Plainview Is Creepy

Plainview is creepy. That was the impression my mom and dad got when they drove through the little town years ago, late at night. They needed a place to stay the night and had trouble finding a motel. The cops were not at all helpful and seemed hostile. The town was very dark and very quiet with nothing around showing signs of life but roving bands of teenagers. They eventually stumbled onto a Bates Motel and stayed the night there but even the motel desk clerk was hostile and suspicious and not at all interested in their business. Plainview seems to me to be morbidly inbred and odd. I really don't want anything to do with this strange place. I'd like to warn anyone contemplating Wayland Baptist to go to the campus in Lubbock. Avoid Plainview if you can. That's my advice.

 

More On Plainview

So I really need to finish this photo series and go on to the next. But here is something strange. I took these photos with a Cannon Powershot A 610. When I got home I found that all the pics were 640x480, even though I had the camera set on the best mode! I found that the camera would only produce 640x480 pics, no matter what you set it on. I checked my wife's identical camera and found that it had the same problem! The only thing I can come up with is that the internal date change triggered a self-destruct feature placed there by the manufacturer. Very odd. There was nothing wrong with the memory cards. It's a good thing I didn't pay much for those cameras, but I'm very irritated by this programmed sabotage. What else can it be?

Plainview Again--

Finishing the July Fourth parade and moving on to other sights in Plainview...

 Here are several pics of what used to be a public pool near the park where we watched the parade. It seemed to have been a great facility at one time and why it closed and became a ruin is a mystery. The alien we encountered led us here, but what exactly he wanted to communicate is unclear. He did tell us that it was once a popular place.

 

Plainview In View

Plainview has several streets that look like "main streets". On one of those pseudo-main streets we found a small restaurant with a long name, something like: JUST A FRIENDLY NEIGHBORHOOD DINER TO HANG OUT AT. Something like that. As soon as we got in I noticed the stink of cigarette smoke. There were several seedy-looking old farts sitting at a bar smoking and drinking coffee, and sitting around small tables smoking and drinking coffee. I suggested getting out of there but then my wife remembered that all of Plainview is like that. They have no no-smoking ordinances. Fortunately, the place we chose was fairly well ventilated, except the men's restroom, which was an inferno. It was a good place to squat, squeeze, light up a cigarette and sweat like a hawg, if that was your pleasure.  Yee HAAA! At any rate the hamburgers we ordered were good and the menu was interesting. Most of the hamburgers listed featured hot ingredients like pepper jack cheese and jalapenos. While we were there I noticed that the folks in Plainview look at you funny. They even look at each other funny. By this time I was freaking out and ready to have Plainview in my rearview mirror. But we drove around a little bit more before we left. As a side note, Plainview had the only remaining Spud Nut joint in Texas. These were doughnut shops but the doughnuts were made from potato flour and were really quite good. There used to be one in Lubbock across from Lubbock High School. Buddy Holly might have eaten a Spud Nut or two. But that one went under many years ago. And Plainview's Spud Nut shop bit the dust relatively recently. So now you can no longer enjoy a potato doughnut anywhere. That's kind of sad.

The Fourth From Plainview-- Revised

We were lucky enough to enter Plainview on the very street on which the parade would take place, just fifteen minutes before the start. We didn't KNOW exactly where it would be when we left but when we entered the town we could see "downtown" type buildings ahead, police cars, and cars lining the streets and spectators. We found a good parking spot in the parking lot of an abandoned VFW hall. Some other folks had arrived from out-of-town and a lady asked us whether this is where the parade would be held. I told her we had no idea, but we were assuming so. She decided to ask one of the local cops, parked near us on a side street. As she approached the cop, the cop drove away! I'm sure she was close enough to be seen. I'm sure the cop saw her. But he drove off, and parked on the other block, across the street! But that's Plainview. That's Plainview weirdness. 

I also thought it was odd that there was no music-- no marching bands in the parade, and no live music in the little street fair area. And nowhere was there any place that would serve as a restroom. No portable toilets. There was not much food in evidence, unless you count kettle korn as food. The scene didn't quite gel. Everything was a bit "off", for me. We were hungry and we asked a bunch of tattooed teens under a tent where we could find a mom and pop type place to eat. They laughed and directed us to a place called Grumpies and gave us directions-- it was less than two blocks away-- but we searched and searched and there was no such place. We wandered around taking pics. Then we left and found a place to eat.
8-17-2015: Well, come to find out, there really IS a place called "Grumpies" in Plainview. We were just not able to find it. Our bad, as they say today. I feel terrible about misjudging those teens and we apologize after the fact, for what it is worth. Someday we will return to Plainview and eat at Grumpies, provided the stink of cigarette smoke does not turn our stomachs. What a foul and repulsive habit smoking is.