Reviews & Comments
Amarillo, TX
Leaving Amarillo: Bitter Sweet endings The GOOD Th -
11/23/2012We lived in Amarillo for 5 months after my husband took a job there. We went sight unseen and I honestly tried to find great things about Amarillo before going and had a hard time finding anything "good" about Amarillo online. When we pulled into town my husband and I wanted to turn around... YES it was that bad, but I rest assure you there are some great things about Amarillo, which I never thought I would be able to say.
Most of the people are very lovely when we first moved in to our house my husband was at work and our neighbor came and helped us unload!
The cost of living/Housing: When you look on line it looks like Amarillo is cheap to live, but they are under going a housing crisis there are A TON of jobs there, but there is a housing shortage. If you have a large family get ready to pay big bucks or get a lower priced 3 bed for around 1200/month if you want to be in a descent neighborhood. Housing is usually much higher like 1400-1600 for 3 beds and up to 2400 if you want a 4 bed.
Yes you can find one for lower price but let me tell you they are hard to find. We looked for 4 months before we moved and what we found is that there are a few main players in town with rentals mostly private owners with multiple properties and the rent is about the same between each property and if you want to pay under 1000 get ready to live in farm country in an old mobile home or in the GHETTO and I mean gangs, crime, drugs anything on the north side of town is ghetto. Also, most of the homes in Amarillo are older homes so be prepared to live in an old home unless you want to fork out big bucks.
Schools: In my opinion the best high schools to live near are Amarillo High or Tascosa.
Amarillo does not transport your kids to school unless you are more than 2 miles from your school and they have it set up so almost no one is 2 miles away. We lived 1.8 miles away and all the kids started at the same exact time whether grade school or high school. My kids could arrive at 7:30 AM and then end times were 15 minute increments for each school and grade level, so it would give me adequate time to make it to the next pick up on time, but it resulted in tons of in car time transporting kids. We have lots of kids this did not make me a happy mom. My suggestion find a place in walking distance to school at whatever distance you are comfortable with or get ready to drive!!!
The schools are also very strict with good old fashioned values. I love this about them. They have a no cell phone policy and they fine the students for using their phones. If papers are late they won't accept them. They help reinforce manners and discipline from home. Most of the teachers are christians and they do offer christian educational classes like old testament history for instance at school. My younger kids went to Coronado and I loved the school so much when we left I wanted to take it with us! The administrative staff there is better than any school any of my kids have ever attended and it was the next best thing aside from having me care for my own kids or homeschool. I really felt like these high standards were helping me to teach my kids responsibility. I have lived in the Seattle area and Idaho and honestly other places are so care free students don't have any sense of the value of education and these schools help students realize how valuable education is and I saw a difference in the attitudes my kids left with in the 5 short months we were there and really only 2 1/2 in school. There is also a lot of educational opportunities for older students to get education directed to career specific focused material through the Amarillo Area Advanced Learning Center which is open to the entire city no matter what high school you are zoned for and the teachers there push and challenge the students, hold them accountable and it is one of the most advanced programs for the entire state of Texas.
Medical: Medical is horrible. If you are a basically healthy family medical is fine but if you have any health issues get ready to travel to Lubbock, Dallas, San Antonio, or Houston. We have children with GI issues and the ONLY pediatric GI doc in the area is in his 70's or 80's and he does not stay up to date on new research or even research new info you inform him about. He is very prideful and works at Texas Tech but cannot fathom the idea that some one else may be wiser or have more info about a particular subject it hurts his feelings. Although there is Texas Tech I found some of the techniques they use there are even out dated as compared to Seattle or Boise State. My teenage daughter was going to get her tonsils removed in Idaho but they couldn't get her in before we moved and at Texas Tech they told us it takes too long for children to recover so they only take them as a last resort, but in other places we were told the exact opposite so go figure.
Traffic:
There isn't usually much traffic you can get around fairly fast, but there are a lot of accidents, people don't know how to drive in Amarillo the roads are crazy and confusing, but fine once you get used to them. People are killed regularly due to poor driving. Expect the unexpected and be careful on those access roads people will run you off the road and if you make them mad expect road rage. The road rage is Amarillo is worse than Seattle and when you get honked at expect to it to be 4 times longer than any other honk!
Ethnicity:
Whites are a minority in Amarillo. Their are total black neighborhoods and if you wind up in the wrong area you will feel like you are at a park straight out of boy in the hood. I am not prejudiced but I am from the NW where there has never really been prejudice before and the blacks seem to not like the white folk.
Churches:
There are some amazing churches and people in Amarillo. My personal favorite was the Arena of Life Cowboy Church. The people their are super nice and they hear God. You can see the love of Jesus on the people and the pastors are like family. They genuinely care for you and want to see you grow into spiritual maturity. It is a great man's church NOT just for cowboys but for any one! They have a fabulous womens bible study that meet the first Tues of each month and they have an adult teaching on wed nights for an hour while the youth meets which is really nice for it to be at the same time. They have lots of family activities, festivals, rodeo's, camping trips, etc they do as a church.
Food: There is a ton of good places to eat La Bella Pizza you can get a gigantic pizza for under $20 and it will feed your large family! I love tea in the gas stations you will find tea bars with tons of different flavored tea's and lemonades as well, at some of them you will find unsweetened flavored teas which were my favorite. I miss the raspberry already!
Things to do: The zoo is free on Mondays that is when we'd go and it only takes about 10 minutes for a tour so that is a good time to go. Wonderland is pricey but they have good deals daily depending on the day. There are less crowds on Sundays before 7pm then it becomes packed. It was a lot of fun.
Weather: There is a saying if you don't like the weather, just wait 5 minutes and it will change. During the summer it was 117 for weeks. The wind would blow like crazy every day and it would be hot like a blow dryer or cold depending on which direction it would come from. We never experience the wind we heard about, but when it stormed everything flooded. Fall seemed to be really cold one day and really hot the next very unpredictable.
Amarillo isn't a pretty town by any means, but the people there are genuinely nice and all around have good values even the Market Street grocery store is christian owned and has a prayer request box on the counter and a free dietician. The people are what makes this city a great place to be and although I couldn't wait to leave I miss it already!