Background
We completed some training at Texas A&M University and had the option of delaying our flights back to the UK by a week. We decided to take this option and see a bit of Texas. We had endless discussions though email about where to go and how to do it. The one thing I really pushed was to hire pick-up trucks. I thought these would be the most practical too as we’d have the flatbeds to keep all our stuff. I hadn’t realised that the rear seats wouldn’t be particularly comfortable.
Diary
After a couple of weeks living in Motels we spent our last “expense-able” night in quite a nice hotel with massive beds. We had to get up pretty early to get the trucks as we wanted to hit the road.
The first stop was going to be San Antonio but had since been warned it was a bit of a dive. We decided to head via Austin as that is a cool place. American highways are incredibly boring places so there aren’t many stories from those. Austin was great, we had lunch in a wooden shack by the side of the road that did fantastic blackened shrimp. We hung around for the rest of the afternoon and then headed to San Antonio (we had booked a motel there already).
Any trip to Texas wouldn’t be complete without a rodeo, so we took the opportunity to visit one at the AT&T Basketball Stadium. The rodeo itself was brilliant, luckily we had a programme otherwise we’d have had no idea what was going on, being able to understand the scoring made it relatively easy. There was a special function for overseas visitors where we were welcomed with a couple a couple of free drinks each and a medal which was nice. The area around the stadium had been turned into a massive livestock and leather goods market, it was interesting walking around the different stalls.
The next stop on our list was Galveston, as we had heard that it was Mardi Gras. On the way over we were stalked by a State Trooper for a few miles before finally being pulled over. I knew (probably from watching too many American movies) that as the driver I had to sit looking forward with my hands on the wheel until the man approached the car. The others didn’t which made him nervous; he said seeing them looking round made him think he was going to get shot. It was fairly obvious we were foreigners and he only pulled us over because he wasn’t sure everyone was wearing their belts (they were). He let us go pretty quickly.
-Diain
We completed some training at Texas A&M University and had the option of delaying our flights back to the UK by a week. We decided to take this option and see a bit of Texas. We had endless discussions though email about where to go and how to do it. The one thing I really pushed was to hire pick-up trucks. I thought these would be the most practical too as we’d have the flatbeds to keep all our stuff. I hadn’t realised that the rear seats wouldn’t be particularly comfortable.
Diary
After a couple of weeks living in Motels we spent our last “expense-able” night in quite a nice hotel with massive beds. We had to get up pretty early to get the trucks as we wanted to hit the road.
The first stop was going to be San Antonio but had since been warned it was a bit of a dive. We decided to head via Austin as that is a cool place. American highways are incredibly boring places so there aren’t many stories from those. Austin was great, we had lunch in a wooden shack by the side of the road that did fantastic blackened shrimp. We hung around for the rest of the afternoon and then headed to San Antonio (we had booked a motel there already).
Any trip to Texas wouldn’t be complete without a rodeo, so we took the opportunity to visit one at the AT&T Basketball Stadium. The rodeo itself was brilliant, luckily we had a programme otherwise we’d have had no idea what was going on, being able to understand the scoring made it relatively easy. There was a special function for overseas visitors where we were welcomed with a couple a couple of free drinks each and a medal which was nice. The area around the stadium had been turned into a massive livestock and leather goods market, it was interesting walking around the different stalls.
The next stop on our list was Galveston, as we had heard that it was Mardi Gras. On the way over we were stalked by a State Trooper for a few miles before finally being pulled over. I knew (probably from watching too many American movies) that as the driver I had to sit looking forward with my hands on the wheel until the man approached the car. The others didn’t which made him nervous; he said seeing them looking round made him think he was going to get shot. It was fairly obvious we were foreigners and he only pulled us over because he wasn’t sure everyone was wearing their belts (they were). He let us go pretty quickly.
-Diain