Exploring HOT Abilene!

Tuesday, May 26, 2010--Abilene, TX

My hotel has a self-serve breakfast.  I made myself a Texas-shaped waffle and ate it with butter and syrup.  Then I had some oatmeal, a yogurt, and a banana.  After that, I was in a hurry to start my sightseeing so I could get as much as possible done before the heat became unbearable.  That didn't work.  It was already over 100 by mid-morning and got up to 106 (41 Celsius) in the afternoon.  What made it worse is that there is hardly anywhere to park in the shade, so the car was constantly overheated when I would return to it, and the lack of shade extended to most places I visited.

Abilene is a college town.  There are three universities that are all church-related, plus Texas Tech operates a School of Pharmacy and a School of Nursing here.  On my list of things to do was to explore each campus.  Because they were spread around the city, however, I didn't do them one-after-the-other.  I interspersed my campus tours with other activities.

The campus of Abilene Christian University (affiliated with Churches of Christ) is near my hotel on the northeast side of town.  I started there.  The campus was hosting a camp for potential students, so all the buildings were open.  I was given a campus map and a cold bottle of water and sent out to explore.  It is a big campus with impressive buildings.  Everything fits together nicely to give a manicured, clean, and planned appearance.  I spent 1 1/2 hours wandering and enjoying the campus.

From there, I headed to the zoo just a bit further down the road.  I knew it would be difficult to see any animals the hotter the day became.  Of course, with temperatures like we are having in Texas now, it was already too hot when I arrived there at 9:30.  It's a small zoo, but a nice one.  It was well organized and attractive.  Most of the animals were ones native to Texas, but there were exhibits of lions, giraffes, a rhinoceros, zebras, etc., from Africa and some birds and animals from other continents, too.  I spent 1 1/2 hours there, but I went into a couple of air conditioned exhibits (night critters and creepy crawlers) twice just to get into the air conditioning and out of the heat.

From there, I went to McMurray University (affiliated with the United Methodist Church).  They were hosting a conference of Methodist women, so many of their buildings were open, too.  It was the smallest of the three campuses I visited today, and it was the least attractive, too.  Although located along Sayles Street which is lined with beautiful homes, the street and the neighborhood changed around the campus was rather  poor looking.  The buildings were no where near the quality of those at ACU.  And there was a horribly designed student center built somewhat in a hole in the middle of the campus that did not match the style of the rest of the campus.

From there, I headed downtown.  Like San Angelo, the downtown is spread out with lots of gaps where buildings no longer exist and with lots of empty buildings.  It's strange in another way, though.  The railroad goes through town and the "old" downtown is on the north side of the tracks.  However, the county government buildings and a Bank of America tower that is the tallest building in the city are built south of the tracks.  It looks funny to see a tall building so far from the rest of downtown.

While downtown, I explored the lobby and the interior of the Paramount Theater, a grand cinema that is no where nearly as large and grand as the Majestic in San Antonio but is quite a bit bigger and grander than the Ritz in Corpus Christi.  I explored the lobby of the Wooten Hotel which was not nearly as nice as the Cactus Hotel I saw yesterday in San Angelo.  I toured an exhibit at the Center for Contemporary Art of the art created by Ted Geisel, the author and illustrator for the Dr. Suess books.  I saw a further Dr. Seuss exhibit at the National Center for Children's Illustrated Literature.  Before leaving downtown, I found a bakery that must have been there for 40-50 years.  I bought a cinnamon-sugar muffin and a lemon bar.  Each was 75 cents, so the prices are from a few years ago, too, when compared with elsewhere.

From downtown, I headed to Hardin-Simmons University (affiliated with the Southern Baptist Convention) to tour the last of the three main campuses.  Like ACU, it was clean and attractive.  Some of the buildings were impressive, and everything seemed to fit together nicely.

After having seen all three, I wanted to rank them some way in terms of quality of facilities, attractiveness, etc.  I finally decided that a traditional grading system would be best.  I would give Abilene Christian University a 95-96, Hardin-Simmons University an 86-87, and McMurray University a 72-73.

By the time I left there, it was 2:00 p.m.  I headed for the swimming pool at Stevenson Park.  I stayed there almost an hour (until they blew the whistle to force everyone out of the pool for 15 minutes so they could adjust the chlorine level.  The pool itself had no shade, so my face had been burning.  Rather than stay in the shade for 15 minutes and then head back into the pool, I decided to head to a concert downtown.

I had seen the brochure at one of the museums.  It was a children's concert by a local brass ensemble and was starting at 3 p.m. at the library.  I got there just as it was beginning.  The group did a good job of trying to educate the children about the instruments, to promote the idea of the students studying music, to teach them about different lengths of notes, etc.  They played a nice variety of music from films and TV shows that the students would recognize to classical pieces by Bach and others.

When the concert was over, I had no interest in being outdoors further.  I headed to the Mall of Abilene to walk inside and just to watch people.  Not many people were there, though, and I found the mall to be rather boring.  I got a hot dog at Sam's Club and headed back to the hotel for the evening.

22,915 Steps Today
Didn't figure car mileage, since I was in town all day