Messing with Texas

Greetings from warm and sunny Texas, folks. I’m down here all week on business, and thought I’d pass on some things I’ve noticed and see so far.

I flew out yesterday afternoon. I took Southwest, the cattle drive of airlines, and after I checked in, learned that we’d be flying through Birmingham, Alabama. So I’d have to sit on the plane until we unloaded and loaded up new passengers. They like to spring these things on you.

We had this wacky pilot too, who enjoyed long pauses during his mid-flight announcements.

“Greetings, folks (10 second pause) thanks for choosing Southwest…(15 seconds)….we’re about (20 seconds) 24,000 feet right now (10 seconds)…”

You get the idea. At one point when he was asking people to not stand around in the aisles, he also said,

“and, also, please don’t stand in the galleys, or where the stewardesses are, and please – for your own comfort and the comfort of the other passengers, please do not exit the plane during flight.”

I think what was funnier is that no one laughed at that except me.

On the flight from Baltimore to Birmingham, I sat in front of two little kids whose pastime was kicking my seat. I was getting annoyed, and then I heard one kid say, “Dad, why is there no sound in space?” The kid was now instant cool.

Later, I noticed that all those little ashtray/trash thingees on the armrests are now welded shut.
Flying from Birmingham to Houston, our plane left very late – in usual Southwest fashion. I hardly had any layover in Houston, so I was worried about making my connection down to Corpus Christi. Every other time I’ve arrived late to make a connection, I’ve always had to run across the airport to catch my plane in the complete opposite terminal.

This time, I ran off the plane, checked the flight monitor, only to discover that my next gate was right next to the one I’d just exited. Weird.

The flight was delayed due to a big storm anyway, so the closeness didn’t end up helping me, but that’s okay. I wandered over to the waiting area and discovered a big crowd of folks all sitting facing the TV. America’s Funniest Home Videos was on, and people were all laughing and going “oooh” and “aaah” at the same time. It was really funny.

Also, a sign that I was now in Texas: a guy was eating food from a Styrofoam takeout container, but instead of something small, he was eating a huge rack of ribs. Awesome.

So we were delayed due to a major storm. Flying into Houston was awesome, as we got to see all these tower clouds and one major anvil cloud – sure signs of big storms (yes, I’m a weather geek). It was so cool to see these clouds from an airplane’s view. Those kinds of clouds end up being thousands of feet tall.

40 minutes later, there was enough of a break to get us all into the air. It was a short flight, where I alternated staring out the window and pretending to not read this high school kid’s yearbook that she had open.

Anywho, Texas is pretty cool. I’ve been here before, but only spent a short time in San Antonio then. This time, it’s my tour down the eastern coast of Texas.

Texas seems very flat to me, and the sky seems huge. It’s very hot, which is fine by me. I’d rather be hot than cold. Today I saw my first dead armadillo along the side of the road, causing me to yell out, ‘Whoa, look at that dead armadillo!’ to my guides for the week. They just laughed at me and said the only kind of armadillo in Texas is a dead armadillo. They’re born dead on the side of the road.

So my guides are introducing me to Texas life. Today I learned (besides the armadillo thing) that Dairy Queen is also known as the “Texas Stop Sign.” That made me laugh.

The drives are gorgeous, and it takes at least an hour to get anywhere. Today the big sky was filled with fluffy white clouds that just went on for as far as the eye could see. There are huge yellow daisies along the side of the road, and it’s all farm country down here. I think it’s very beautiful. I don’t know that I’d ever want to live here, but it’s not as horrible looking as some might want you to believe.

Anyway, I’m in Edinburg, Texas, for tonight after going to visit Falfurrias earlier. Tomorrow it’s off to McAllen and Brownsville. Then it’s back up north of Corpus Christi.

Good times. I’m sure it will produce more interesting Texas notations.