Canyon, Texas: Tex Randall, Big Texan

Poor Tex. He's weathered and worn but still standing. There's a sign for a website to raise funds for repair: savetexrandall.org.

When we visited Texas Randall we were taking photos of one another when a local pulled up to meet a friend. He offered to take our photo and then told us that they had planned on moving him further into Amarillo.

The store is closed -- again -- although we met one of the previous owners' family members today. The clothes Tex has been wearing were actually sponsored by Levis yearly, as far as we understood. His legs are in bad shape not only due to the crash, but also because those holes were used for access to probe the interior, in order to find out if he was stable enough to be moved -- which sadly was not the case.

As a special attraction, you might want to knock on the doors of the local garage shops. The owners have some very interesting vehicles stored up, and are happy to see some new faces now and then.

We drove all over Canyon and didn't see Tex. You'd think a 47-foot-tall cowboy'd be pretty hard to miss! We stopped and asked at the local convenience store, and the lady directed us to the frontage road on Highway 87 north of town. Tex was not to be found! Were we looking in the wrong place? Did he just get up and leave? Maybe he's getting fixed up to become Big Earl? Only time will tell. We were so disapointed because we had made the detour specifically to see Tex. The only consolation we had was that we accidentally found the giant pair of legs just up the road, so we did get a good Roadside Attraction out of the detour.

Tex is still standing at his old location and is in pretty poor condition.