Saturday, September 9, 2017

The Big D

Wow.

We are in Dallas, having had dinner at Texas Land and Cattle a mile from AT&T Stadium.  I am the ultimate tourist; I eat whatever you're famous for, take pictures in front of all your landmarks, and don't care in the slightest.  I'm on vacation.

Wow, because our experience with Texas prior to this, was hundreds and hundreds of miles of nothingness up in the panhandle, where you have half a tank of gas and wonder if you should fill up when you see an exit that has any sort of structure.  To put the ride from San Antonio into perspective, we collect poker chips from Harley dealers.  They're cheaper than T-shirts, although I have about 85 of them as well.  We don't go to every dealer, but we make it a point to find some.  For me, the more obscure, the better.  Everybody has a t-shirt from New Orleans.  I want the one from Pocatello, Idaho.  Anyway, in the triangle between Fort Worth, Dallas, and San Antonio, there are SEVENTEEN Harley dealers.  There are four in all of Mississippi.

Here's what you need to know about Texas:
  • They do the "frontage road" thing, where you can go from exit to exit alongside the interstate. But they do it Texas style:  The frontage road is a 2-lane higway with a passing lane that goes in the same direction as the adjacent interstate lanes.  You want to get to something on the other side, you have to switch over.  Speed limit on the *frontage road* is 60.
  • Along the frontage roads north out of San Antonio, I'm not lying, there is not a linear foot on either side of I-35 for 40 miles that is not occupied by a business.  It's unbelieveable.
  • Speed limit on the back roads is usually 70.  Speed limit on the interstate is basically, "go on, git at it."  It's marked at 75, but that's a traffic hazard.  I looked down the barrel of a radar gun in a construction zone doing 70, and the ranger was not fazed.
  • Texas will spend a billion dollars of concrete to make traffic flow.  Texas stacks flyover ramps 6 high, 100 feet in the air, so you ain't got to slow down.  They will  build 3 temporary lanes at cost of God knows what, to resurface the road itself, and then throw it away when they're done.  So you ain't got to slow down.
  • You like flags?  Texas loves flags.  Texas flies flags bigger than your house.  Anywhere, for no reason.
  • The official state symbol of Texas is either the Lone Star, or the F-150.  Not sure which.
  • There is a Whataburger at every exit, by state law.
 


Also, an interesting anecdote:  Most every state now numbers their exits concurrent with the mile marker, and they go from 1 on up from South to North, and East to West.  We count down for something to do when we're going west or south.  When we were coming into Texas from Louisiana on I-10 the other day, I told Donna we needed to get off at Exit 829.  She said, "that can't be right - double check it."  I said, "duh, yeah.  Let me check."  Well, it's right.  I-10 from Lousisana to El Paso is 859 miles.  Talk about a soul crusher.

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