It's so special that I'm not going to put this NFTR entry in its customary italics.
I was on my way to Little Rock, AK and he was on a non-stop trip heading over to a college in South Carolina for an exchange term. We spoke of our respective travels, life (he was wary about leaving his girlfriend for six months), AFL and the docudrama Supervolcano. Thankfully that was the only drama worth a mention on that bus trip, which remains a clear favourite in my memory banks.
Once you hit Texas, you know darn well you've hit Texas. The landscape is a long stretch of flat green void replacing the dust of New Mexico and the humidity goes up by 50% the second you're over the state line. The Southwest well and truly becomes the South here, with white church steeples and corn fields dotting the landscape, people sitting on their porches with a shotgun in one hand, an iced tea and the sweet sound of honky tonk permeating the air*. There are an inordinate amount of pick-up trucks and corn silos on the side of the roads. We pulled into Amarillo around 5, I farewelled the Aussie and began my epic Texan mission.
You see folks, I had all kinds of plans for this cowpoke town. Amarillo is the epicenter from which all the waves of tacky emanate across America and I couldn't wait to make the most of my all too few hours here. I jumped in a cab and demanded to be taken to the Cadillac Ranch. This being Texas, my cabbie was listening to a Christian radio station. To be fair, Texas may not actually have any other type of radio station outside of Austin. After a few excruciating minutes of Jesus warbling, we pulled up outside a paddock.
"That's them over there ma'am"
".....I'm sorry, where?"
Squinting into the distance I could make out ten shadowy blots on the paddock landscape. Caddy Ranch is so difficult to see from the I-40, I'm willing to bet that all first time visitors have to drive past twice before they find it. I told my driver to keep the meter running and sprinted across the cowpats. I know I've mentioned it before in this blog, but let me explain Cadillac Ranch once more. There are ten Cadillac cars buried halfway into the ground at the same angle as the Cheops pyramid, because the Cadillac is apparently the only American contribution to engineering significant enough to rival the Pyramids. The site is the brainchild of an eccentric millionaire (aren't they all?) by the name of Stan Marsh 3 (no, the three is not a typo and I don't know if he has any relation to the South Park character) who has erected all these weird pieces of 'art' all over Amarillo. After you're done at the Ranch, go see his giant pair of legs or perhaps the 'floating' mesa. Oh by the way, a small correction from one of my previous posts - as it turns out, the largest cross in North America (perhaps the world) isn't in Amarillo, it's even further out in the backwaters of the I-40 in a place called Groom.
So anyway, the Ranch. That photo at the top of the post is how they looked the day I arrived and every so often they get repainted, either for a theme, a cause (they were painted pink for Breast Cancer Awareness month) or they're blanked so that a new mob of graffiti artists can add their own personal layer of colourful rubbish. I forgot to bring spray paint, but a kind family travelling home to Oklahoma let me borrow theirs. After I spent a few minutes marvelling at my handiwork, I sprinted back across the paddock, jumped into my cab and directed the driver to The Big Texan.
Oh. My. God.
Absolutely nothing...not the rumours, not the bloggers, not even their own website can fully prepare you for the sensory explosion that is the Big Texan Eatin' Joint. It's not just an assault on the tastebuds either, from the second you arrive you are blinded by the garish blue and yellow paint job, the giant cow statue and the home-on-the-range country porch swing. Then you go *inside* and you're confronted by the faux-gunshot boom coming from the shooting gallery and the chatter from the main dining room. The air is thick with the smell of grilling cow. If you weren't blinded by the exterior decorating scheme, you'll be done in by the interior, which is mostly comprised of various stuffed animal heads adorning the bannisters all the way around both floors of the dining room**. As far as Texas is concerned, animal rights activists can fuck right off. They have two wandering minstrel cowboys who come around to every table with their guitar and fiddle in order to take song requests. I thought I'd go for the classic:
Me: "Can you play Stairway to Heaven?"
Cowboys: *blank look* Sorry ma'am.
Me: "Right. Hmm. How about some blues?"
Cowboys: *more blank looks*
Me: "You only play country, don't you?"
Cowboys: "That's right ma'am"
I requested The Yellow Rose of Texas and oh boy, they sure knew how to play that, you're darn tootin'. As they're going around the outside, your attention is frequently diverted to the centre, which is where most of the real action happens. You see, the Big Texan is home to the oft-imitiated, never equalled 72oz. Steak Challenge where suicidal people can undertake the challenge of eating a big fuckoff slab of meat, a baked potato and a side salad in an hour and get it all for free. For my metric people, 72oz is just over 2 kilograms of cow. Gross. There's a platform erected to these brave souls in the middle of the dining hall and there's even a webcam for those of you who want to watch people massacre their insides with steak from the privacy of your own home. I got to watch three idiots take the challenge. One succeeded. You'd expect the victor to be a fat bastard but he was surprisingly, if you'll pardon the pun, beefy.
To be honest, I think the challenge would be a doddle if the quality of the food is anything to go by. I didn't partake in any of the steaks but the broiled salmon was almost as delicious as the waiter who delivered it to my table. Seeing as this is Texas, you get a choice of two sides with every meal and it all arrives on a plate big enough to feed a small family. The service is as good as the food - I know that in a tourist hotspot you'd expect the waitstaff to be the picture of servitude in order to score tips, yet a lot of the time you'll have horrific service and they'll still expect a tip from you at the end. Not so at the Texan - I've never experienced hospitality as warm as it was in the South.
With a heavy stomach and a full heart, I cabbed it back to the bus terminal (I had toyed with the idea of staying the night, or better yet, taking a free limo back to the terminal but they only offered hotel transfers). That's when I found that my bus was delayed. By two hours. Gollygosh, darn and gee whiz y'all I was none too pleased about that. I attempted to read, but the guy behind the desk kept thwarting me with his incessant flirting. So I thought "What the hell, I'll flirt back." I needed the practice and it made the wait for the bus go a lot faster.
The bus to Little Rock was a long-ass trip through Texas in the dead of night with a transfer in Dallas at some godawful hour of the morning. Now there's an experience I hope never to repeat. I was sitting around in the Dallas terminal caught between listening to the televangelist on the overhead screen or listening to some scrag on army leave discuss her views on Bush, Southern food and how she was 'goin' on home' to a place called 'Leezyana' (where ever that is) with anyone in the terminal who would care to listen. I like to judge a city by the amount of dodgy people hanging around their Greyhound and based on that criterion alone I can tell that Dallas, like LA and Vegas before it, is a total shithole. When I wasn't irritated by the preaching, I was terrified/hopeful that someone was going to pull out and handgun and shoot up the place/the Louisianan. Another two hours of torture later, my bus for Little Rock arrived. I can sum up that leg of the trip with a conversation that might have taken place after they'd drawn up the official state borders down south:
Vernon: Hey Jim ya varmit, we're at the border of Texas and Arkansas and we're thinkin' we might set up camp here, even though it's a lil' groty. What d'ya wanna call this place?
Jim: Well gee Vernon, I dunno. How about Texarkana***?
Oh Texas, you crazy state. Despite the fact that you're obsessed with size, your people are mildly retarded and the air compostion is roughly 75% methane, I'd love to come back and do you properly one day. I'm not happy about missing Austin (especially with the curse of hindsight) and I'm dying to see just how crazy you get down Mexico way.
* I may be lying here.
** I am not lying here.
*** Seriously, that's what it's called.