Holiday Inn Civic Center

General Tips for Lubbock

by doubletfan

The "Must See" for Lubbock has to be the campus of Texas Tech University. And the "Must Do" has to be the annual "Carol of Lights." Hailed as the second largest university campus in the United States (2nd only to the Air Force Acadamy which sports a landing strip down the middle), the campus is a beautiful display of mostly homogenous Mission style architechture with large open areas. The Carol of Lights, usualy the first Friday in December, draws thousands of people for a ceremony in which all fill a space bounded by three buildings. The center building has outside stairs coming up either side to a balcony in the middle which serves as the stage. Gatherers sing Christmas carrols by their candlelight led by a Texas Tech Choir, join together in prayer (although in recent years liberal PC has crept in to "generalize" the prayer), and then, at a flip of the switch, hundreds of thousands of Christmas lights that were hung since September light up most of the Texas Tech campus.

And of course, Lubbock is the home of Buddy Holly. Buddy is burried here, but you'll have a hard time finding his modest gravesite without a local, as its marked by a small plaque on the ground.

Finally, don't forget to visit Llano Estacado, or one of the other award wining wineries in Lubbock. As other writers have written, Lubbock is one of the most friendly places on earth. Spend any amount of time in the town and you'll likely be on the verge of feeling uncomfortable, because people are so friendly, nice, and kind to you. Lubbock is also a Godly town. Tommy Nelson, Senior Pastor of Denton Bible Church (near Dallas, TX) said once that when he entered Lubbock and Nashville he could just feel God there. Now, that's not to say that all Lubbockites are Christians, but their strong influence there, which does not impend too much on College partying, makes Lubbock a friendly family town that is big enough to be the shopping "Hub" of west Texas and East NM, and small enough that locals run into each other all the time.

Sports fans would be wise to check the Texas Tech schedule at http://www.texastech.com . Texas Tech has a top rated (top 25 in 2005) football team, an up and coming mens basketball team in a new areana led by the well known legend of basketball, Bobby Knight, and a rated womens basketball team that led the nation in the 90's.