The Van Blog

The only way I can go about describing Texas so far is a point form list of some pretty random things.  There is no concrete, consistent story to my wanderings through West Texas, but there are things I’ve seen, done, and driven by that I’d like to mention just for kicks:

1 Just before entering Texas I broke down and bought a cowboy hat in TorC, New Mexico.  Not a lame, gas-station variety stiff white one though.  It’s more of a bad-ass brown leather Indiana Jones chapeau with some ‘tude to it.  I know what you’re probably thinking, but no it does not look ridiculous.  Pictorial evidence will follow…

2  While still in Truth or Consequences, NM I was inside a museum viewing a wall of cowboy hats and was finally able to pick out mine from the  display and figure out what it means:

A museum display in TorC New Mexico

“Known as ‘North Country’ or ‘Up North’ crease, it’s a big hat and the man who wears it usually has big ideas.  He probably rides a big horse, has a full-size, extended-cab diesel pick-up, and lives in a big house or at least a double-wide.  He likes foot-long hot dogs, his beer in tall boys, and women with big hair.  His favorite team is the Denver Broncos.  His favorite singer is Dolly Parton, and his favorite actor is—you guessed it—John “The Duke” Wayne.”

… I do live in a large van and have been known to enjoy beer and hot dogs now and again… Close enough, right?

3  While staying in Abilene I heard about this town called Hico that was famous for having been the KKK headquarters once upon a time.  I heard, in particular, about the Koffee Kup Kafe…  Former (hopefully!) white supremacists that make really excellent pie.  Personally, I was so horrified and amazed that such places are still out there that I had to check for myself.   Now it’s called the Koffee Kup Family Restaurant.  No racism; just mind-blowing pie!  (And I don’t compliment the pie lightly; I have taste-tested pie across six states now).

Formerly Koffee Kup Kafe. Tolerance for all sorts of pie, at least...

4  After being in Abilene for a few days I noticed a lot of religion around.  You can’t find a school that doesn’t have the word “Christian” in the title, and there’s a billboard on the side of a main road that display’s “God’s Stimulus Package” idea as a gift-wrapped box of babies.  Yeah!  Boxes of babies!  Too weird.  I am definitely not in Canada here, am I?

This Sunday, J.T. and I will be trying to smuggle a camera into the “Osteen” church to check out a preaching man that turned a basketball stadium into a place of worship so that he can make 15 000 people at a time go nutty over the New Testament.  What a spectacle!

5  But fear not!  There are forward-thinking cool people down here in Texas too.  J.T. and I befriended some fantastic arts students and hung around them for a few days enjoying their liberal and progressive “art-ness”.  I even attended an art gallery screening of the film Factory Girl—eating lots of popcorn and watching sexy and psychadelic drug use in the company of people possibly old enough to be my parents.  Wasn’t weird at all…  Like being in a hip little painted oasis in the midst of the Lone Star State.

6  After being in Abilene for a day or two I learned something very important:  Don’t park big vans under pecan trees.  This is a good rule of thumb for any traveler unless you want to have your van covered in copious amounts of bird poo.  Oh… so much poo.  Unreal.  I felt a little sh– upon by Texas by this point, (pun absolutely, without-a-doubt intended!), but revenge was coming…

Bebe gets crap-tastic in Abilene, TX

A quick trip to a carwash on the way to Houston.

7  Last Sunday I managed to find a place to watch the hockey game in Waco, Texas:  Fast Eddie’s Sports Bar, but silly Canadian me thought that hockey would be considered a sport down here!  Nope.  Texans don’t give a damn about a sport unless it’s played on pavement, shiny lacquered wood, or grass.  No hockey.  Not even when their own country’s playing.  Not even for a gold medal game in the Olympics.  J.T. — in her “True North Strong and Free” t-shirt—and I intruded upon screens full of roaring Nascar clips to insist on hockey.  We watched without sound, rued the fact horrible music was playing right over our game, and cheered quietly amongst the sounds of table-pounding and chants of “U-S-A!  U-S-A!”

I had a silent smirk as I exited the bar.  You might have sh– all over me the other day Texas, but my country whooped your country on skates!  Ha!

8 To stick with the Canadian theme:  I have been trying to do all things authentically Texan— sayin’ “y’all”, buying a hat, and finally eating “BBQ”.  I put that in quotations because I’ve no idea what I actually ate.  There were all sorts of miscellaneous meat piles covered in the same red sauce.  I just sat at the wooden picnic table, hummed along to Cash on the jukebox (seriously!), and ate whatever was in front of me.

But post-BBQ adventure, J.T. and I thought it would be really funny to see the “Canadian” pub here in Houston.  It’s called the Maple Leaf, and it sells Molson’s, has hockey on the television, and has a penalty box that you can sit in!  Oh to have been there four days earlier instead of in Waco.  Sigh.  Can’t win ‘em all, eh?  But I can play table hockey and win while doing so!

Video:

The Good Old Hockey Game

J.T. and I in the Maple Leaf Pub's "penalty box" in Houston, TX

That’s all, Y’all.  I will be back with stories of outer space in a day or two.  I still need to wrap my brain around the awesomeness that is NASA before I can write about it.  Big. Giant. Rockets!  Coming soon!