Six Flags (and two weeks) over Texas
Emails from DECEMBER 20, 2003-JANUARY 3, 2004
December 21, 2003
Matt, Mike and I are in Dallas right now, where the temps were almost 70 today. Quite nice. We saw a pitiful NYG-Dallas game today, but, luckily, last night's Mavs-Clippers game was luscious. LAC played a flawless game and won, 115-105. That's the good news. As for the bad news, as those you to whom I have spoken, know, I am quite ill. It all started Friday afternoon, and I have been fair to poor for the past 48 hours. Hopefully, things will get better, but even with the warm temps, it has been rough for me. Thankfully, Matt has been very forthcoming and helpful. We go to Houston tomorrow, via College Station.
December 23, 2003
Hello Fine Chums and Chumettes. The first tidbit of which to update y'all upon is that I am feeling 80% better. Sore throat is all that remains which is fine with me for now. Monday, we drove Southward from Dallas through "G-d's Country" and stopped to tour Texas A + M and its surrounding stadia, bookstore and bathrooms. Lovely. I donned my finest Barry Zito jersey to mark the occasion. To add to the aesthetics, it was windy but about 67 degrees.
We arrived in Houston at dusk and had a horrible meal replete with a $3 tip from us. Tuesday, we went downtown and took a wonderful tour of "Homeron" Minute Maid Park. It was as good as my other four MLB tours of the past (Phoenix, SF, Arizona, San Diego, Cleveland, Tampa Bay, Seattle, Pittsburgh). We then hit Rice University, Reliant Stadium and the Astrodome. No one had any interest in NASA. This is not that sort of trip, for better or worse. Rockets game was at 730pm and it was a typical post 2000 NBA game: Pacers 79, Rockets 71. Toyota Center is very Chinese (Red, drums banging, Yao-influenced). Afterwards, we went to a bar, had Mexican Food, and I choked on second hand smoke. Today, we drove Northwest to Austin and we toured UT for about 45 minutes (stadia, etc). Now, we are back at the hotel, preparing for the 5th night of Chanukkah.
December 25, 2003
Well, la di friggen da! One could say that I am NO LONGER "deep in the heart of Texas." You might be fairly accurate if you speculated that my current status and position is "on the fringes of the Gulf Coast." I am indeed in the Port City of Corpus Christi (see a map if you desire more info and perspective), which is not as bad as "advertised." With the ample downtown, extremely large homes and state University, it could conceivably be compared and contrasted with a city or nation such as St. Petersburg (Florida, not Russia), Ocean City (MD), Biloxi or Madagascar (the latter of which I have NO basis for comparison).
Tomorrow, we head South, again, to South Padre Island for about 48 hours of relaxation bliss (no games, no traffic, no colleges, no Drury Inn, and great weather (80 degrees)). Then, back to San Antonio, where I will next update you after the Spurs-Bucks game.
Quick aside:
1) Wednesday night saw me scurrying through a barren X-mas Eve at Univ. of Texas, almost drive the car off an 8 foot curb by my hotel, eschew the "greatest burger in Texas" due to the "restaurant" being over-run by bikers and hippies (my buddies still went - I have principles, I suppose), stand at the State Capital in Austin at 10pm, looking around in a black hooded sweatshirt, initiating looks from local authorities.
2) We hit San Antonio, briefly, today, on the way from Austin to CC and saw the Alamo and the Riverwalk. AJK to a Mexican who took our picture: "Good job with that win here 167 years ago! Too bad it just prolonged your ultimate crushing defeat." Ok, so maybe I only said the first part.
3) Being X-mas night tonight, we found the only place open: The Corpus Christi Greyhound Dog Racing Track. Need I say more? And, as you can tell by the length and tenor of this email, I feel much better.
December 29, 2003
Yes, yes. It is nearly dos a.m., in the Central Time Zone so I will be brief. I am sitting in San Antonio on a 40 degree evening/early morning, after a nice Spurs victory at the SBC Center (which looks like an airplane hangar) in front of 19,000 passionate fans. Good game. TJ Ford sucks, and we let him know that. Since we I last wrote and spoke, I have spent 48 warm hours on the Southern Tip of Texas on an island in the Gulf of Mexico called South Padre.
The area is best known for Spring Break-ing, and during Winter Break, it seems to be inhabited by Octogenarians from the Northern Plains. We weren't too thrilled by that development. But, the weather was in the upper 70s, there was good Italian and Seafood, and football could be played on the beach until 530pm. Of course, no sporting events could be attended down there, nor could colleges be visited.
Saturday was "intriguing" as we drove down to Brownsville, parked by UT Brownsville/Texas Southmost College, and then walked two minutes over the border and hopped a five minute cab to Matamoros, Mexico. The town made Tijuana look like Pacific Palisades. We were there for 45 minutes, bypassed the dudes selling steroids, et al, and were back once we found a quarter to pay our fee across the Rio Grande and told the Immigration Officers that we didn't purchase anything. He liked my Doug Flutie jersey but was suspicious as to why a teacher from LA was donning such apparel. Today, we took a rain-soaked drive (FIRST rain of the trip) to the Northeast to San Antonio, checked in, and then saw the aforementioned game. Monday night, we will be attending the Michigan State-Nebraska Alamo Bowl. Don't mess with Texas.
December 31, 2003
I am sitting on the very same floor in the same hotel as I began this trip some 11 days ago. I'd rather not relive that whole experience, with the fainting, sickness, sleeping, etc as that was then and this is now. Well, as I recall, I last left all of you back in the Alamo City (San Antonio) after a luscious San Antonio Spurs game on Sunday evening. Monday saw us meander around a sunny and chilly city all day, seeing the "inside" of the Alamo, the Riverwalk at dusk (and a good seafood meal), and then an abysmal Alamo Bowl with Nebraska beating Michigan State, 17-3. Good seats, good atmosphere, but it was football at its worst with maximum timeouts and stoppages. So that's two for two in bad football games. Frankly, I'm not surprised.
Tuesday, we stopped for lunch in Austin (home of the UT Losers (see Holiday Bowl score)) and then continued on to Waco to tour Baylor, which, surprisingly, turned out to be the NICEST campus yet. Modern, classy sports facilities (we went inside the hoops arena and onto the baseball field), no Bliss or Denehy Memorials or Tributes, etc. We then eschewed the planned night in Waco, headed the extra 90 miles to Big D and scored a good scalped deal on ducats to Mavs-Bucks (as our "stalking the Milwaukee Bucks Tour of Texas 2003") continued. I did the negotiations. All you do is wait until the game starts and suddenly $60 tickets are $35 and $40 become $15. Who knew? Duh.
After a night at the bar where I drank water and Dr. Pepper and my chums got messed up on Beer and Jager, we slept in today and then hit the Ballpark in Arlington for a tour (last one of 2003) on a cloudy 60 degree day. Good tour in sum. I then dropped Matt and Mike at the Grand Prairie Horse Track and headed to Fort Worth for a brief glance at the Fort Worth Cats Minor League Park and then a gander around the campus of TCU, replete with a nice picture of the football stadium and a driving jaunt through the lush, religious campus. Now, we shall see what NY Eve brings. Tomorrow: Oklahoma; Friday: Cotton Bowl. LAST update, Friday evening.
January 2, 2004
All good things must…yeah, well, you know the rest. I am quite pleased to say that I still have more than 12 hours left in the Lone Star State, as I refused to schedule an early flight for tomorrow (Saturday). Thus, I still am wide awake, eating, drinking cherry limeade and watching an HBO Real Sports Feature on Throwback Jerseys with the annoying racist Bryant Gumbel. Do you realize that some athletes have "collections" of this gear that exceeds $50,000?! Wow. But I digress.
Yesterday (Thursday), Matt and I took a dark rain soaked ride nearly 200 miles due North deep into the middle of Oklahoma. We toured the University of Oklahoma in Norman and I, as planned, donned my USC sweatshirt just prior to the Men of Troy's conquest of that over-rated (as usual) team from Ann Arbor. Then, we hit Oklahoma City and saw the minor league ballyard and spent a solid half hour at the Oklahoma City Bombing Memorial. It was well done and splendid. I can only describe it over the phone or in person. As someone who was at Ground Zero in August of 2002, this tribute in the Heartland rivals it in imagery and "realness." The 71 degree late afternoon sunshine did not hurt matters.
Today (Friday), we took a two hour ride (that covered just over 20 miles) to the Cotton Bowl in the ghetto South Dallas. Great game, great weather, great crowd of laid back folks from Stillwater and Oxford (the latter wore t-shirts that read "Legends Never Die: Let the Colors Fly") as well as a win by Ole Miss as the sun set. My Elway jersey fit the Orange Crowd perfectly. Good pictures were taken of downtown Dallas in the distance from our seats at 2,000 feet above sea level, or thereabouts. A good dinner followed and abstemious was not a word that would reference our Last Supper.
So, that's that. Two weeks done and much planning behind me. No regrets. One thing that's for sure about Texas is that they have blatant Nationalism, lots of Adult Video shops off the freeway and religious establishments everywhere, although not really of an ecumenical nature, per se---ecclesiastical perhaps, if that helps you visualize the landscape. The Stars Shine Bright, so Big and Bright, deep in the heart of Matamoros, Mexico.
January 6, 2004 (after returning to California)
I don't quite think that everyone realizes how LUCKY Matt, Mike and I were with the weather in Texas for our two weeks, especially with my being ill for about one-fourth of the trip. Allow me to introduce to you the HIGH temps today in our cities that we hit, just 72 hours after we departed:
Austin: 40
Corpus Christi: 44
Dallas: 36
Houston: 44
Oklahoma City: 30
San Antonio: 44
South Padre Island: 50
Matamoros, Mexico: 65
Again, those are HIGHS.
Now, when we were in these cities, the temps NEVER dipped below 40 (and those were LOWS and only at certain times, late at night), the high temps were usually low to mid 60s, and upon our return to DALLAS, around New Year's, the highs were in the mid 70s.
We really lucked out.
{Editor’s note on weather: The following winter saw record cold temps in Texas, including snow just prior to Christmas as far south as Victoria, Texas, which is 125 miles southeast of Houston}