Corn maze

A disappointing day. I can’t complain, because it doesn’t happen often. I’d heard on local TV about a “corn maze” on a farm down near Waxahachie, and headed off there, buying sun-block on the way, because it’s pretty warm round here in July. When I got there, I discovered it was only open in the evenings – this makes sense, if I’d stopped to think about it. You’d have to be insane to wander about in a cornfield in the middle of the day in Texas (something about mad dogs and Englishman springs to mind …).

So I took the scenic route back to Dallas, passing through Avalon (which was definitely not the inspiration for Roxy Music’s hit song) and Italy (there’s a disturbingly dull theme cropping up here, so to spare you a recurrence, here’s a brief, and certainly incomplete, of funny place names in Texas: Gordon, Vernon, Seymour, Chester, Sidney, Smiley, Leroy, Dabney, Tarzan, Happy, Gun Sight, Point Blank, Cut and Shoot, Elysian Fields, Utopia, Paradise, Munday, Friday, Telephone, Telegraph, Energy, Raisin, Oatmeal, Rice, Noodle, Hot Coffee, Kickapoo … I could go on, but I won’t. The very last time I’ll mention the topic is to suggest you check out http://www.floydpinkerton.net/fun/citynames.html.

And so I did what any American does when it’s this hot – I went to the mall. I walked around the food court, but couldn’t find anything I fancied to eat. And around the multiplex, but couldn’t find a movie I was prepared to pay to see.

After a while, I left, and stopped off at Red Lobster, hoping the meal might lift my spirits; it might have done, had not a couple with one misbehaving toddler and one screaming baby not sat in the booth next to mine. I knew I should have gone to Cowboy Church again this morning!

On a completely different topic, you probably know that state license plates in the States typically have their state motto on the bottom, like: The Constitution State (Connecticut), The Empire State (New York), The Sunshine State (Florida), The Lone Star State (Texas). As I came out of the hotel the other morning, the car in the parking space next to mine was from Idaho. “Famous Potatoes”. I’m not kidding. It’s made me even more determined to get to Idaho one day, so I can find out if their tourist brochure is as inspired as their state motto.