Texas - Abilene

I don’t know if it’s true that everything is bigger in Texas, but so far it certainly is flatter. 

TJ and I crossed the state line between New Mexico and Texas three days ago and the further inland we get the more things appear stereotypically Texan; there are oil wells, cows, and tractor equipment everywhere. I went inside a gas station to ask for directions and the man behind the counter gave them to me thusly: 

“Check it out right?” (Imagine a southern drawl here) “Ya’ll go left at the stop sign and merge on down to the interstate. Five miles down the road there’ll be the Wal-Mart.”'

When I thanked him, he touched the brim of his hat, nodded his head, and said "Ma'am". 

I've never been called ma'am in my life, and in the face of such manners, I stuttered my way out of the gas station trying to pinpoint when my body had been overtaken by a blithering idiot.

I always knew I had a thing for accents, but it’s a strange sensation to become ridiculous in the presence of a drawl. On this trip, so far, everyone sounds a little bit like us, and I think that because there wasn't much of an accent in Arizona I had sort of tricked myself into thinking that they weren't really real. Like TV and movies made them sound 20 times more insane than they actually are. 

In reality, when the handsome gas attendant gives you directions and it comes out all Texas-like, it's so unbelievably shocking, you're reduced to a giggling nincompoop WHO ACTUALLY BLUSHED on the way back to the van. 

I swear it feels like this is who you're speaking with. 

We are in Abilene right now, and the current plan is to head in a Southerly direction to meet up with a Couch Surfer who lives on an actual ranch...in Texas. I don't know why this feels like a prank. I think it's like the accent: it can't actually be authentic. Cowboys and ranches and buckles, boots, and hats - they seem so foreign to this second generation hippie chick from BC. 

Our Abilene couch surfing host had us meet her at a viewing of Factory Girl inside the Contemporary Art gallery downtown which included both popcorn and soda on the house! We then went to a pub and I had some of the best conversation in recent memory with one of our host's friends.

She's just recently returned from traveling in Europe and now that she’s back in Texas, she can’t stand it! She told me that she spent a large portion of her travels getting past the barrier that people automatically put up against Americans; she does not agree with the war in Iraq, she’s not George Bush’s daughter, she’s not an asshole, and she just wants to meet and hang out with other open-minded individuals. 

I can't imagine its easy being an open minded person living in a place that has billboards like this: 

We honestly saw this billboard, I tried to
get a pic but it was covered by a tree.
This one's from Google.

I then told her all about the Canadian imperative to mess with American’s whenever possible, Rick Mercer style...

For four out of the five years I was in High School we went to The Lionel Hampton Jazz Festival in Idaho where our school jazz band competed. The available activities at this festival were understandably all Jazz related, which we were only playing at being interested in. The reality was it was all just an excuse to get out of school for four days with like 20 of your friends and minimal Parental supervision; they were foaming at the mouth to see Diana Krall, while we found new and inventive ways to mess with the Americans. 

We would act upset and start talking in excited French saying things like “I need to go to the Bathroom!” and “Can I go to my locker!!!” just to see the confused look on people’s faces. 

We convinced the proprietors of the bowling alley in Lewiston that we had to leave our seal skin parkas at the border because of America's animal rights laws; my friend then looked at the radio and whisper-yelled "the magic box speaks!" 

Never seen anyone cooler in my life.

Our pièce de résistance, however, was that we harassed the employees of a particular Baskin Robins into believing that Canada’s national drink was called Maple Beer TWO YEARS IN A ROW. What is Maple Beer you ask? An ingenious concoction of Maple Syrup and Root Beer (sidenote: we tried to make it once. It was revolting) that we told the Baskin Robbins staff that they should be ashamed for not carrying that flavour of ice cream. Year two they remembered us and gave us free ice cream. 

My new friend in Abilene laughed heartily at this and said that she was not surprised in the least. 

The next day our CS host was out for most of the day, but when she returned, her arrival was announced to us in the form of laughter. 

“I giant flock of birds must have landed in the pecan tree next to the van...because it is COVERED in shit!” 

We looked, we gasped, we cringed. 

Bebe looked as if she had fought a furious campaign against an full army of some kind of very ill bird and, though lived to tell about it, still showed the battle wounds of being doody-bombed from all angles. 

It dried before we could get to a car wash. Some of it never came off...

We chose to ignore the situation for the time being in favour for going out for Chinese food, which was delicious but did not quite numb the irritation that we would now have to scrub natures recreation of Jackson Pollock off the van. 

The rest of our evening was spent drinking wine, eating Neapolitan ice cream, munching on kettle corn, and watching Religulous. 

Our last day in Abilene we decided to go downtown, even though we knew it was going to be dead on a Saturday, our hopes were high that something would be open. 

Everything you thought Texas might be...it is.

As it was, The Texas Store exposed us to lots of paraphernalia revolving around the “Don’t Mess with Texas” theme and various other Texan delights...including the return of the blithering idiot from when we first arrived. 

Behind the counter was a home grown, dimpled, well mannered boy. He had an honest to goodness dimple when he smiled, that struck me dumb for a few moments, as it was also coupled with one of those crooked, startlingly white, smiles that cause members of the female persuasion to lose feeling in their knee caps and falter under the strain of maintaining the appearance of normalcy. I bought several things from this boy; I regret nothing. 

We were considering staying in Abilene for the weekend as my new friend from the other night offered to put us up, but we’ve been spending a lot of days just “killing time” for some reason. It vaguely made sense when we were going to see my father in Arizona, but now that we’re two months (for me) into the trip and so close to Louisiana, this just doesn’t seem like a good idea anymore. We decided to forge ahead!