Everything is Bigger and Better in Texas?

Location: Holiday Park Campground (COE); Benbrook, Texas (elev 700 feet)

Pictures taken with a Nokia Lumia Icon 929 and Google Pixel 2XL cell phones.
Click pictures to enlarge

I got a very early start this morning and was on the road by 7:40 a.m. I was trying to get hitched up before the heat and humidity set in. Even starting that early, my shirt was soaked by the time I was ready to drive away. Luckily, I planned ahead and had a fresh shirt in the truck to put on. The towing distance was about 265 miles with essentially all of it on Interstate highways. With the exception of hitting about 3 bumps in Louisiana and about 6 in Texas, the trip was uneventful. These 9 bumps were memorable since they were so bad, the spice bottles flew out of the spice rack. That has never happened before in the 5+ years of RV'ing. I hit Dallas around 11 and never slowed down. Freedom was locked in on 65 mph and we cruised right on through. 

The campground is a Corp of Engineers campground located on the man-made lake named Benbrook Lake. It's an older campground and is beginning to show it's age but overall I'm satisfied with it and at $14.00 per night with the senior pass, that makes it even better. I now have a lifetime pass instead of an annual pass. I asked for an $20.00 annual pass but the nice lady said they were out, but I could convert my expired annual pass to a lifetime pass for $60.00. Since I couldn't get an annual pass and the next location for me to get one would be Gunnison, Colorado, I decided to bite the bullet and get the lifetime pass. It immediately reduced by campground fees at this park by $42.00. Just on this trip alone, the pass will save me close to $200.00.

This is the campsite. The picture was taken with my new cell phone. The jury is still out on it.

View from the picnic table.

A Gnarled old tree on the banks of the lake.

There are a couple of things I want to see while in Fort Worth for the three days I will be here. There won't be a lot of outside activity due to the heat index being over 100 degrees. But, there are a couple interesting indoor things to keep me busy before I move on down the road.

Buc-ee's Gas Stations continue to prove things are bigger and better in Texas. I didn't count the number of gas pumps but a rough estimate would be around 75.

This is inside Buc-ee's. Yep, that is four self serve Icee machines on the left. You can even see to the other end of the store. Everything Bigger and Better in Texas???

When I was a child, the saying "everything is bigger and better in Texas" was common throughout Texas. As I've said before, my family moved around the country as my father worked for a national construction company that built bridges, dams, tunnels, etc around the country. Well, my mother being full blood Texan (not one of those Transplant Texans or Winter Texans,,,LOL) felt it was her duty in life to let everyone that wasn't blessed by being born in Texas to know about that saying. She would often tell a joke to make the point. The joke went something like this,,,,, A rich Texan was entertaining a Yankee couple at his big ranch. He showed the couple some big bulls and told them "everything is bigger and better in Texas",,,, then he showed them the 50,000 acres of his ranch and said again, "everything is bigger and better in Texas". Finally after the Texan mentioned it dozens of time all day, they finally got to his big house which was 'bigger and better'. The Yankee couple was getting tired of the bragging so they turned in early to the guest room with the 'bigger and better' bed. Well, one of the Yankees had to get up in the middle of the night to go to the bathroom, made a wrong turn in the dark, opened the door to a room and promptly fell into the big oversized swimming pool. He then woke up the entire house by screaming,,,,,, "Don't flush it, for goodness sake, don't flush it". It's strange how some of those thing just stick with you after all the decades have passed.

     
Ya'll take care of each other. I'll Cya down the road.