Welcome to Texas! It is indeed a beautiful Texas Sunday morning, albeit only 4 degrees C. Warm inside the house, but a bit chilly outside.
Last night we slept at Ben and Amy’s AirBnB in Fort Worth. They weren’t there when we arrived, and we’d crashed by the time they got home, so we finally met Ben this morning as we were getting ready to go.
It’s amazing what 10 plus hours of sleep does for you when you are jet-lagged. We felt almost normal again today.
Yesterday I started to tell you about our hire car. We had ordered a luxury car and when we arrived at the rental place we had the option of four (4) Chrysler 300S vehicles – black, dark grey, silver and maroon.
Now I particularly wanted the black one but it had Florida plates and we won’t be going to Florida, so that just didn’t work for me – that and the fact that the Florida number plate is this flowery design that just didn’t look right on a 300S.
No self-respecting mobster would be seen dead in something with those plates on it – you’d be beaten up by the other gangsters!
We could have chosen the maroon one for obvious reasons, but went with the dark grey one instead – and it has Texas number plates!
It’s the closest thing to a mafia car that I’ve ever had and so it will henceforth be referred to as “The Don”.
Now I know that I discussed this issue in last year’s blog, but driving a left-hand vehicle is not as easy as it seems … and The Don has challenges of its own. For one thing, The Don doesn’t have a gear selector – it has a little knob on the dash that selects the gears and because I’m sitting on the wrong side of the car, the knob turns in the opposite way to what my brain expects it to.
Notwithstanding that you are driving on the wrong side of the road and you actually have to think through what a left-hand turn means (and what lane you are aiming for), your mind starts to play tricks on you because you believe that everything is back-to-front. So when MBW says “turn left in 300m, your brain interprets that as “turn right in 300m” – because you know that everything is the opposite.
The biggest problem is when you pull out of a side street or driveway and every fibre of your being tells you to look right, but you actually look left first.
Don’t even get me started on the road rules! Turn right on red, the four-way stop sign rule where you have to mentally keep track of what order all vehicles arrived at the intersection so that you all depart in the right order. Yikes! And all of this happening while MBW is screaming at me that I’m drifting off the right-hand side of the road!
So we started the morning looking for coffee. While many AirBnB’s will make a Keurig coffee machine available, American’s all seem to like drinking their coffee black, so they don’t provide milk. So we packed the car and went in search of coffee.
Given that it was our first night in the USA and the fact that we were pretty disorganised (= “exhausted”), we had nothing available for breakfast, so I had a few cleansing glasses of cold water instead and we packed the car and set off.
Our quest for coffee was (initially) unsuccessful because we found the Fort Worth Water Gardens first. They are a beautiful little oasis in the middle of the city with a number of different pools and water features.
Now all of the cascading water plus 4 degrees C plus a few glasses of cleansing water PLUS a set of over-achieving kidneys meant that I needed to … well, you know. So we set off in search of The Fort Worth Stockyards – “where the West begins.” They take their cowboy stuff pretty seriously here in Fort Worth TX!
If you’re not wearing cowboy boots (spurs optional), a cowboy hat, and a belt with a big buckle, then you are obviously a tourist.
Just a word of caution to any vegetarians reading along today – it might be time to look away for a while …
The main draw card of The Stockyards is the Texas Longhorn cattle drive. A bunch of cowboys drive a herd of cattle – that would be best served dry-rubbed and smoked IMHO – up the main street of the complex.
You’d want to stay well clear of those horns, as I’d imagine that they could cause you a nasty injury!
MBW also made friends with a cowboy with enviable facial hair …
… then got to sit on a Texas Longhorn (for USD$5.00).
After seeing all of the beef go past, we bought a few souvenirs and decided it was time for lunch. MBW went for the beef brisket stew with cornbread, and me – always the king of the poor choices – had the steak sandwich and fries, not realising that the steak was actually deep-fried.
C’est la vie – I’m just that one step closer to a claim on my trauma insurance 🙁
We needed to get to Waco TX this afternoon, so we found The Don where we had left him, loaded up our purchases and headed off south.
Through a series of skilful manoeuvres supported by Google Maps, we eventually found ourselves on the I-35W South and thought that we had inadvertently become caught up in an attempt by other drivers to break the land speed record.
Seriously, the speed limit on the interstate is 75mph – about 120kph – and there were cars going past me in the fast lane that were at risk of breaking the sound barrier!
I made the mistake at one point of moving left into the fast lane to overtake some ”slower” vehicles, neglecting to check my rear-view mirror for a short period of time – and I looked up to see a dirty big Chevy badge, attached to a dirty big radiator grill, and the whites of the eyes of an unfriendly-looking chap who was sitting right up on my clacker … and I was already doing 80mph!
Which all reminds me of something else – it seems that the Americans have still not discovered imperial measurements despite my comments in last year’s blog.
I discovered that The Don does not have very good fuel economy. It’s only a 3.6l V6 and despite my very best attempts at conserving fuel and being a responsible citizen, the economy kept going up and up – at one point reporting that I was getting better than 80mpg when coasting downhill – and I decided that the on-board computer must be broken.
Then one of the voices inside my head reminded me that when you measure fuel economy in l/100km you are looking for a small number, but in mpg, the bigger the number the better!
We made it safely to Waco TX getting excellent fuel economy after all, and checked into what is probably the only hotel/motel in our travels. All other nights we are staying at AirBnBs.
We then went off exploring Waco, and specifically on a quest to find Magnolia (you need to watch Fixer Upper to understand the significance).
Jetlag started to kick in at around 4.30, so we ducked into Walmart to pick up a few things.
Everything is so cheap at Walmart. How am I supposed to be good with a dozen glazed donuts for $3.42?
That’s about it for the day! We are absolutely loving Texas and heading off to Magnolia Silos in the morning and then down to San Antonio via Austin after that.
One last thing though – just down the road from where we are staying, there is a gun shop (“Fun Guns”) and a taxidermist in a row of shops. Hopefully we will be able to go to the gun shop tomorrow so that I can get some protection … after all it is my constitutional right to bear arms (or is that arm bears … ?)
In any case, if MBW gets angry with me and tells me to go and get stuffed, at least I know where to go …
Finally, for your viewing pleasure here is a link to today’s featured song: Is this the way to Amarillo (Tony Christie).
That version was recorded when Tony Christie was older and wiser. If you really want a chuckle, take a look at the original version 🙂
PS: We are not going to Amarillo (it’s in the opposite direction), and there is no Marie waiting for me there … just to avoid any confusion.
Ciao
#G&KTAKEUSA2019
When I think of Texas Waco I always think of David Koresh and the Branch Davidion massacre
Nice wheels!
Kerry’s ride looks a little rough though.