Texas Sized

Things that actually ARE bigger in Texas:

- Hats:  While this may seem like a no-brainer, since Texas is synonymous with these wide-brimmed, often dirty head coverings, but seriously, until you see and entire crowd of people wearing the same hat you don’t realize how much this is a part of the culture, and how huge some of these people’s hats really are.

- Churches:  My grandpa’s birthday was held in a building that was part of a compound centered on a Lutheran church which could easily hold 2,000 people.  It had several buildings, a church, and parking lots all over the place.  It was the largest church I have ever seen, including the massive stone edifices of Europe.  This held true until they drove me by the Baptist church a few miles away that from the road – a solid half mile across it’s parking lots – I mistook it for a new basketball stadium.  This church holds almost 20,000 people.

- Stores:  Super Target.  That’s all I have to say.

- Airports:  Dallas/ Ft. Worth is one of the largest, busiest, most active airports in the world. It is full of cowboy hats and one of the most beautiful women I have ever seen.  I did not bring home either or these things.

- The sky:  Flat.  Texas is flat.  There is no other way to put it.  When I originally got here I couldn’t tell which direction I was facing because the sun was directly above me in the sky.  This is very disorienting to someone who usually has a pretty good sense of direction.  The problem is a lack of any discernible landmarks or features at all.  I am sitting in the airport, looking out the window, and I can see Dallas on one side, Ft. Worth on the other, and all the way to the horizon probably 15 miles away and I would have to say the mean elevation change in the entire filed of view is no more than a dozen feet.  There is not one hill, mountain, or tree over 50 feet tall anywhere.  The tallest things in the area are water towers, and you can see those for three different cities since there is NOTHING in the way.  I think I can see Oklahoma…

- Boobs:  There is enough silicon in this place to keep AMD and Intel in business for a long, long time.

- Bugs:  Ever seen a June Bug?  I have.  They are ugly, huge rolly-pollys with wings and giant eyes.  I swear to god I saw a grasshopper take down a 757 while I was outside by the pool.  Some of the bugs here are indeed truly gigantic, but that is what happens when the air has so much heat and water in it that you’d swear you were in the bath.

- Beer Prices:  I payed 25 dollars for a case of Bud Light Cans.  CANS.  25.  DOLLARS.   There would be rioting in the streets of Portland if they tried to make beer that expensive here (I know this because there almost was a few months ago… see THIS entry).  Maybe it’s because they have no micro-brew industry that I could discern to keep the prices competitive, but still…  I can buy a case of Peebers in Vancouver for 13 buck.

- Hair:  You know those people that come on the TV with their southern drawl and pleas for your money to help vanquish the forces of Satan, or the dinosaurs, or whatever it is they want your money for?  The men with their giant hairpieces that make it look like a saber-toothed tiger horked up the giantest hair ball ever onto their head, the women with their far-too-much makeup schemes and hair magically formed into a nearly perfect cylinder or dome or dodecahedron, the kids with their scaryness?  Yeah those people totally exist.

- Vehicles:  Hummers, Escalades, and Celicas oh my.  There are trucks everywhere here.  I have seen enough jacked-up F-150’s and Diesel Rams in the last few days to satisfy me for life.  There was a Celica that had a Rancho lift kit under it and sat on swampers.  A) It’s a Celica dude, get over it and B) It’s probably pretty hard to go swamping in DALLAS TEXAS.  I understand that your little state/country/wasteland is flush with black gold, but there is really no reason to have a truck that could drive over a tank and go 140 miles an hour in the middle of a city of 16.5 million people.  I’m just saying.