Amarillo, the Spanish word for yellow, is pronounced “ah-muh-ree-yo” but for the town in the center of the Texas panhandle it is commonly pronounced “am-uh-rill-oh” as immortalized in Neil Sedaka’s Is This the Way to Amarillo and George Strait’s Amarillo By Morning, or most memorably for Wendy and me, in Bob Wills’ When You Leave Amarillo, Turn Out the Lights.
In his last recording of the song, another composition of Cindy Walker, Bob sat on a wheelchair in the center of a Dallas recording studio directing his old Texas Playboys bandmates and some newcomers. His speech had been affected by a stroke, but he had invited the 21-year-old Jody Nix to join the session. He called upon Jody to sing When You Leave Amarillo. Jody said, “The vocal mic was right by him, as I stood there, he was to my immediate left, watching me the whole time. I can see those jet black eyes to this day just gleaming. He put quite a few ah-ha’s and other words in my song and the feeling I had doing that is indescribable, knowing that the King of Western Swing was right there and had asked me to be a part of it.”
At the end of the song, Bob threw in, “Get out the lights.” That night another stroke left Bob comatose, and he never regained consciousness, dying a few months later.
We have long stayed overnight in Amarillo on our pilgrimages between Bartlesville, Oklahoma and Santa Fe, New Mexico. Over the years, we have stayed in various hotels. I mostly like staying at the Drury Inn & Suites on the western edge of town, but whenever its doors open for me to venture outside, I have come to expect the scent of a feedlot.
So we’ve tried a couple of hotels in downtown Amarillo, despite the added expense and worse parking. In 2023 we stayed in the downtown Embassy Suites. This time we tried another downtown hotel, the Courtyard by Marriott in the old Fisk Medical Arts Building.
The Gothic Revival brick structure was built in 1927-1928 and named for Charles A. Fisk, the president of the Amarillo Bank and Trust. The bank occupied the corner of a building that was designed to be filled by doctors and dentists. After the bank left in 1950, Zales Jewelers took over the building and the bank’s space.
Zales began in 1924 in Wichita Falls, Texas with the immigrants Morris and William Zale (born Zalewski) who opened their first store with Ben Lipshy. Their credit plan of “a penny down and a dollar a week” made jewelry more affordable and led to them having a dozen stores in Oklahoma and Texas by 1941.
Marriott later acquired the building and performed $12.7 million in renovations to re-open it in 2011 as a 107-room hotel. Parking is in an adjacent multi-story garage, and next to where we parked was a 1955 Chevrolet Bel-Air.
Although I’ve never been a fan of the bulbous rounded design of 1950s American cars, I did like its two-tone styling. I also appreciated how it was only 73 inches wide, only about an inch wider than my 2014.5 Toyota Camry. My car weighs about 3,200 pounds and has a 178 horsepower 4-cylinder engine; the 1955 Bel Air had a similar weight and power, although it drove about half as many miles on a gallon of gasoline.
However, Wendy and I take our vacations with her Honda Odyssey minivan, which is longer and wider than either of those vehicles and over 1,000 pounds heavier. Thankfully it has 280 horsepower, so it is spry enough, and it is certainly far more comfortable than my Camry for long-distance travel.
Our 10th-floor room in the Fisk Building offered a nice view to the north.
We especially liked how the angled windows of the Plaza Two building reflected the façades of other downtown skyscrapers.
The lights won’t be going out in Amarillo anytime soon. Although it did shrink with the closure of the Amarillo Air Force Base around the time Cindy Walker wrote her song, it rebounded and now has a population of over 200,000. About 1/4 of the nation’s beef supply is processed in the area, which is surrounded by agricultural land with several large dairies in the Texas panhandle.
We weren’t pleased to discover that our expensive room in the Marriott lacked a microwave, but one good thing from our stay downtown in 2023 was discovering Napoli’s Italian restaurant at 7th & Taylor. We dropped in there for dinner on our way back through town at the end of our trip, and also enjoyed a couple of breakfasts and a dinner at another favorite spot in Amarillo, Calico County restaurant.
Amarillo provided a new experience for both of us, as we visited its 74,000 square foot Buc-ee’s travel center, which opened in December 2024.
I’ve been hearing about Buc-ee’s for a few years, so it was fun to finally see one and try out some Beaver Nuggets and other offerings. The bathrooms were indeed impeccably clean, as advertised.
Amarillo was the 36th Buc-ee’s location in Texas, and it was interesting to finally see what people have been chattering about. We don’t plan to seek them out, but it was certainly nicer than most of the travel centers we have encountered.
On our return trip through Amarillo, we stayed at a Hilton Home2 Suites, but I wasn’t particularly impressed. We might try the Best Western Plus Medical Center Hotel on our next time through.
Something I did appreciate about the Home2 Suites room were the prints of Maria Morris artworks on its walls. One was of the Lighthouse at Palo Duro Canyon.
Another Maria Morris print was of a Texas longhorn. The vibrant colors enlivened our room.
The fourth and final post about our Summer Solstice 2025 vacation will focus on where we stayed for most of it: what was founded in 1610 as La Villa Real de la Santa Fe de San Francisco de Asís and which is now Santa Fe, New Mexico.
Meador Manor 