I Hate Texas
There! I said it! But what if I really don’t hate Texas? I’ve taken more than a few trips through Texas but always down Interstate 40 through Amarillo, but I haven’t seen the whole state really. Maybe there’s more to see than a desert and stockyard. Statewide Texas is a strange mix of churches and strip clubs; adult toy superstores and stores just named “guns.”
Going down I40 from Oklahoma you will hit Texas pretty much in the middle of nowhere. Then you’ll drive another hundred miles to hit Amarillo. One look around Amarillo and you see it looks like any other American Southwest town with a slightly higher crime rate, transient motels, grifters, homeless, and an underlying drug habit. My highlight is that I can eat at Whataburger when I pass through. About thirty miles past the city you’ll find a big stockyard. From a distance in the daytime it looks like an ant colony in a freshly split log. You see the black and white dots moving in an almost nauseating form for miles before you get there to see a sea of cows. At night, you can smell it from the same distance. That area is dry and boring. Maybe twenty miles before you hit the New Mexico State line there are some hills that are actually beautiful, but that’s short lived and you’re back in an arid wasteland again. Even the final exit heading west down the interstate has a little gas station that’s been abandoned for decades and looks like a perfect place to stash a dead body. Going this way is a necessary evil to take a southern route to California during the winter and miss driving down I80 in the snow.
El Paso was once referred to by a friend as “the armpit of Texas,” which surprised me since (from my limited experience) I thought all of Texas was an arm pit. I loved it!!! I wasn’t there long, but the harmonious mix of cultures and little shops downtown was amazing. The historic downtown has these old beautiful buildings and small Mexican stores and restaurants. Taking an Uber at one point we asked what the “big red X” was to the driver and he said it was some building in Mexico. I knew we were on the boarder but I didn’t realize if you had a good arm that you could whip a stone into Mexico and start an international incident (note to self: add “start international incident” to my personal bucket list). It’s a boarder town in the desert. I’ve been in many worse towns throughout the country and I can’t call El Paso an armpit. I can say that people from other countries have different living standards from Americans and the people living there (legally or not) are living a much better life than they would give miles to the south. Sure the taxi stand had the word “taxi” spray painted on a piece of plywood on a carport with chicken wire walls, but that added to the charm.
Most recently I had to go to McAllen, Texas…and I loved it. I entered Texas just below Texarkana, Arkansas and drove the state roads south. There is an I69 corridor but that interstates under construction. It is in tact for roughly 70 miles with Houston in the middle of that stretch and it’s a fantastic road, though any road going top to bottom would have been fantastic to me after driving five hours on state roads and US highways that don’t feel like you’re getting anywhere. I’ve been in Houston one other time by briefly and it remains a city I want to explore in depth at some point because it is beautiful. I believe you can tell a lot about a major city by it’s downtown skyline and Houston’s is amazing. Moving south, I hit the Corpus Christi area and there were these quaint little restaurants attached to gas stations (gas stations in that area seem to have a restaurant or bait shop attached to them). I was mad I had just eaten because fresh seafood would have really hit the spot over a Golden Corral.
Finally I hit McAllen after sixteen days of driving through Texas (it may not have actually been that long) and I fell in love with “The Valley.” Edinburg and McAllen are awesome! I loved McAllen so much I requested another trip down there in a couple weeks for my birthday so I can cross into Mexico for my first time. It has most of the things I love about Los Angeles except the ocean and the cost of living is manageable. Like El Paso, it has a huge Mexican population and a vibrant downtown area because of it. My Uber driver dropped me off at the bus station and told me there was a Subway inside. I had three hours till my bus and I smelled good food. I walked into a little place and seated myself. I ordered some tacos and a Coke. The owner asked if I wanted a Mexican Coke or a regular Coke. Please! I would have just eaten at Subway if I wanted “regular Coke.” The place was called La Mordidad and I will be back there. I had three pork tacos and a Coke for $7. When he told me the price I laughed in his face with excitement. That’s it? He got a nice tip. The food was so good that I left a five star review and and wrote out a review on their Facebook page while still in the restaurant. It may be the best Mexican food I’ve ever had. I had a few personal interactions with people in the area. Some didn’t speak English at all and my limited English compounded by the volume of the music being played where I was made accurate communication nearly impossible but everyone was gracious and appreciated that I at least made an attempt at Spanish. I figure my Spanish sucks but it’s better than their English.
The bus from McAllen dropped me off in Dallas. I walked to the McDonald’s and ate. It was 1am and that’s all that was open. While there I asked the security guard if I should take an Uber to the airport or wait on the train (the real underlying question was if this area was a shithole at night that I should avoid walking around in). He suggested I Uber and I heeded his advice.
One thing about my travels is that I’ve learned to find cheaper transportation. McAllen to Chicago was just shy of $600 on American Airlines but Greyhound to Dallas was $35 and Dallas to Chicago on American was $53. So add the extra $30 Uber and I still saved some $480. Smaller airports are just too expensive but the bus can get you places cheaper, but you’ll be stuck on a bus with the thought “this bus smells like corn chips and I’m the only one not on meth at the bus station.”
My next chance I will explore Houston and Austin. Both are places I want to know better and Austin is the home of SXSW and I want to attend that some day.
One tip on Texas I think everyone should know. Drivers in Texas are awesome. They are both competent and friendly. If you need over in a lane, turn your blinker on and they will wave you on through. County deputies and city police officers are great men and women doing the work of the people, protecting and serving their communities. I’ve only come close to having an accident in Texas three times (compared to New York City’s five times in one day). Guess who I almost had accidents with. That’s right! Each time it was a Texas State Trooper. Stay clear of them! One followed me so close I couldn’t see his headlights, then went around me, swerved onto the shoulder, and I had to avoid hitting him since his ass end was still on the road. No emergency flashers or anything. I thought it was isolated but I had a similar experience in Houston one other trip with a pair that may have been street racing each other on the interstate. They just swerved all over the road at high speeds.
Ok. So I don’t hate Texas, just parts of Texas and some things about Texas. It is so large that it really is like a whole other country with its own unique set of laws and customs. I even had boarder patrol get on my bus and ask each of us if we were U.S. citizens (I was mad they tapped me on the shoulder to wake me up and ask). Go to Texas. If you don’t like where you’re at, go about one hundred miles and it’ll be different.
Thank you for reading this piece from Michael Beebe. For more about Michael, please visit TheMichaelBeebe.com or VagabondingAmerica.com.
