with a man who was a teacher in the psychiatric prison. He offered to bring some hair-clippers over to my room and supervise my cutting my hair so I didn’t miss any spots in the back. And then he took River and I to what is probably Amarillo’s second biggest claim to fame, Cadillac Ranch. (I’d think the Route 66 song was its biggest.)

The sculpture has been painted so many times that it is inches thick in parts. It has been officially painted many times; different colors for different occasions. In addition, it is tacitly implied that visitors should contribute some paint whenever they visit. There were a few spray cans going around, so I grabbed a couple and did my part.


This was an auspicious occasion for River because it was the first time I’d really let him run around free since his surgery eight weeks ago. And it was in such a wide open area, he took that opportunity and ran with it. He jumped and ran and quickly changed direction and did it all over again. And he gleefully stopped what he was doing when I called him to COME. He couldn’t get to me fast enough, and sat there panting as I reattached his leash so we could leave.


Before we returned to the room, we managed to see one other sculpture funded by the same man who is responsible for Cadillac Ranch and many other public art installations around Amarillo. This one is called Colossal and it was two giant, disembodied legs. It was nearly dark by the time we saw this sculpture so I didn’t get a picture of it. At one point, someone painted sport socks on the legs. But they were long covered up with new paint before I saw them.

The name, Colossal comes from a poem that was on a plaque in front of the sculpture. As we drove by, my friend was anguished to discover the plaque was missing. Read about it, here.



Comments

Anonymous said…
I love the car art. I bet you were as happy as River at his runnung, yes?
May 16, 2014 at 8:10 PM
Anonymous said…
Ha, runnIng. :-)
May 16, 2014 at 8:12 PM
Jason Alan Griffin said…
Yes, it was such a joy to see him finally be able to let loose. And he was clearly having a ball.
May 18, 2014 at 5:55 PM
Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Nude Stretching

Image
I never thought I’d do something like this. But over the years many people have suggested that I make a Nude Stretching Video.  I guess the fact that I’m comfortable with nudity and with my body and that I’m a fitness pro with a passion for helping people made it seem like a no-brainer that I create something like this.  But I’ve been resistant to doing it for a long time; for fear (I guess) of what the more conservative people might think.  Now, finally, I’ve succumbed to the requests and put something together.  You conservative people will just have to look the other way. :) Now, I haven’t made an X-rated video here; I'm just nude and I'm stretching.  It's completely natural. This video blends a smart, educational stretching session with  “Warhol-like” video interludes accentuating an eroticized appreciation of the male form.  My intention was that it could be enjoyed on two levels. The free-style, hand-held segments demonstrate the positi...
Read more

Routines From the Vault

Image
I’ve been teaching Nia for 16 years now. And most of those years, I’ve gotten four new routines from Nia. That comes out to over 60 routines over the years. I’ve also created quite a few of my own routines. And along the way, certain routines have fallen out of favor for one reason or another.  For example, a great routine called Commitments, which uses the music from the soundtrack to the movie of the same name, is one of my first ones. I learned that routine so long ago that I have the music on cassette tape and I watched the routine on VHS. It has been retired “To the Vault” for many years. Ditto for routines called Genesis, Roots and Adagio. Some routines have been taken apart and used to build other routines. For example I took all of the Angelique Kidjo songs from the classic, Agolo, and put together a routine using only songs from her album, Aye (which means "LIFE" and is the name of the routine as well.)  I split up the songs from the repetitive routine Fi...
Read more

Food Purist

Image
I tell people I’m a food purist. And I say I’m gastronomically conservative.  Sometimes these terms are misunderstood. These terms that, as far as I know, I’ve made up; I don’t see them commonly used this way, but I could easily have picked them up subconsciously and adopted them. When something is so universally true, as I think food purism is, you often see the same or similar permutations of the concept showing up in different places. Anyway, being a food purist doesn’t mean that I only eat the foods that offer the best nutrition per calorie, or the foods with the highest antioxidant levels or the most enzymes or the least fat or the lowest glycemic index, etc. etc. That’s all popular science and I don’t get bogged down in it. All of that is changing constantly, anyway: One day eggs are good for you, the next day, you can only have whites, then they’re good for you again, then you find out they’re bad for you. Not that I’m saying anything about eggs right now, but this...
Read more