TEXAS: Where everything is BIGGER.

Texas: Everything is bigger in Texas.

We were going to go to Dallas, partly for vacation, partly to scope it out as the next frontier for our lives. It was my first time to Texas. I was not sure what to expect. We arrived in town around 2 pm. We got into our rental car and took off towards our hotel. The weather was in the 40’s, unusually cold for this time of year in Dallas. We were staying the first two nights at the Hotel Lumen in University Park. We had brought our GPS, which would turn out to be invaluable throughout the vacation. Our hotel was about a 20 minute drive from the airport. We arrived at the hotel and checked in. We decided to hang out for a little while in our room, and then attend the complimentary wine hour in the lobby, where they provided free wine, champagne, and beer. We drank enough to make us feel warm and fuzzy inside, since it was so chilly outside.  After we finished polishing off a bottle of wine, a beer, and glass of champagne, it was time to head to dinner.

We were in The Lone Star State; we had to go for some BBQ. We Googled a bunch of places in the area and checked out the reviews. Knowing that most people only write reviews when they have a problem, we decided to head to Suzie Q’s BBQ. It had the least amount of complaints, though we planned to eat at several of the other restaurants later on our trip. Suzie Q’s was a nice little sit down restaurant. It was quaint, and we shared a three meat platter. It was delicious and nothing short of great. We headed back to the hotel and crashed around 8 pm. I suppose from the long day of travelling combined with the alcohol, we were exhausted. We both awoke around 11:30 pm and decided to flip on the TV. Criminal Minds was on A&E and has become a favorite show to watch. We went back to bed around 2 am.

The next day we woke up around 9 am, and decided to just drive around the city and outskirts seeing the landscape. What was amazing to us was how incredibly flat and open the area is. By the time we were more than 7 miles outside the city, you could still see downtown Dallas as if it was a stone’s throw away. You could see for miles and miles in every direction. Along the way, we passed countless mega-churches. They were everywhere, and they were enormous. After a couple hours of sightseeing, my wife wanted to check out the Fair Park liquidation sale. It was $8 to get in per person and $10 to park. I dropped her off so we could save the $18; it turned out it was a good move because we were going to need a lot more money later on. While she was shopping, I drove around to find some wireless Internet access. The only thing I found was a bunch of abandoned buildings and a few homeless people hanging around.  It was not the best part of town. I picked her back up around an hour later.

We drove around and went to look at several houses for sale in the area. A few of the reasons that Dallas was attractive to us as a place to relocate to, was the cost of living is much cheaper than the majority of the country, and the unemployment rate is much lower than the majority of the country. These two things are extremely important considerations.  The third most impressive feature of the Metroplex is the traffic infrastructure. I lived in Northern Virginia for more than 20 years before moving to North Carolina, where we lived for 7 years. I have been to Atlanta, San Francisco, Boston, and New York. None of their traffic systems compare to the Dallas Metroplex area.

Not including the Fort Worth area, the Dallas traffic system has more than 14 (counting each direction) ways to exit the city. This means that if one interstate is shut down from an accident, there are countless other ways to reroute yourself to where you are going. We headed out to drive around during rush hour to see what traffic in the city was really like, on a Friday. We got to Interstate 30 and were at a dead stop. After sitting patiently for more than 10 minutes, realizing that we were not going to get anywhere, I had my wife hop onto the interstate heading the other way. After driving 10 minutes out of the way, we were cruising again at full speed, and reached our destination in probably equal or less time than if we had sat and waited.

That night we had a drink or two during the complimentary wine hour and headed out to Dickey’s BBQ for dinner. We found coupons for buy 1 get 1 free food at Dickey's. Dickey’s was a cafeteria style diner. The food was served in an assembly line. You ordered your meats and self served your side items. It was $11 per three meat platter with two sides and a roll. We loaded up as many sides as we could fit on our plate and sat down to eat. This place blew Suzie Q’s away. We headed out to a club to enjoy some music and dancing and fun. We returned to the hotel around 2 am. Once again, there was no substitute for GPS to navigate around a city where you have so many interstates you would be hopelessly lost without it.

The next day, checkout was at noon. We checked out and headed into Fort Worth to sight see a little. We decided that for lunch we would hit up Whataburger. We saw them all over Texas and decided it would be a travesty to not at least see what they were all about. They advertise 100% American beef. In the heart of Texas, they take pride in their cattle, that’s for sure. They take pride in their state flag as well. I have never been to a state in the U.S. where places fly their state flag everywhere. Not only do they fly their state flag, they fly the biggest flags I have seen. The flags are a direct representation of their pride. Texas pride is everywhere. I decided that Texas is the heartbeat of America, not Chevrolet. They even have a Lone Star edition of the Dodge Ram. What other state in the U.S. has their own edition of a pickup truck? The trucks are bigger, the flags are bigger, their faith is bigger, and their pride is bigger. The burgers at Whataburger are just as big as well, which might explain why the waistlines appear bigger too.

We visited several more houses to see what a hundred and fifty thousand dollars bought you, and honestly it was much more than anyone could ask for. We went to the stockyards and decided it was too crowded, so we would return on Monday. We then headed back to Dallas to check in at the Hyatt Regency. What a disaster that was. You would have to read my other post about that to understand why the Hyatt Regency is the worst hotel we have ever stayed in, in our entire lives.

So far, we are halfway done with our Texas vacation, and the conclusion is simple. Everything is BIGGER in Texas. After all, Texas is the biggest state in the U.S., shouldn't everything else be inline?

We got a speeding ticket in Texas and the fine was bigger too. We did not drink and drive because we didn't want to get a DUI. I am pretty sure Texas gives out more DUI's on horseback than any other state.