Posts Tagged “texas”

Well! We’re going to have to tell you more about Austin later. We had a bit of a development. We were supposed to leave Austin on Friday morning and head to Jackson, Mississippi. Instead, on Thursday night, we were both up all night with a horrific stomach virus. I’ll spare you the details, but trust me, it was not pretty. We had to stay an extra night in Austin, and then we tried to make it to Jackson yesterday — and we almost made it, thanks in no small part to a refueling stop at my aunt Catherine’s in Shreveport, Louisiana. But when we got just outside Vicksburg, we became concerned that the place we were headed in Jackson might contain some new and terrifying strain of the virus we had just endured. Plus, IT WAS SNOWING (!!), so we decided to stay put. So, this morning I’m writing this from the Vicksburg Super 8… and we will be going to Jackson (for real this time) later this morning. We’re both feeling significantly better, but still far from fabulous. Being sick is as awful as littering!

We left Oklahoma this morning and were in Texas before we knew it!

I’m pretty into these roadside picnic tables shaped like longhorns:

We were just innocently driving along and decided to stop for a bio break at an Exxon off I-35. When we first saw this giant cat statue, we thought it must be the Exxon tiger, but we were dead wrong.

Turns out it’s an Itasca Wampus Cat. Whoever built this fine monument to the mighty Wampus Cat helpfully printed out the legend of said cat on a dot matrix printer and posted it beside the statue. We think it’s been there for a while because it was pretty faded (it stands in direct sun), but we eventually figured out how to read it. And we’ve transcribed it for you!

THE LEGEND OF THE ITASCA WAMPUS CAT
(Authors: Diane Barnes, Brian Knox, Nancy Bowman)

What is a Wampus Cat?

Maybe the best definition was given in the San Antonio Express-News a few years ago in an article about legendary nicknames. “Wampus Cat n., a fierce animal that does not exist other than in the hearts and minds of the people in the town of Itasca.” The legend of the Wampus Cat, however, began with the Cherokee Indians, who settled in the eastern hills of Tennessee. Cherokee folklore is filled with tales of evil spirits lurking in the deep, dark forests that surround their villages.

Accounts of Wampus Cat sightings also come from Georgia. For years, outdoorsmen and residents of the swamplands in southeast Georgia have reported hearing strange, high-pitched screams late at night. A few claim to have seen a shaggy, man-like “cat creature” loping though the woods. The Wampus Cats sighted there are half-man and half-wildcat. Other accounts of Wampus Cats say that they have cat eyes, only they are bigger than any you have ever seen! They also leave enormous paw tracks. One report from Johnson City, Tennessee, in the 1950s reports that “the cat was about the size of a large spaniel. In fact, my daddy did mistake him for a dog at first. Then he noticed that the animal has stripes, just like a big tabby. No dog was ever marked like that! It reached Jones-Vance Pharmacy, raised up on its hind feet, put its paws on the windowsill, and peered into the window. After the cat had seen all that it had wanted to see inside Jones-Vance, it turned and, still standing on its hind legs, continued walking down the street and disappeared around the corner. Daddy said that his blood ran cold.”

What is a Wampus (sometimes spelled Wampas) Cat and where did it come from? Surely it’s no natural creature. Some people believe that the Wampus Cat is a human who turns into a cat at night – something like the old-World legend of the werewolf. No Wampus Cat has ever been seen in the daytime. Itasca chose Wampus Cat as its nickname sometime in the early 1920s, probably 1922 or 1923. The most common account of how it came about suggests that the student body was given the task of choosing a mascot. Everyone was thinking “what would make us proud”. Then one night, after a hard-fought victory, the team was celebrating in the locker room when one of the captains, Trav Burks, shouted “Wow! We really played like Wampus Cats tonight!” Silence fell over the room, and everyone knew the mascot was born. In a tragic twist of fate, Burks died in an automobile accident a few years after graduating.

Where did Trav Burks get the idea? Had he heard the legends? Or had he seen the elusive animal in the woods in the hills outside of town? We’ll never know for sure. But, we are sure of these things: The Wampus Cat is fierce. The Wampus Cat is the symbol of athletic and academic pride that lives in the hearts of the students, faculty, and citizens of Itasca. We may all have different ideas of what the Wampus Cat looks like, but we all know how it feels to be a Wampus Cat from old Itasca High!

Way to be, Itasca High Wampus Cats!!!

After that, we ventured on to Waco, Texas. Our destination was…

The Dr Pepper Museum!

Now, some of you may not be aware of this, but Brian is kind of a soda fanatic. In fact, Dr Pepper is his favorite. So we definitely had to make a stop at the birthplace of Dr Pepper and check out this museum. They have an interesting collection of Dr Pepper memorabilia and old bottles/cans as well as vintage bottling equipment and the like. One of my favorite parts of the museum was the very large collection of vintage vending machines, including some of the oldest vending machines (and even THE oldest Dr Pepper bottle container, the washbasin). This is just a sampling; they had dozens in there!

They also have an old-fashioned soda fountain in the museum where they use syrup made in the traditional way (with cane sugar rather than high-fructose corn syrup) and have an actual soda water fountain for adding the carbonated water for each drink individually. You can even sometimes get a hot Dr Pepper (the drink was originally intended to be served hot), but alas, today was not our lucky day on that front. We did try some traditionally made cold soda, though:

I have to say, I really enjoyed the experience with the soda jerk and everything, but something is wrong with the water in Waco. It kind of tastes like… corn? We’re not sure. But it was definitely a factor at the Dr Pepper Museum and also the place we stopped afterwards for lunch. And by the way, that restaurant had flyers and posters up everywhere advertising a concealed handgun class that they are teaching in the restaurant in a couple of weeks. Texas!!!

Okay, so after our very pleasant afternoon in Waco, we headed south!

Did I mention how awesome the weather was today? It was at least 75 or 80 in the afternoon and sunny and beautiful. When we rolled into Austin around 7ish, the temp had dropped down to just 70 degrees. Yay!! (It was in the 20s in DC, so we couldn’t be happier to be here instead!)

One of the many wacky, quirky elements of Austin is its large population of grackles. They are everywhere. If you’ve seen the Hitchcock classic The Birds, you can imagine what they are like. My only hope is that they don’t turn evil and decide to rebel against the humans at some point. If the grackles organize, we are done for.

Now we’re settled in Austin for the next week. The plan is to get back on the road next Friday, so hopefully we can post an update then! Have a great weekend, everyone!

Hey! I guess I didn’t update the entire time we were in Austin. Sorry! But it was awesome!

First of all, we got more cupcakes:

These are from Hey Cupcake, which is an adorable converted snowball stand. Very nice, Hey Cupcake.

And then we went to the Trail of Lights!

It’s a big event with a very large crowd, especially on the night we went (which was a lovely evening with temps in the 70s — the day before it had been really cold). It’s a walk-through Christmas light display in a large public park.

A couple of my favorites were these local pride pieces — cartoon versions of Austin skyline buildings:

…and future–space bubble Austin (this one was in a display with Space Santa):

I also enjoyed this rainbow/pride reindeer:

We also ventured up to Round Rock to go to Round Rock Donuts:

The donuts get their yellow/orange color because the bakery uses only farm-fresh eggs (apparently most commercial donuts are made with powdered eggs). I have to say, they are very delicious, and the woman who helped us was so nice (like everyone in Austin. Although I guess this was in Round Rock. Anyway.). When she heard we were from out of town and had never been there before, she went back and got us some complimentary freshly made, warm, delicious donuts, even though we had already paid for our order. Thanks, Round Rock Donuts!

Most of our time in Austin was spent walking around and exploring neighborhoods. Very fun and interesting for us, but not so good as fodder for blog entries! So you just have to trust me, I guess. Now we’re in New Orleans in the surprisingly lovely Ramada Inn on Bourbon Street, enjoying some debaucherous street noise.

Speaking of hotels, by the way, we stayed at the Extended Stay America on Guadalupe in Austin and it was great — clean, cheap, plenty of parking, and excellent location. Plus everyone there was really, really nice. (Did I mention everyone in Austin is nice? And well dressed?) We totally recommend it if you need an affordable place to stay downtown!

One more thing… we have been having some serious technical issues… so I will try to keep you guys updated, but unfortunately I can’t have complete confidence in my ability to do that!!

… as it were. I mean, we were only in Dallas for maybe an hour today, but really, we felt like that was plenty. We were just en route to Austin still, but we wanted to make a couple of Dallas stops. First:

These are cupcakes from Sprinkles, which is actually originally from Beverly Hills and which we meant to visit when we were on the west coast, but it didn’t happen. My personal favorite cupcakery is Crumbs, and although Sprinkles didn’t convert me, they do make an excellent cupcake. What you see above, clockwise from the top right, are Sprinkles’ strawberry, vanilla/chocolate, chocolate/peanut butter, and chocolate peppermint varieties. The strawberry one was kind of like a muffin with frosting (not necessarily a bad thing), but that chocolate peppermint cupcake was a revelation. Good job, Sprinkles.

So, then we went to Dealey Plaza.

In case you don’t know (and I didn’t, so don’t feel bad), Dealey Plaza is the infamous site of President John F. Kennedy’s assassination. In this picture, you can see the street JFK’s car drove down and the Texas School Book Depository from which Lee Harvey Oswald allegedly shot the President. I’m not much of a Kennedy assassination history buff, but Brian is, so he was able to tell me where the grassy knoll was and what people think happened that day, etc. I have to say that even with the unusually cold weather and the rather obnoxious dudes trying to sell us laminated conspiracy theory manifestos in the area, it’s a pretty intense place to visit. And then, when you leave the area, you have to take the same road out of town that Kennedy took:

That picture was taken as we drove along Kennedy’s route; if you look closely, you can see a white “x” in the road marking the site of the assassination.

So, after that, we headed toward Austin. And now here we are! We’re fully ensconced at a downtown hotel and are hoping for some much warmer weather so we can go exploring over the next couple of days. Hooray!

Yet another state has been p0wn3d by us! For those keeping track at home, you can check off Arkansas. Here’s the route log:

View Larger Map

Um, whoops. We kind of bit off a little more than we could chew today and drove nearly 700 miles. We were just trying to get where we were going, but we are both exhausted now! It didn’t help that a large portion of the day was very rainy (with really low visibility) and all of the day was bitterly cold thanks to a crazy ice storm that those of you who are back home in D.C. and the northeast are now experiencing. But!! Even so, we did have a few exciting moments. For example:

Yay! We’ve now been to 43 of the 50 states, plus D.C. of course.

Now, I don’t have a state sign for Texas, but I have something even better, if you can imagine that:

Hooray! Yet again, we got to stand in multiple states at once. This is becoming my #1 hobby.

This half-and-half sign is in Texarkana, which (obviously) straddles the Texas/Arkansas state line. There’s actually a big avenue running down to this marker from I-30 called State Line Street, and it’s lined with Texas signs on the west side and Arkansas sides on the east:

Now we are holed up in our luxurious Super 8 room in Mt. Vernon, Texas. It’s really quite a nice Super 8, and they scored some big points with me for this:

Nice touch, Mt. Vernon Super 8.