School is just about to start back up for Kiddo, so I took my family on a vacation/road trip to Sea World this week. I drove from Dallas to Austin, then Austin to San Antonio and I can say unequivocally that driving through Texas like taking the scenic route through an inbred meth head’s nightmare. Every square inch of the state that isn’t a major metroplex is a terrifying decent into a rust, decay, poverty and racism… by which I mean “quaint.” Texas is an extraordinarily “quaint” game of connect the dots, where the dots are cities with more than a million people, and the lines are squalid shitholes full of miserable people from a time thankfully gone by. Also there’s usually really big truck stop. The kind that is also a grocery store and a chicken restaurant and a place to buy drugs and CB radio parts and parking lot sex from parking lot sex-ladies. QUAINT, I tell ya. Quaint as all get out.
Thanks to @nmrjess for inspiring the Dairy Queen bit.
COMMENTERS: What’s the most “quaint” place you’ve ever lived/been to?
The 2013 DIGITAL FANCY SKETCH DRIVE is still going through the end of this week! Check out the details and order yours HERE.
MY WIFE KEEPS MAKING AWESOME STUFF! My wife has a super cool, ultra geeky jewelry shop on Etsy. You can see her Tetris necklace andt the just announced Harry Potter inspired Quidditch necklace. Check out dat Quaffle!
Comments (20)
Ector, TX (NE of Dallas) was the first town I saw when moving to Texas back in 1978. Population of 549 (Salute! Ok, kiddos, Google THAT reference) What a culture shock. My first job in High School there was hauling hay. They had a one building school that housed all 12 grades. Also, the nicest people you would ever meet. What a difference from big city indifference that I was used to.
thelogos · 96 weeks ago
I have made the trek from Dallas (Well, really, Stillwater, OK) to Houston. There are still “sunset” towns in Oklahoma, I kid you not. As in, “don’t let the sun set on you <non-WASP person> in this town. They were like vampire lairs, but creepier.
Khel · 96 weeks ago
All of southeast Idaho… Between the meth, the mormons, the lack of any shopping centers other than the odd walmart… I’m getting depressed just thinking about itSome smaller towns, like Temple, used to be a destination for me in the early ’90s, solely for having a Taco Cabana or some such. The real terror in America isn’t in the villages but in the suburbs. *shudder*
Stephen · 96 weeks ago
Accio nerd necklace! ACCIO NERD NECKLACE!!!!The quiddich necklace would make a fantastic present for my sister. How much is she asking for them?
Stephen · 96 weeks ago
Nevermind, I clicked the link. Would she be willing to take the top half of playstashun? Or perhaps a stump munchler/weed wangler combo? Maybe a rotary…. NO!!! THE PTERODACTYLS!!!
Miles · 96 weeks ago
We road tripped from a small town in SOuthwest New Mexico (10,000 small) across the USA on the 10 Freeway… we now never want to drive though Texas that way again.
Bruceski · 96 weeks ago
Ah, NM small towns. I grew up in Los Alamos (drive to the middle of nowhere, turn left and drive another 30 minutes). If you like hiking and mesas it’s a beautiful place to live. If you like doing anything after 8PM other than heading into the mountains and getting drunk, good luck.My brother crossed TX and OK on his way to college, he says it’s what Hell must look like. Endless flat with nothing to distract the eye.
In 2000, drove from the then boyfriend’s home in Augusta, GA (where “other side of the tracks” really means something) to Savannah (which was beautiful and genteel). On the small highway somewhere in between was a high-fence-and-barbed-wire surrounded compound containing a gun range, a camouflage store, and a “PRIVATE” club. The boyfriend said “and probably a white hood section around the back” and we just kept driving until the Savannah suburbs.
Zee · 96 weeks ago
Gah. Whole point is moot. People should not go to Sea World anyway. Keeping incredibly intelligent five ton mammals, in enclosures that are usually the same size as you would keep half ton mammals, is fairly analogous to raising a child in a closet, and never letting it leave. They need to cut it out with the Shamus.
Larry · 96 weeks ago
I spend a year living in Corpus Christi, my friends that where already living there told me it was beautiful on the Texas coast. once down there i soon discovered, that it is a flat one shade of dingy army green ( all plant life) and it smells like fish and ass when it rains! and it rains often.Hey hey! Thanks for the shout out! I’m delighted to be included in the fun!My husband is from Texas and has/had family in San Antonio, McAllen, Houston and Victoria and friends in Austin, Corpus and Waco. Those long drives are their own special Texas experience.
Dio · 95 weeks ago
If you like SeaWorld, you should see the new movie made about it- “Blackfish”!I know about it. The trainers arent allowed in the Orca tanks anymore because of the trainer that was killed. The orca currently in captivity can’t be released back into the wild, so Im not sure there’s an easy solution. It’s not a perfect situation.Just did a day trip to Haskell, TX. One of my traveling mates thought it would be a good idea to get some Chinese food from a small town gas station along the way… she hasn’t eaten since!My basic rule is “if there is a waffle house you’ll be ok.” And if there isn’t, just slide the best of wafflehouse jukebox into your mobile player and enjoy the tunes: http://www.amazon.com/Waffle-House-Jukebox-Favori…
Just move to Shallotte, NC from Seattle, WA. It’s kinda like moving from your most wonderful dream to the most humid part of a donkey’s ass and then having people tell you it’s not so bad “cuz there’s a beach.”There are a few places on the road from LA to Sturgis, SD that make me nervous… and I’m a 6’2 big-bearded biker dude. I stopped for gas in a small Utah town (but along I-15, so not exactly isolated) once and the cashier was a skinhead with plainly visible white power tattoos, one of which was on the side of his neck. (And my parents always told me not to get tattoos or I’d never find work!) Not to mention that it seems like a huge fraction of the population of Wyoming are scary looking rednecks who drive mud-covered pickup trucks. [Redneck B.M.W. – Big Mud Wagon]As someone who’s lived in Southern California for several decades – to be more specific, the Greater Los Angeles Metro Sprawl [yes, that’s right – the G.L.A.M.S.] – I don’t put up with much attitude from people who live places that are flat and boring. If I feel like it, I can go to the beach and a ski resort in the same day … and weather that makes them both pleasant is not exactly uncommon.
Baskerville · 31 weeks ago
I ran into the most suspicious museum driving around in Texas. It claimed to have the greatest variety of rattlesnakes in the world. So obviously, I had to go in. There were indeed around 25 types of rattlesnake in the small suspicious building, as well as a man with four teeth who attempted to sell me a live tarantula.
A LIVE TARANTULA. IN SOME TUPPERWARE.
Gah. Whole point is moot. People should not go to Sea World anyway. Keeping incredibly intelligent five ton mammals, in enclosures that are usually the same size as you would keep half ton mammals, is fairly analogous to raising a child in a closet, and never letting it leave. They need to cut it out with the Shamus.
I ran into the most suspicious museum driving around in Texas. It claimed to have the greatest variety of rattlesnakes in the world. So obviously, I had to go in. There were indeed around 25 types of rattlesnake in the small suspicious building, as well as a man with four teeth who attempted to sell me a live tarantula.
A LIVE TARANTULA. IN SOME TUPPERWARE.