Day 11 - Amarillo - Palo Duro Canyon - Midland, TX

The next morning at Tradewind Airport. The RV sits outside the Commemorative Air Force hangar where it spent the night.

Taxiing by the FBO which is very nice and modern.

The Palo Duro Canyon is only ten or so miles to the southeast.

The winds were light -- less than 10 mph -- and it was early morning, so I was very surprised to encounter rough turbulence in the canyon area.

This still pictures make things look benign but I was really getting bounced around and could hardly hold the camera.

I could have had a lot more fun here if it hadn't been for the turbulence. It is a very scenic place.

This must be a favorite flying spot for Texas pilots.

I left the Palo Duro canyon and headed due south to Midland, Texas.

Farm country.

I'm being shadowed.

Farmland gives way to oil rig land.

On long final at Midland International Airport (KMAF). Like Boise, Midland International has Class C airspace, so I had to talk with Approach, then Tower.

Midland International Airport is between the two cities: Midland and Odessa. I had originally wanted to land at Odessa-Schlemeyer (KODO) which is a smaller, non-towered, general aviation but they were out of rental cars there. I definately needed a rental car to do what I wanted to do. A woman at Landmark Aviation, the FBO at Midland, really helped me out by arranging for a rental car there. Why didn't I want to go to Midland Int in the first place? Nothing against it, it's just a bigger airport operation geared towards commercial and business jet flights. Fuel costs more and there is usually a landing fee. But it turned out the landing fee was almost nothing so in the end Midland worked out great. Sure enough, the rental car was there waiting for me when I arrived.

In case you don't know, this part of Texas is currently in the midst of an oil boom.

There were a number of reasons I wanted to stop at Midland-Odessa. First and foremost was to see the Commemorative Air Force museum which is at Midland International Airport. Second was to see a Petroleum Museum, and finally I wanted to see the high school football stadium of "Friday Night Lights" fame.

To my great embarassment, the CAF museum was closed! It was Monday and they are closed Sundays and Mondays, a fact printed out big as day on my itinerary planning sheet. Somehow I had overlooked it.

I drove over to Odessa and checked out Ratliff Stadium, home of the Permian High School Panthers, who have won multiple state championships, and were made famous by the book "Friday Night Lights" by H.G. Bissinger. (It's a great read, by the way. Recommended.) There was also a movie based on the book, and then a TV show. Having now seen Midland-Odessa, I can understand why football is so big here.

The Permian Basin Petroleum Museum was just down the street from the motel I was staying at. Motel prices are higher here than all my other stops; the reason being the oil boom has created a housing shortage which increases prices. Basic economics.

My bad luck in Midland continued. Unfortunately the Petroleum Museum was in the midst of an upgrade, so only a portion of it was open. I had been hoping to improve my knowledge of oil exploration and extraction but there wan't much along those lines.

They did have an extensive display of oil drilling and extraction equipment outside, from late 1800s and early 1900s to present day.

A typical oil drilling rig in the early days.

There was also a section of the museum about the Chaparral Cars. A local Midlander named Jim Hall along with a Formula One racer named Jim Sharp formed the team and raced in the 60s and 70s. They were innovators in the area of spoilers, wings and ground effects. One of their cars won the Indianapolis 500 in 1980.

The Bush family lived in this very house in the early 1950s.

I drove a short distance south of town. This is what the countryside looks like from the side of the road. Now you understand why football is big here! There's not much else to do.

Frankly, I wasn't too impressed with Midland-Odessa. The airport was modern and nice, but the rest of the town was not. It's a working town. Most of the businesses have to do the oil industry, selling pipe, heavy equipment, etc. I'm guessing a lot of money is made here, but they spend it elsewhere.

Home