Tripometer – 14,307 mi
Gas Gauge – 1120.241 gal
Location – A Plus Motel & RV Park, Sulphur, LA
Lodging – $37
Cans of OFF – 4
Journey from Taco-Texas to BBQ-Texas
A short distance down the road from the Roadway hotel where we had spent the previous night, we pulled into the little town of Kerrville to get coffee, a bite to eat, and Ranger’s gourmet freeze dried kibble (we found a small shop that carries his food here). We struggled to find parking because the Veteran’s Day parade route was closed off to traffic. With coffee and bagels in hand we strolled through a few shops on Main Street as we watched small-town Texas celebrate Veteran’s Day. We’re fairly sure that they enlisted every vehicle in the county’s budget to be in the parade. Even the maintenance trucks were in the parade and waving at the crowd like they were they mayor.
The dog food store was located on a side road off a side road on the outskirts of the little town right next to a big game butchering facility. As we drove by, Ranger got to get a nose full of several fresh deer carcasses hanging from the front stoop of the butcher. Ranger is certainly having the time of his life getting a tour of the most amazingly smelly places he’s ever been over the past few days.
During our drive today we saw dozens of signs for a truck stop called Buc-ees. The billboards were reminiscent of Wall Drug in SD or Bromo Seltzer. In some cases it doesn’t take much to pique your interest for a stop when you’ve been driving for 5 hours. There were quite a few things about Buc-ees that make it stand out against other gas station / convenience stores. First and foremost is scale. Neither of us have ever seen a station with so many pumps. There had to have been over a hundred arranged in two long rows along two sides of the central store. Inside Buc-ees was a convenience store, restaurant, gift shop, and junk food emporium. We spent entirely too much time wandering in this tourist trap stocking up the trailer with enough junk food to last us the rest of the trip. Our favorite find in the junk food section was Camo Popcorn. Leave it to the South to invent camo popcorn.
Driving through Houston after dark, we were blown away by the light show. Some of the large oil refineries light up the horizon as though the world is on fire. We had expected the natural gas vents burning like little campfires in the sky, but we didn’t expect the sheer size of the refineries to light up the whole area for miles around. The picture above was taken some 10 miles before we actually passed the oil refinery. We weren’t sure what it was from a distance and considered an alien landing to be a distinct and real possibility.
We left Texas and entered Louisiana at around 10pm this evening, making our transit of Texas in less than 36 hours. We stopped for the night at an RV park with the most original name we’ve seen – the A Plus Motel and RV park. Thankfully the park itself was in much better shape than its owner’s imagination.