Comanche, TX

By ten-thirty, nine o'clock's concrete skies had burned off to clear blue. Ah well, at least I had an hour and a half driving with the top down before it got too hot and I had to put it up and turn the air-conditioning on (the temperatures get up to 95'F (35'C) around this time of year).

So why go to Comanche? If you don't mind my saying, that's a bit of a negative attitude. If the pioneers had all sat round the camp-fire saying things like "Look, Darryl, we're not sure about all this going west stuff ... why don't we just stay here ... I mean, it's nice, and the people are friendly ...", then America would never have become the country it is today. So I prefer the much more positive: why NOT go to Comanche? After all, the Texas lottery is now up to $145m, so I should buy a ticket. It's not that there aren't places I could buy a ticket that are less than 120 miles away; it just wouldn't be so much fun.

Roadside store

And it's not completely accidental that Glen Rose is on the way, so I can visit the two grannies I only just missed last week. So I hit the "Chisholm Trail" again, and stopped on the way to pick up a cold drink (top still down at this point, and it was getting warm). The inside of the roadside store was no less disappointing than the outside - ramshackle enough that I was worried that, if I touched anything, the whole place would collapse around me. They sold, under one roof: beer, liquor, guns, ammo, fishing gear (including live bait) and guitars, in addition to all the usual convenience store stuff. Now, I've always thought that guns and liquor were the perfect combination, and I'm surprised we don't see more stores like this. I can just see all the locals on a Saturday night: "I need a fifth of bourbon and a box of ammo". I know we don't do guns in England, but maybe off-licences could branch out and also sell, say, martial arts gear?

"The Two Grannies"

Next stop, Glen Rose. After parking the car and pointing out to the local museum that they'd hung their huge "OPEN" banner upside down, I headed to the "Two Grannies Down Home Cookin'" restaurant. Both grannies insisted on giving me a hug, as they did everyone who came in. The food was excellent - all "home-style", which is to say, fresh salad, bread, mashed potatoes, fried chicken, soup, a variety of vegetables and desserts ... and this was all home-cooked. I'm almost certain there isn't a microwave on the premises, and that, even if there was, they wouldn't have a clue how to use it. The sign over the buffet counter said "Take all you want, but be a dear, and eat all you take". I don't eat much at lunchtime, so they did alright from me - but $7.50 for all you can eat of good home-cooked food is one of the best deals you'll come across.

So on to Comanche. I have to say that this is the prettiest part of Texas I've seen: mile after mile of groves of pecans, horse, cattle and goat ranches, still lush from the rain we've had recently. I passed though Dublin, famous because it's the home of the first Dr Pepper bottling plant. I bought a can, and it does taste different - like going to the other Dublin for Guinness.

Comanche has nothing really special to commend it, other than the fact that I bought what will hopefully turn out to be the winning lottery ticket there. But it's a nice town, with nice people, as well as the usual Dairy Queen, Sonic Burger, Whataburger, Subway ...

Seeing the pecan groves reminded me that I picked up some delicious "fresh-crop" pecans in Mineral Wells last year. A bit out of my way, but why not? They're just as good this year.

Y'all come back and see us again? Absolutely.

Glen Rose, TX

As always, today’s road-trip didn’t turn out quite as expected.

I’d heard on the local TV station about a restaurant in Glen Rose, TX, called “Two Grannies Down Home Cookin’” that was literally opened and run by two grannies who decided that the traditional “family round the table” meal was dying out, and they were going to remedy the situation. Everybody at the restaurant gets good home-style food, and a hug from one of the grannies. So that’s where I set off today. About 80 miles south-west of the hotel, a sunny day after a week of rain, the top down because the temperature is reasonable, and all is well with the world.

I spent breakfast looking at the map, so that I could travel by some back roads, and see more than the highways have to offer. Unfortunately (or fortunately, depending on your point of view), what they have to offer is distraction. In particular, this was the “Montgomery Street ANTIQUE MALL” – “Fort Worth’s Largest!”, “240 Quality Shops”, “Secret Garden Restaurant”. They were not wrong. This has to be the best “antique mall” I have ever visited. Definitely no rubbish. They even gave customers a glass of wine on entering (which is obviously a good marketing ploy, though it didn’t work on me because I’d already done all my shopping before I discovered it!). One stall had 50 or more already restored fountain pens (sorry, Gerry, I would have called, but it would have taken forever to go through them), another had antique medical equipment (ditto Tim and Lucy). And before you ask, of course I bought some stuff. I was actually there for two and a half hours.

The result of the distraction was that I didn’t reach Glen Rose until just before 2pm. The two grannies, according to some people sitting outside, had just closed because they had run out of food. Apparently they have been swamped ever since the TV exposure. They were going to re-open at 5pm. So I went to another local café to get a snack – I ordered a toasted cheese sandwich, so as not to spoil my appetite. The waitress arrived with a Philly cheese steak sandwich (or as close as they can get to it in Texas). Brits are condemned forever to apologize for other people’s mistakes (it’s just our culture), so I said I’d eat it anyway. Didn’t taste much like the real thing, but it did fill me up, so I decided to spend a little time wandering around, then try the “Two Grannies” again next weekend, but get there earlier!

As it happens, Glen Rose is the site of a lot of dinosaur footprints and fossils. I went into the local museum, run entirely by volunteers. I was the first visitor of the day. The lady on duty told me that the museum was badly neglected, and the leaky roof dripped water on what she considered some “priceless” items – like a dentist’s chair from the 1800’s. She even disappeared out the back to show me the contents of a shoe box that wasn’t even on display, containing the wedding shoes, earrings (from Paris) and matching tiara, complete with a lock of the bride’s hair, from a wedding about 1900. She felt passionately about getting the museum sorted out (and rightly so), and I signed the visitor’s book and donated $5. I hope she succeeds.

I know I’ve said this before, but the same thing is happening to rural America (they’d call it “small town America”) as is happening to rural England. Neglect.

It took me a while to get back to the hotel, because I kept seeing signs to places that sounded fascinating to go to on the way – Alvarado, Nemo (yes, Amy, your friend Nemo has his own zip code in Texas – although in truth Nemo is only a couple of houses and a Post Office!). Why is it that American names have a lyrical quality that we lack: “24 hours from Aylesbury”, apart from not scanning very well, doesn’t sound nearly as romantic as “24 hours from Tulsa”? Although there is a line in a Dire Straits song: “From Cullercoats to Whitley Bay”. Not sure about Whitley Bay, but Cullercoats meets the “lyrical” criterion for me.

I hit Route 67 – the Chisholm Way – again. Although I didn’t really have a clue where I was going, American highways have an interesting feature: odd-numbered ones are north-south, and even-numbered ones are east-west. Whoever came up with this was definitely firing on all cylinders. This doesn’t help much unless you know (which I think most people don’t) – but I do, and now you do, too. It’s silly little things like this that can save your life on occasion.

So the two grannies will have to wait until next week, but I’ll be sure to get a picture.

Gun Barrel City, TX

75 miles is a long way to go for “Goo-Gone”, but if you love your wife, you have to do these things.

I’ve probably lost you already, so I should explain. “Goo-Gone” is a product that “removes grease, gum, stickers, crayon and tape”. It also has “Citrus Power” and “Scientific Technology”. In spite of that, it’s actually very good, and I wouldn’t be surprised if it also deals with cockroaches and feminine-itch (but don’t try this at home). Anyway, Amy took our bottle (I didn’t ask her what she needed it for …), so we need another. That’s the first part.

The second part is that I needed somewhere to go on a road trip to get out of Dallas. You know how they put up the weather map on TV, and every day it has the names of different local places on it, presumably to appease the natives (ooooh, look, Tiverton’s on the telly). Well, on Thursday, the local weather map showed Gun Barrel City. I’m sure if you’d been here, you’d have had the same urge that I had to find out what a place called Gun Barrel City might look like.

So I set off to Gun Barrel City for Goo-Gone (not going too fast for you, am I?). Since the car has GPS, I went the back roads. A couple of weeks ago, an editorial column in the Telegraph newspaper referred to Dallas as “arcadian”. Even colleagues (one of whose father had sent the clipping to him) who have lived here for many years burst out laughing. Either this guy has no clue what the word “arcadian” means, or he’d been smoking something. My trip took me through the ethnic suburbs of Dallas, and “third-world” is the adjective that springs more readily to my mind. The derelict shopping plazas, closed down restaurants (and I use that word in its most liberal sense), gas stations with several black guys on dilapidated chairs drinking beer, are very reminiscent, for me, of the poorer areas of the Caribbean, or even Los Angeles. (As an aside, there was a recent slight brouhaha about an American journalist who had made negative comments about the President of Brazil’s drinking habits; a Brazilian journalist on the radio made the very good point that there is a certain cultural difference between the two countries, and that we always view different cultures through the lens of our own; I mention this only because the observations of the Telegraph columnist, of an American, and of a Dallas native – and indeed of myself – are likely to be somewhat divergent).

And you definitely know what kind of area you’re in when you come across places of worship named “Lighthouse of Praise Church”, “Fountain of the Living Word Church” and “Church of the Living God, the Pillar and the Ground of the Truth”.

I did find a “real” flea market, unlike last week’s plastic Crap-o-Rama, and bought an old-ish copy of Milles Borne (the French card game – very good, if you’ve never played it). And I found a lot of places that I wouldn’t eat in if you paid me. Oh, and Gun Barrel City (pop. 5,204)? It has a Sonic burger joint, a MacDonalds, a WalMart, a Home Depot … not unlike many other Texan cities, in fact, but I’m sure this was Gun Barrel City. Yes, I’m pretty sure that was it.

Traders Village, TX

I usually wear my shirts for two days when I’m away, to cut down on washing (unless it’s been a particularly hot and sweaty day). So this morning, after my shower, I put on yesterday’s shirt, and it still stank of rodeo. It went straight into dirty laundry. Incidentally, you can find out all about the Mesquite Rodeo at www.mesquiterodeo.com.

Mesquite Rodeo

Tim asked me this morning if it was all for real, or staged (like the wrestling). Looked pretty real to me. Certainly quite a few of the riders finished up hobbling off, and the bulls and broncos look pretty mean – I don’t think you can train them to fake it. One of the sections was simply called “Jack Daniels Cowboy Poker” – I had no idea what to expect. They put a table and four chairs in the middle of the arena. Four cowboys sat in the chairs, and the rules are simply that the last one to leave his chair is the winner. Sounds easy enough, until they let a very large, and very mean, bull into the arena. The bull was not at all amused, and was definitely in attack mode. Its horns were “rounded off”, so that it could do no permanent damage, but it had no problem tossing the cowboys, complete with furniture, into the air. So, yes, I think it’s real. But, if I were to go again, and I would, it would be outdoors, where the unmistakable smell has a chance to dissipate.

Today I thought I’d stay a little closer to the hotel, since I didn’t get back until after 11 last night. I went to “Traders Village” – a large local flea market. Most of the stuff was fairly uninteresting: cheap socks, t-shirts, knock-off perfumes, lots of eateries. But I found a bookstall (of course), and on the periphery were more of the kind of stalls that we associate with car-boot sales. I didn’t buy anything (well, ok … just one book – but it’s not for me!), but I did find a couple of interesting stalls.

Graffiti Artist

One was fairly makeshift, and featured a (presumably) reformed graffiti artist. A large crowd had gathered around to watch him layer spray paint onto a cardboard canvas, and then use a variety of tools, from carefully shaped pieces of cardboard to plastic knives to scrunched up pages from a glossy magazine to coax amazing textures from what looked initially like a plain-colored surface. The secret, I suppose, is in the layering of color and the etching technique.

The other stall was selling fresh fruit and vegetables – always interesting in different parts of the world, because you realize just how diverse (and often unknown) is the plethora of edible stuff. This one had cactus leaves, so, of course, I had to ask. They’re common in Mexico, where they’re called “nopalito”. You clean off the spiky bits, boil them as you would potatoes, and slice them thinly, after which you can incorporate them into salads, or rice, or whatever. They taste, apparently, a little like okra or green beans.

And this brings me to a final bit of social commentary, which you can ignore if you wish – it is, after all, personal opinion. We always hear so much about the black culture, both in the US and England, but if you look at the statistics (which are very different in the two countries), Hispanics slightly outnumber blacks in the US (and are gaining ground). Yet there is very much less “noise” from the Hispanic culture. At the market today (where most of the signs were either in Spanish only, or in Spanish and English), I sat under a shade tree, and “people-watched” for a while. The Hispanics are very family-oriented, despite the “gang-culture” that the media exploits. The people that I spoke to were friendly; the children, for the most part, obedient and outgoing. My personal feeling is that Hispanics (or Latinos, as they seem to prefer currently) may very well eventually dominate. And this may be no bad thing.

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 ...

Canton, TX

Sunday turned out to be warm and sunny, after several days of cool-ish weather and rain, so I decide to head about 90 miles out of Dallas to Canton, where I'd been told the "mother of all flea-markets" (car-boot sales) was on this weekend. All I knew was that it was in Canton, which was somewhere on Route 20 heading east.

So I put in my new CD (Mondo Soukous), wound down the windows, and cranked up the volume. I don't understand how the African continent, with such a troubled history, is able to produce music like soukous, which is so joyous and uplifting it always makes me want to stop the car, get out, and dance on the verge. Anyway, with sunlight and a warm breeze streaming through the window, soukous belting from the speakers, settled down at 70 on the Interstate, it feels good to be alive.

Knowing how good the average Texan is at giving directions, I eventually chicken out and pull off at a gas station to buy a map, just in case I'm headed in the wrong direction - this is purely a precaution, and I'm bound to need the map sometime anyway - right? As I enter, the checkout girls are speaking Spanish to each other, but, as I approach, they seem to sense that I don't, and address me in English. I fork over my $5 for the map, but take the opportunity to ask if I'm on the right road for Canton. "Ay, Maria, do ju know where is Canton?". She doesn't, and clearly neither of them has ever heard of it. I'm rescued by a scrawny, scruffy guy in the next checkout line.

At this point, an aside: this guy has on a black T-shirt that says something like "Reality is for people that can't handle drugs", and a black baseball cap that says quite clearly "POLICE". I have no reason to doubt that this is true, and here's why: in the States, there are several layers in the police hierarchy. At the federal level, the best known "police" are the FBI - they're obviously the cream of the crop; at the state level, you most commonly encounter State Troopers, who despite often being quite malicious, are impeccably turned out; then at the city level are the local police, who are responsible only for one particular city; below them are the township police, whose bailiwick is a single town within the city limits. Notice we're going down the food chain here, with IQs and dress-sense to match. So this guy is very likely to be an (off-duty) township policeman.

"Yeah, Canton", pronounced totally differently to the way I said it (my glottal stops obviously way out of whack), " - take twenny east, s'about exit five hunnerd twenny sump'n, 'bout thirdy mile". I thank him, and take him at his word. The map sits unopened on the passenger seat, and I'm back on the highway watching the buzzards cruising the central reservation. Think about it - there's a 30 yard wide grass-covered patch that's hundreds of miles long, containing a trapped microcosm of rodent life. The choice is buzzard-food or road kill.

Just before I get to Canton, and apart from yet another camel farm that doesn't phase me any more, I come across the "Billy the Kid Museum". But hold on, Billy the Kid is New Mexico, not Texas. Of course, I can't resist. It's $1 for adults, and completely unstaffed. A little cheesy, but it claims that Billy the Kid actually lived until a ripe old age and died in 1950. If you don't believe me, take a look at http://www.billythekid1950.com. For such wide open spaces, there sure are some creepy corners in this state.

Canton flea market is truly big - 5 acres of stalls (that's faaahv acres, which is a lot of crap to sift through to get to the good stuff). But I succeed in finding some good stuff (well, I think it's good stuff - whoever threw it out probably doesn't agree), including a pen for Gerry and gifts for the kids, and head back to the hotel.

On the way, I stop off at "Kiss My Ribs", a real Texas BBQ place. It's just a roadhouse in the middle of nowhere, really, advertising "BBQ + Elvis + Ribs + Blues + Pork". I don't normally stop at these kind of places, for fear of coming out with more than I went in with, if you get my drift, but I'm glad I did. I explained that I'd never had real Texas BBQ before, and asked what I should order. I was the only customer in the place. I had iced tea from a big plastic urn, potato salad, coleslaw, beans, and almost more pork ribs than I could eat for $8. The meat simply fell off the bone, and was delicious. Vickie serves behind the counter, and husband Mike cooks the ribs - the secret is in cooking them veeeeeery slowly. I said I'd come back, and bring my wife, and then remembered that Val is now a veggie. "Don't worry about that", said Vickie, "we also do baked potatoes, with or without meat - we'll fix her right up".

Dallas

I'm a Hertz Gold Club member (which is only right, since I spend more time in their cars than I do in my own). One of the benefits of this is that I get an automatic upgrade to the next level - I usually book a mid-size car, and get upgraded to a full-size, like a Ford Taurus. Last time I was here, some of the other IBM guys told me that when they booked a full-size, they were upgraded to a Jag or Volvo. So that's what I tried this time. What do I get? A Crown Victoria. Think boat, but with wheels. I call it, affectionately, Das Boot.  It's ok at the hotel, because they have a guy with a paddle in each hand to guide me into a parking space, but it's difficult at work. And when you lock it, the damn thing honks, drawing attention to itself. It's the kind of car old men with white hair drive. Wait a minute ... I AM an old man with white hair - I've gotta change this car.

Anyway, in a moment of what I suspect must have been a flash of literary genius, I penned the following:

   Cruising down MacArthur in my beautiful Crown Vic

   Trying to look really cool but feeling like a ... old man with white hair.

Do you think it's worth trying to flesh this out a little? I've attached a piccie of the car - I put a quarter on the hood so you can get an idea of the size of this thing.

Today's road trip was really only half a road trip. For a start I only went to Dallas, and I didn't really do all of it (unlike Debbie, if you remember those halcyon days of movie-making). So I have to reserve final judgement until I've seen the rest of it.

First a couple of facts about Dallas from the guide book. Population over 1 million, 3.5 million if you include the MetroPlex area (and I think that Fort Worth is probably condescendingly included). Eighth largest city in the US. "Top leisure visitor destination in Texas" (which I think says more about Texas than it does about Dallas). More restaurants per capita than New York City (I think we've covered this before).

So I start in the historic downtown area, which coincidentally is where JFK was shot. I've attached a piccie of the memorial. It's big. And it's concrete. This seems as much of a raison d'etre as anything in Texas needs, and probably symbolizes Texas more than it does JFK.

Downtown is just a collection of tall buildings, like many American cities. The architectural dissonance never seems to bother anybody. Some cities are a joy to walk around - New York, London, Paris. And some are not, which is a shame. Cities like Dallas and Los Angeles really need you to drive to an area, walk around it, drive to another area, walk around it, etc. Anyway, after seeing downtown Dallas, it was on my list, together with Toronto, as most boring city in North America (incidentally, I believe Toronto is going for the the world championship this year, having already won the North American round). I know I'm hard on Toronto, but I really have walked all around it, and can assure you that there's nothing to see. In its favor, it's the only city I've ever been to that labels the gay area on its tourist map, and that takes guts.

I had lunch in (or rather, outside) an Italian restaurant downtown, and it didn't take long before Stanley identified me as an easy mark for a quick sketch. In fact, he was very amusing, and I have great respect for someone that is prepared to do something in return for funds, rather than just asking for it. When I gave him money, I told him it wasn't for the picture, but for his time, because he took a good deal of time trying to get it right, in his own eyes.

Then I headed towards the Farmers Market. On the way, I noticed Dallas's answer to the problem of having more police than cars - give them bicycles. The Farmers Market was amazing - mahogany furniture (from Mexico?) at unbelievable prices, and every kind of fruit and vegetable imaginable.

I headed towards Deep Ellum "a hotbed of jazz and blues". I don't think it's fair to judge Deep Ellum on its daytime appearance. I suspect that, at night, the sidewalk probably vibrates under your feet, but it's pretty dead in the afternoon. I think I would like to go back there in the evening, because it looked as though it had the potential for being pretty lively.

On the way back, I passed what looked like a film set. I asked one of the technicians what they were filming, and he told me it was a Chuck E Cheese commercial. He had to agree with me that it was "different".

So I still have to see the "Arts District", "Uptown", and the "West Village". I'll reserve judgement until then.

Crown Victoria

Me

Stanley

JFK memorial

Dallas cops