Tuesday, November 3, 2009

The Waco Phenomena

Day 4: En route to Dallas

Quick: When I say "Waco, Texas", what's the first thing you think of?

(waiting)

Ok, the two of you who said "Jessica Simpson's hometown"? You're both fired. You can show yourselves the door. Margaret will send for your belongings.

Now, it looks like some of you said "Baylor University" and a good number of you said "The Dr. Pepper Museum". Could you folks tell me where you're from? Oh, Texas? Really? Huh. Weird.

Ok, now, could everyone not from Texas raise their hands? Ok, now, what do you folks think of when I say "Waco, Texas"? All together, now:

"David Koresh!"

This, of course, is the Waco Phenomena: The idea that a good deal of people (note: I have not done exhaustive research) living in Texas think of Waco as just another city on Interstate 35. Meanwhile, the entire rest of the country hears "Waco" and immediately thinks "Branch Dividians". The good news for our friends from up North is that I've decided to take a couple of pictures of Waco so you could get a good look at the community for yourself.

First, here is a picture from the interior of the Dr. Pepper museum, where you can still get Dr. Pepper mixed up with pure cane sugar. It's really quite tasty, and worth the cost.


Now, here's a picture of a building directly outside of Waco's main tourist attraction. Hopefully this should clarify the virgin-white integrity of this city to them yankees.


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Some stray observations:

-The afternoon was marked by a visit to the legendary Round Rock Donuts (who are single-handedly responsible for the 'obesity in America thing') before hitting the road. Please note the large muffins to the left.



-Genevieve, my GPS system, tried to kill me again. I swear this is the beginning of the robot revolution. According to my friends Ryan and Erin, whom I'm staying with for the next couple of days, all I needed to do to get to their house was stay on Interstate 35. Instead, Genevieve sent me on a white-knuckle roundabout way that included merging over through three lanes of traffic during rush hour at dusk in an unfamiliar city and trading off no fewer than seven different highways. If her voice wasn't so pleasant, I would swear that there would be hell to pay.

-"Welcome to Fort Worth: The Canada of Dallas!". Tell me that wouldn't fill some seats.

-Erin and Ryan's dog, and also my new best friend, Gunnar!:



-A special thanks to my dear friend Leslie, who has been as supportive as you could be over the years. In addition to putting me up for an evening and being a wonderful friend over the years, she also gave me her old guitar as a parting gift. I cannot thank you enough!

Tomorrow: Off to the JFK museum...

3 comments:

  1. Robot Revolution - predicted this was going to transpire! Why do you think I had all those queries at the Whirlpool factory!?

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  2. Don't be silly. The revolution isn't set to occur til 2015.

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  3. Wrong, Daniel: 2012 will destroy the robots before they can revolt.

    ReplyDelete