Beetle Juice in the Beer

We drove for 24 hours straight. The next day, we drove for 10 hours. On the third day, we drove another six hours, and finally arrived in Corpus Christi, Texas. After all that driving, we'll stay for a while. We brought 9 windsurf boards and about 15 sails that all want to be sailed in Texas. Everything from 220 liters down to 62 liters. That will take a while.

On the second day of driving, we had to choose: drive another 6 hours and arrive in the middle of the night, or take it easy? We took it easy, and were darn glad we did. The hotel was nice, with a bar just a 3 minute walk away. The bar was pretty cool, with a huge fish tank behind it, and UFC on the TV. But we barely got to watch it, since the fellow sitting next to us had plenty of interesting things to tell and suggest. The first thing was to drink Ziegenbock beer, a Texas Amber. Not a bock bier - it tasted more like a blonde. Perfect.

Except for what they put into the beer! Our new Texan friend Ben told us the secret behind it's great taste: they put beetle juice into the beer! It seemed a tad suspicious that he mentioned this only after I had told him that I am a vegetarian. But he said it with a very straight face, so it must be true. Now, you can even read about it on the internet, so it absolutely positively must be true.

Ben gave us a couple more good tips. The first one was to try the nachos. I must have eaten nachos hundreds of times before, but this was the first time we could finish the whole plate without getting our fingers dirty (using forks and knives with nachos is really not an option). They had arranged the nachos in a circle on the outside of the plate, and covered them with just the right amount of beens, cheese, and so on. What an idea!

His next suggestion was that we absolutely had to stop at a Buc-ees. Ever heard that everything is bigger in Texas? It's true:

Our Nissan hi-roof van does not usually look small. But in this gas station, it did. There were about 100 gas pumps there! It was not very busy, but there must have been at least 20 cars pumping gas at the same time.

Like most other gas stations, there was a convenience store attached to this one - here's a look at one half of it:

Yes, it is huge. Texas sized. It also has style - here's the entrance to the bathrooms:

Definitely not your average gas station bathrooms!  The inside had art work, too. Of course, it was super-clean and spacious. I would have taken pictures, but I did not think that would have been welcomed by the other guys in there... so you'll have to take my word for it, or come look yourself: the bathrooms at Buc-ees are nicer that the bathrooms in 99 percent of all hotels. At least!

We spent close to an hour in the store, checking out all the cool stuff they had. Here are a few examples:

Texans like cows. A lot. They usually eat them, but sometimes, they paint them.

There's a gun hanging off the "We Don't Dial 911" sign.

Somehow, we managed to make it out of the store without spending much money. Maybe we were just tired from all the driving. We did get some sugar-roasted Pecans, which where fantastic.

We've been on North Padre Island for 2 days now, and love it. Temperatures are around 65-70 F (17-21 C), with plenty of sun. We even got some windsurfing in - nice to be in a short-sleeved wetsuit again! In case you're wondering why things are so great here, the Buc-ees store had a sign that explains it: