Prickly pear, Big Bend Region. Photo by Richard Reynolds
ODESSA
Find your “mojo” when you visit Odessa, home of the Permian High Panthers, a standout football squad. The team was recently the subject of a best-selling novel and film, Friday Night Lights. If the Panthers aren’t playing, sports lovers can watch the Jackalopes, the minor league affiliate of the Edmonton Oilers, in an ice hockey game or the Roughnecks in an indoor football game. Switch gears from sports to science at the Odessa meteor crater, the largest in Texas. The White Pool House, the Parker House Ranch Museum, the Permian Playhouse, and the Midland-Odessa Symphony are other attractions that make a trip to Odessa a fun experience. Odessa has 300 economical, 1,400 moderate, and 211 first-class accommodations.
Airport Code: MAF.
Started as a community project, the Ellen Noël Museum is 21 years old and exemplifies the term “grassroots fundraising.” The museum features 12 to 22 diverse exhibitions each year, including contemporary, local, and internationally known artists. Staying true to the community as the primary focus, the museum holds summer art camps, monthly classes, and educator enrichment workshops. It invites an artist-in-residence to interact with area schools and educators, and mounts annual children’s exhibits.
Open Tue.–Sat. 10 a.m.–5 p.m., Sun. 2–5 p.m. (closed major holidays).
Admission: Free (donations accepted).
Globe of the Great Southwest and the Anne Hathaway Cottage
2308 Shakespeare Rd., Odessa, 79761
432-332-1586
432-580-3177
globesw.org
This 400-seat octagonal replica of the Globe Theatre, the home of William Shakespeare’s acting company in England, began as the dream of a local teacher and Shakespeare scholar who wanted a proper showcase for the Bard’s plays. Naturally, there’s an annual Shakespeare festival, and the Globe also hosts community theater performances, country-western shows, and even bluegrass concerts. The Anne Hathaway Cottage next door, a replica of the cottage in which Shakespeare’s wife lived, will be of interest to visitors as well.
Open Tue.–Fri. 10 a.m.–6 p.m. Box office open 2–6 p.m. on Sat. performance dates.
Admission: $12, seniors, students, and children $10. Group rates available.
Guided tours by reservation only.
Odessa Meteor Crater
West of Odessa on I-20, Exit 108
432-381-0946
Between 40,000 and 50,000 years ago, showers of meteorites collided with Earth at this spot, crushing the limestone bedrock and creating a pit 550 feet wide and 100 feet deep. Over time, the desert winds have filled the crater with sediment, but the hole, identified as a meteor crater in the 1920s, is the second largest in the country.
Crater open daily 10 a.m.–5 p.m.
Nearby museum open Tue.–Sat. 10 a.m.–5 p.m., Sun. 1–5 p.m..
Admission: Free.
The stories of presidential administrations and campaigns, from George Washington’s to George W. Bush’s, are told through posters, buttons, political cartoons, campaign mementos, and a doll collection commemorating our first ladies. The library houses the museum’s vast collection of rare books, first editions, and other archival materials.
Open Tue.–Sat. 10 a.m.–5 p.m.
Admission: $8, seniors and students K–12th grade $5, members and children pre-K and under free.