On Texas Medium!

Lesley and I decided, some time ago, it would be fun to go camping in New Mexico and maybe see the Grand Canyon and slip in the Hoover damn for good measure. Plans evolved and it became a flight to DFW (Dallas-Fort Worth) with a quick drive to Houston, then San Antonio, then New Mexico via El Paso. Then we got hit with budget. Specifically, because the new upgraded, appliances were delivered this week to our new house we have a $10 thousand outstanding on the Visa bill. We have changed our return date from Friday to Tuesday and will turn back towards DFW after we see San Antonio. New Mexico, the whole reason we came will have to wait. But at least I can lay claim to seeing the place that created George Walker Bush, the man who lost the 2000 election yet still became President, to the detriment of a nation. (I also get to be in Texas just as the Obama v. Clinton grudge match hits full blast on the airwaves.)

Speaking of Politics for a second, we are at a modest hotel in Houston as I write this, not far from what was probably once called the Houston Intercontinental Airport. It is called the George Bush Intercontinental Airport. I have a real issue with that. Just as the depression started to hit real hard, President Hoover and the United States congress authorized construction of a damn on the Colorado river not far from the small town of Las Vegas Nevada. Originally called the Boulder damn, it was renamed, during the term of President Hoover, to the Hoover damn. When FDR became president in 1933 one of the first things he had done was change the name back to the Boulder damn, you just don't name things after sitting presidents, its the height of arrogance to do that. (Yes the name was changed back to Hoover damn many years later, I think after Hoover died, but the point is, you want to honour a president wait the 4 or 8 years for him to leave office and then honour him, or, hopefully not next year but, her.)

Anyway a summary of events so far is in order.

On Friday, February 29, we were supposed to leave Toronto via Air Canada flight 1048, direct service to DFW, departing at 18:55. It snowed, hard, the flight was cancelled which was alright with me. We were stuck in the afternoon rush-hour disaster and had not even made it to Avenue Road and St. Clair by 17:30 when Lesley got through on a cell phone to Air Canada and found out about the cancellation.

Saturday, March 1, things went very near picture perfect, as far as a trip to Texas can go picture perfect. Our flight even pushed off from the gate a few minutes early. Now DFW airport is a HUGE airport, I mean you might have seen Terminal 1 in Toronto and think, that's pretty big, especially if you have to walk all the way from the metal detectors to one of the distant gates, but that's just peanuts compared to DFW. DFW is, by traffic volume I think, the third busiest airport in the United States and the largest airport by floor space. It also occupies places in the top ten for size, World wide. You would think, an airport of that magnitude would have little trouble slotting our dinky little 73 passenger airplane in, but no, we had to wait a good twenty minutes on the tarmac seat-belts fastened - for reasons that escape me, since we weren't moving - while the plane that occupied our gate loaded up and got out of the way. Yes we had landed and we were safe, but its still frustrating to be trapped in a plane like that.

We rented a car, obviously, ended up getting a Rav-4. After a quick lunch (breakfast at noon?) we bought a tour book of Texas and another for New Mexico then we drove from Dallas to Houston. The drive is about 400 km, and used about 36L of gas, which, when you factor in getting lost trying to escape DFW and the mind boggling lack of road signs, 9L/100Km is pretty good fuel economy, especially for a V6 engine. I'd be curious what kind of gas mileage I could get back home, where I actually know all the roads.

Texas is an ugly state. Yes everything is bigger in Texas, the vehicles (our Rav-4 was one of the smaller things I crossed paths with on the highway), the food portions, the people. But here we are in early March and the afternoon high was more than 25 degrees, yet the grass is brown and the trees are barren. The whole thing reminded me of Toronto in November, except in November its never 25 degrees, sadly.

On the radio, as well as the billboards, there were numerous chances to cross paths with Christian Evangelism. Thanks to the fact that it is 2008 it was even easier to listen to campaign ads, the fact that Mr. Obama has spent twice as much on media buys in Texas as Mrs. Clinton is very obvious too. (Still at least in the ads I heard there was no attacking of the other guy, but the part where the girl in the Obama ad said he is cute, sorry I thought we were working out President of the United States, not Prom Queen.) If I listened to country music, (no I don't, but I was scanning and landed on a country station during commercials) I could have heard more of, "John Doe a true conservative, supports tax relief and executing baby killing abortion doctors, running in the Texas 54'th Congressional district."

Before we arrived I had an image of a state filled with very polite gun toting slow talking oil barons. Instead I found a good rule of thumb for drivers on the freeways. Take the posted speed limit, say 70 miles an hour, and ignore it! Or multiply by 10, - use the larger of the two values when in doubt. Mind you I'd pay good money to hear that Texas drawl.

We got to the hotel around 5pm, it was small, but for the price, not bad. Lesley decided she wanted Chinese food, naturally Texas has a large Chinese community, they live in Texan city of New York, in the North East part of the state. (I was actually sort of craving a burrito, oh well maybe I can get one from the large Mexican population in Toronto, in little Mexico, just south of Little Italy.)

There is actually a China Town in Houston, in the South West corner of town. Now we are in the North, mid section. Google Maps, suggested we use a ring road called the Sam Houston Toll Road. Now I've used toll roads plenty of times, I even have an E-Z Pass in my car for trips to New York or Boston, but the toll roads in Houston are brutal! To cover a about a quarter of the ring around Houston costs $4.50, but its not a get a piece of paper when you get on and pay when you get off deal like in New York, oh no, that would be too easy! Instead it's line up every so often at a toll plaza and cough up another $1.50. There's no lineup if you have an "E-Z Tag" but hey it's a rental car, nobody told me about E-Z Tags and why is the line to pay money so damned long? Can't Houston afford to hire more Toll both workers? With an 8.25% sales tax you would think, but then this is the same place some of the most corrupt and incompetent elected officials came from.

It occurs to me, this entire entry talks about driving, but then, this is Texas, what else is there to talk about? Today we are going to the Johnson Space Centre, named after the last good politician from Texas, then we are going to see some fine art. Hopefully the next entry will be a little less about driving and a little more positive too.