Last Lubbock Post

The week before I left Lubbock was absolutely insane. I probably should have planned better, so as to avoid quitting work, graduating, and moving out of my apartment in the same week. I didn't.

At the same time, there are so many important people that I was saying goodbye to, that I spent a lot of time with them during that week, rather than saying, "Sorry, I have to go pack." Consequently, it was left to my family to help me with some of that stuff.

One thing I couldn't turn down during the last week was the chance to ride around town with Ryan, saying goodbye to all of our favorite Lubbock sites. Or, in some cases, saying hello to them for the first time, and then goodbye.

Our first stop was a park where Ryan assured me I would see prairie dogs. When planning this outing, we discussed going to Prairie Dog Town (a real place), but Ryan, who has actually been to Prairie Dog Town, said I was more likely to see prairie dogs at here.

In sixth grade, I won my school spelling bee and went onto the next round. Prairie was one of the words I missed.

I swear there was a prairie dog right there, but he ran away before I snapped the picture.

Our next stop was the Buddy Holly Museum.

Buddy Holly grew up in Lubbock, TX. So did Mac Davis, who wrote a memorable song with the line, "Happiness is Lubbock, Texas in the rearview mirror," and Natalie Maines, of the Dixie Chicks, who wrote a song called "Lubbock or Leave It." Lubbock has a rich history of birthing singers who go on to write disparaging songs about their hometown.

The only pictures we could get of the Buddy Holly Museum were of the outside. The museum itself consists of two rooms. One room housed a traveling exhibit, which consisted of Buddy Holly's bedroom furniture from his teenage years. It might have seemed more spectacular had I seen it in a year that hadn't included trips to New York, Chicago, Washington D.C., Philadelphia, San Francisco, and about 1,000 LDS Church history sites. It just didn't stack up that well to the giant Seurat.

We had planned to drive to Texas Tech campus next, but Ryan remembered that the radio station managed by our friend Jess was just a few blocks from where we were. A quick phone call later, and we showed up at TrueCountry 105.3 to watch Jess (J.D. as they call him on the radio) perform his D.J. duties.

One of the things I will miss about Lubbock is turning on the radio, hearing Jess's voice, and having the thrill of going, "I know that guy."

We then ventured to Texas Tech Campus, where we got about 100 pictures of various statues around campus, along with some other campus landmarks:

This is a statue of Will Rogers. Legend has it that the rear end of his horse is pointed toward College Station, as it is the home of the Texas A&M Aggies, rivals to Texas Tech. Ryan, ever the engineer, pointed out that it was a very small point from which to derive an angle toward a point 450 miles away.

Here is a shot of the Masked Rider, the TTU mascot.

I have always been a fan of the bizarre benches scattered over campus that are shaped like punctuation.

Or these hands.

We took a short detour to McDonald's to re-hydrate before heading to our final destination:

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The Windmill Museum.

After the Buddy Holly Museum experience, we opted not to pay more money for what we could snap pictures of through the fence.

Across the street was McKenzie Park, where I finally snapped a picture of a prairie dog:

Thanks for a great final tour of Lubbock, Ryan!

* This picture was taken at the party we had the night before graduation. I should probably blog about that. Therefore, this will probably not be my last Lubbock post.