Las Colinas, TX

Sonic

I wish I could say I've had a great road trip today, but in fact it was very boring. North on 35 to Sanger. Nothing there. Further north to Gainesville. Nothing there (except that I could get a chocolate milkshake at the Sonic burger joint). South west to Decatur. Nothing there. So back to the hotel - on the old Chisholm trail again (something seems to keep calling me back to that road).

Once you get outside the major city complexes, the smaller "cities" all seem to suffer the same fate. The big supermarkets and DIY stores open up outside town, servicing the ever-sprawling suburban environs so that all that's really left downtown is City Hall and some gift stores, with the odd coffee and doughnut shop. So they call it the "Nothingsville Historic Center" and leave the paint to slowly peel off the buildings. Always makes me feel slightly sad to see this happen, because people seem proud enough of their suburban homes to keep the lawns carefully manicured, but not proud enough of their community to do the same for the public buildings (unless, of course, they're related to sport in some way). I suppose the main reason this doesn't happen so much in England (though it does happen to a lesser degree) is that we have less space to play with. Toby and Hannah: the fate of our towns is in your hands (though I'm sure not as much as you'd like it to be).

Mustangs at Las Colinas

The highlight of the day was that I started out locally, at Las Colinas, which is really part of the Dallas/Fort Worth "metroplex" area. In a large square in the middle of Las Colinas there is a beautiful bronze casting of mustangs crossing a river. This is almost more impressive as a photograph than in real life, because the water around their hooves is "frozen" in time, making it look even more realistic. I'm reliably informed that the casting was done in High Wycombe, in Buckinghamshire (by a Brit work colleague who comes from High Wycombe - he supports Wycombe Wanderers football team, though he refers to them by a slightly different name that also begins with W).

Las Colinas, being part of the Metroplex area, is well maintained. It surrounds Lake Carolyn, from which they've extended a network of canals, complete with water taxis, so that the area has an overall feel of a cross between modern red-tiled roofed Mexican hacienda and Venice. Full points for trying, I think.

Oh, and on a side note, the latest fast food trend here is "Atkins friendly" reduced carbohydrate meals. Even the burger buns are reduced carbohydrate. A friend came across "reduced carbohydrate" orange juice. Having a bit of a scientific background, he was curious how they might do that, so that he looked at the list of ingredients. They'd replaced 50% of the orange juice with water. What can I say ...