Roadtripping across Texas

Because most of my relatives live in Houston and I do not, I often drive across the entire state of Texas.

Sometimes I think people are exaggerating how weird Texas is. Then I see something like this.

Of course, one cannot go to the hottest and most humid parts of the state without air conditioning in the car. Mine was broken until just a few days ago, when I begged some friends who actually like working on cars to "help" me replace it. We barely finished it the night before I was supposed to arrive. Thus did I drive several hours into a record-breaking heat wave, leaving a pile of car parts in the yard.

 

Since I actually like long bouts of solitude, roadtripping across Texas always seems idyllic for the first hundred miles or so (aside from the cost of gasoline and snacks). But there is no getting around the fact that Texas is very very big. The roads keep going but your destination never gets closer. Even now that our phones have GPS, you can drive for a long time before you realize you're lost. You can also go for hours wondering if you missed a turn-off, only to look it up the next time your phone has reception and see that you're still a few counties away. But if you desperately crave the open road, try driving through Texas. You'll get all the road you could ever want.

"It is a pretty country. It does not demand your admiration, as some regions do, but seems glad for it all the same." - Jetta Carleton (She was writing about the Ozarks but it works anyway.)

I think that lusting for "the open road" is very American. We love to imagine ourselves leaving the city behind and flooring the gas pedal into the wide countryside. But reality is full of speed traps and hidden cops who definitely do not have ticket quotas. You end up obsessively watching for speed limit signs, especially in the more forlorn parts of the state. Even if you give the local sheriffs no reason to pull you over, "the open road" is romantic to imagine but dull to actually drive on.

After making the same journey enough times, you start to recognize little things on the monotonous roads. One farm has Gadsden flag that gets more and more raggedy every time you pass it. In the middle of one specific field, an roofless shack looks like someone keeps repainting its interior walls. (They're bright green.) A weatherbeaten Baptist church on the side of the highway has TRUST THE PROCESS on its sign instead of a weekly Bible verse. (Sometimes it seems like there's a church for every farmhouse.) The confederate flags over various people's entry gates are all tellingly tattered. Belief in "the lost cause" is not paying off.

Repeatedly crossing the state also means you learn where you should stop. After making the trip enough times, you will know which city has the really good pizza place, which one has a bakery in the gas station that actually makes everything on site (worth the detour), and where you found that charming park with shaded pathways for when you have been strapped into the driver's seat for too long. 

This sausage roll was worth nearly getting lost.

And of course, you learn which towns to drive through without tapping the brakes. You may, for example, find out that there isn't a clean bathroom in all of Gustine no matter how desperate you are. Relatedly, you will also figure out which towns have the worst speed traps. (If you pass through a town that's just a few miserable buildings huddled around an intersection and then wonder where the money comes from, the answer is outsiders like you.) 

You may ask how I know the food in every gas station on the entire lower third of the state when I theoretically take the same roads every time. And the answer is that no amount of satellite aid can fix my sense of direction. Even when I can get maps beamed in from space, I get so far off course that it's better to figure out a new route than to backtrack to the last time I was on the right road. But going through every town I wasn't supposed to means I find such convenience store oddities as freeze-dried Oreo cheesecake.

It's like dessert jerky.

On the subject of dining at gas stations, apparently "hot honey" is the new salted caramel. Trend-chasing places are putting it on everything, up to and including pepperoni pizza.

As I put more miles between myself and economic prosperity, I see a lot of double-stacked billboards begging for someone to come up with something to advertise on them.  

As the counties go by and the roads get lonelier, the pop music of the cities gives way to unrelenting country and Christian radio. If you're lucky, you pass through a college town with a student-run radio station playing eclectic music. But that is only a short reprieve from the programming of America's heartland. And after listening to country or Christian radio, you begin to understand why so many people in the lonely parts of America get angry and sprout Trump flags.

Country songs have gotten very combative in the last few years. Nashville's songwriters love to defiantly dare some imaginary city person to take away their cotton fields (sorghum fields aren't as lyrical), or to seize their wife/kids/homemade wine. Since no foreign invaders have given their songwriters and listeners an enemy to unite against, they have to pretend that urbane armies are attacking them from all sides. It is certainly lucrative. 

Incidentally, "homemade wine" is oddly popular in country songs right now. I think it's supposed to represent some imaginary version of "old fashioned" (just like every country song, by industry executive fiat, must use the phrase "small town"), but I didn't see any winemaking supplies in the various stores I stopped at for food along the way. I guess it's easier to imagine that someone else making homemade wine than to do it yourself. 

After an hour or two, country music gets too repetitive to endure. Even if you never listen to country radio at any other time of your life, you soon notice that you're getting served the same handful of pre-approved songs over and over. Retail background music has more songs on rotation.

For a while, I switched over to Christian radio out of anthropological interest (and because there were no other options). But that soon got too depressing. If country music is under threat from people who brunch, Christian radio is at active war. The pastors make it sound like they're the only survivors of the great Bible-burning of last Wednesday. Christian radio has a bumper crop of ministers ready to tell you exactly why you're not good enough. The number of metaphors they can bend into a guilt trip is astounding. And lest you dare privately disagree, God's self-appointed representatives punctuate every other sentence with a Bible citation to remind you that their version of the Lord doesn't like independent thought.

I'm not a morning person, but in the summer there's something special about the hazy early hour before the sun has finished rising and the day's heat has not yet arrived.

On Christian radio, all of the news breaks between the sermons are delivered in an angry shout, making me wonder about the heart attack rate of Christian newscasters. I was particularly interested in the godly outrage over one city's ban of corporal punishment in schools. I could hear the announcer's fists pounding on the studio table while he furiously ranted that the ban includes private schools and therefore is "government intrusion." He tap-danced around the whole "corporal punishment" business with vague yet reassuring phrases like "parental choice" and "personal freedom," carefully avoiding any mention of hitting children. I was amazed that anyone could so deftly use weasel words at peak bluster.

If we turn the dial away from supply-side Jesus, the commercials in smaller towns often feature actual people in between the corporate ads. After Pizza Hut shouts their latest promotion at you, Jenkins himself comes on and says that Jenkins' Plumbing is ready to fix your emergencies at any time, even if your pipes leak in the middle of the night. Then the local librarian comes on ("It's been a few weeks, and I'm glad to be back!") to tell everyone that the library will have an architectural history talk (which will also be recorded and posted on their Facebook page) and an AirBnB workshop in the upcoming week.

It's almost time to turn off the headlights and get out the sunglasses.

Eventually, as you get near a big city, pop music comes back in both English and Spanish. The change in language is refreshing whether you can understand a word or not. Unexpectedly, I found an elevator music radio station with a suprisingly long range. I actually like elevator music-- so much so that I have favorite eras and also recognized several specific recordings. You may not be surprised to learn that no one wanted to pay to get their commercials aired between the inoffensive renditions of forgotten pop hits. Instead, as the announcers heavy-handedly reminded us between songs, Simply Beautiful 91.3 is funded by donations which you can make any time, day or night, on their website. 

If, as I do, you prefer to start driving in the dead of night, you often find yourself passing through towns just as the flea markets are opening for the day. I couldn't help stopping at a particularly overcrowded one that felt like a last detour for things on their way to the dump.

Places like this are perfect for meditating on the fleeting nature of life and how everything that seems so important won't be after enough years. After all, someone probably spent most of their life swatting children and guests away from "the good china" only for it to end up in a box on a folding table in the sun.

Maybe they should have just let the kids play tea party with these.

I think that back when wedding china was still a thing, manufacturers dripped heavy sentimentality in their advertisements about "starting traditions," enticing young brides and grooms with the idea that many decades later, their descendants would carefully unbox the same ancestral plates every Christmas and fondly remember their triple-great grandparents. The china then went into the heavy china hutch that took up an entire wall in the dining room, never to leave the shelves again. Many of my friends grew up with parents or grandparents who reserved the good china "for when the pope visits." Now that it's time to hand the china on, no one has room for the hutch and nobody has fond memories of special meals on the fancy plates, so the would-be heirlooms end up in places like this.

Also, people don't like gold or silver rims on plates now that we all have microwaves.

I also found kitchen things that  almost certainly were fond parts of various people's holiday memories (unlike the hand-painted plates), including this cookie press with all the stencils still carefully tied on. Fortunately, I didn't waste any money on it because I bought the same one and it failed me.

A lot of things seemed less like junk and more like stuff that can't find the people looking for it. Perhaps things like this accumulate in small towns because no one ever stops long enough to buy them. I'm pretty sure a lot of people would like these grilling racks, but no one thinks they're worth 4 hours on a two-lane road.

Speaking of reasons to pull off the road, we in America don't appreciate free bathrooms like we should. In many other countries, you can't lower your drawers without paying a fee. But in the United States, there is an implied social contract that most drive-thrus and gas stations will let people use the bathrooms for free. I should note that the US didn't naturally allow everyone to relieve themselves free of charge. It took a nationwide campaign for everyone to freely pass their water. But now, you even find government-funded rest stops on major highways. 

It may look sparse, but it is clean and it is there when you need it.

Even gas stations have clean and often charmingly decorated facilities for any travellers in time of need.

I think each of those brands were hand-burned into the molding at the ceiling.

In all seriousness, a lot of my friends who have crossed the Atlantic tell me that Paris/Vienna/Rome/wherever "smelled like pee." It's not hard to conjecture that a lot of people don't want to lighten their wallets every time nature calls. 

Whenever I feel bad about where things are going in this country, free toilets give me a small bit of hope. It's a little reminder that there's some bit of goodness left in nearly everyone, and that most people aren't trying to squeeze money out of every part of our existence.

But before my rhapsodies about free bathrooms make everyone outside the US want to renew their passports and experience all that our plumbing has to offer, I should note that not every roadside stop is quite so lovely. Sometimes, when you end up walking cross-legged out of the car in desperation and cursing your love of 44-oz fountain sodas (another uniquely American delight), you end up in places like this.

When you finally reach Houston, the local humidity greets you before any of your loved ones have a chance. The condensation soon made my rear window nearly useless.

But even when you get there, you are nowhere near done driving. Houston is one of America's largest cities, but it's more like a suburb that keeps stretching farther and farther up the highway. As the various warehouses and strip malls get more densely packed on either side, you may think you'll soon be off the road and blissfully done with the car. But no matter how close you think you are, you are not there yet. 

This time, our drive took us through Houston and out the other side. We ended up staying right by the NASA space center. Even though it is literally on a street called "NASA Road 1" (Or "NASA Parkway," the street signs are a little inconsistent) and has big ornamental space shuttles out front, Johnson Space Center is easy to miss. It sits on a massive tract of land, but it only abuts the street for a few short carlengths.

While the space center was originally built far away from the city, Houston has sprawled out to it. Strip malls and questionably built mcmansions are crowded into every lot that could be parceled out. Anyone doing the NASA tour will drive past an astounding number of strip mall plastic surgery "spas." I'm not sure if this means there's still a lot of money to be had in working for NASA in spite of the budget cuts, or if people are stretching their funds in an attempt to look like it.

Even the most mundane of businesses take advantage of being so close to outer space. For instance, you can do your laundry among the stars. 

Or, if you so desire, you can go to Saturn and buy a burrito that may have been drying out on hot rollers long enough to actually fly there.

 

NASA even found its way to the hotel I booked. The owners were proud to show that an actual astronaut with his own Wikipedia page stayed there on his way off the planet. 

I think the paint covers the hotel's previous name. Hotels often change ownership, which usually means the same people work there but the logo on the sign is replaced.

Naturally, I was so thrilled to finally get out of the car and make myself at home. 

Everything tastes better out of a wineglass.

By happy accident, I managed to book one of the few places that hasn't yet painted all of the walls gray. Also, I think a lamp on both sides of a bed make it look so much more inviting. I may keep an eye out for a matching-ish pair of table lamps.

The bedside notepad has apparently sat undisturbed long enough for the pen to get tan lines.

If the presence of colorful paint made this place seem dated, everything else turned the room into a time capsule. The ceiling lights had those fluorescent bulbs that were once so popular among people trying make a statement out of saving electricity. 

The handwashing sink also had an unexpectedly vintage touch: a vertical Kleenex slot in the front. I hadn't thought about it until I saw it, but every motel used to have one of these and now most of them don't.

As I washed the drive off of myself, I couldn't help contemplating the complex network of contracts, manufacturing deals, supplier negotiations, meetings, conference calls, and emails that ultimately led to bracket-specific shampoo bottles (complete with indicator windows so the room cleaners can see whether they need replaced) and the proprietary brackets that hold them. They remind us that everything we buy, from frozen corn to cars, is the result of a complex supply network that encircles the globe. I hope none of our elected officials start kicking up trade wars.

Some people like sightseeing once they've rested up a bit, but I prefer to wander the hallways of whatever hotel I'm staying at and see what unexpected yet mundane things I can find. I love the little glimpses of the people whose lives have temporarily brought us all into the same building, like the parents whose child was very proud of their Little League achievements and wanted the world to know. 

I imagine the conversation went something like "Mom, put my sign on the door! Mom! Mom!"

 

You also see people leaving their shoes outside the door. I loved the implied trust.

Sometimes, you find complete stories on a little paper sign. In this one, we can see emotional tension that escalates from the beginning of the typed text to the end of the decreasingly legible handwriting, climaxing where the paper was ripped apart.

In the downstairs hallways, one finds odd remnants of the peak covid era. Fading signs about social distancing remind you how long it's been since we all stayed six feet apart. And the bathroom stalls hold displays of wealth that future post-pandemic generations will never understand.

Yes, our American stall partitions are over a foot (viz. 3 decimeters) off the ground. However, I didn't have to get out my coin purse to gain entry.

Whenever I stay in a hotel, I am always struck by how impossible it is to get rid of a pizza box. It doesn't matter whether the place has a concierge with a solid brass nametag, or whether it has an abandoned swimming pool filled with dirt. Nor does it matter whether you booked the kind of room that has a bed covered with feather pillows or if you only got translucent blankets and a bathroom with extra-scratchy toilet paper and a stained sink. The trash cans are always as puny as the ones one tucks under the bathroom sink at home. Furthermore, the trash cans in the lobby (if there is a lobby) are barely large enough to handle the candy wrappers and empty cups that people scoop off of their car floors at the end of a long drive, and certainly aren't ready to receive the the box that held last night's extra-large with green peppers and pepperoni. Nor is there ever a large-trash dropoff downstairs unless you count the dumpsters behind the building (and that's if they're not locked). And so, your takeout containers and other food-related cardboard inevitably end up stacked on whatever passes for a table, giving even the most tastefully-appointed hotel room all the dignity of a two-bedroom house shared by 5 college students. 

Of course, when one travels, it's nice to venture outside at least a few times. Stepping out is an easy way to see why Houston is famous for its heat and its horrid humidity. I think this restaurant doubled its profits with a hastily taped-up paper sign:

Actually, a lot of businesses in the NASA area have some seriously expensive custom neon signs. I soon found out why they could all afford it: a neon shop right on NASA Road 1 (which, in a very Houstonian way, shares a parking lot with a car dealer).

It was nice of those neon people to do (presumably) discounted sign work for their neighbors.

Houston is a great place to test your car's antilock brakes (not that you have a choice). But being trapped on snarled roads with terrible drivers comes with an unexpected upside: if you get lost (and you will), you can just stop wherever you are and get out a map. A car half-pulled into a random driveway with its rear end jutting into the road is nothing to these people. (Houston may be the one place in the US where I am an above-average driver.) I think navigating the traffic explains that peculiarly frazzled look I always see on people checking into Houston hotels. 

Eventually, of course, one must leave Houston. Some of the city's infamous humidity inevitably travels with you. Any sealed bag soon beads up with water as you drive away.

 

If you're going to drive across Texas, you should do it in the spring. Springtime in Texas is compressed into a few short weeks. There isn't much time between the last freeze of the year and the heatstroke days of summer. As a result, all of the wildflowers frantically rush to come out of the ground and bloom before they get browned to a crisp. In the best time of the year, all of the highways are covered with splashes and swaths of colors that would make Monet swoon.

And maybe if you make enough wrong turns among the flowers, you can bump into this roadside tallow shack that I passed once and haven't seen since.

I don't know how many inadvertent detours it took to get here.