Texas 2012: Days 9-The End

Oh boy, I sort of forgot/couldn't be bothered updating this in the past week or so. Rest assured though, I've been having an awesome time. I've been doing a lot of driving and walking, and really not that much photographing now that I look back. In any case, I'm going to use this post to dump a few photos of the past week, on this, the last night of my stay in the great state of Texas.

There was a parade in downtown Dallas one day which was pretty awesome. American parades are the best, all other parades can suck it. The high school bands that played were all great.

If parades in Northern Ireland had groovy tunes like that I'd be all over them.

Especially if they also had a load of Elvises on mini-motos.

So yeah, good stuff, Dallas/America.

I went to Austin for a while, which was awesome. The roads and traffic were crazy though, but they at least had public transport in the city (which Arlington didn't, which is crazy considering how sparse it is). 

Had some more good bar-B-Q there, natch.

Best ribs I've ever had. Previously a title held by Tony Roma's ribs, but these were better because a) you could actually taste the smokey flavour which was great, something which makes a huge difference between all the bar-B-Q I've had here and that from back home, and 2) the sauce was groin-grabbingly transcendent.

I had one of these

From a Taco Bell somewhere along the line. It's crazy. Basically a taco, but instead of a plain hard-shelled taco, it was a big dorito. Was really good though. Taco Bell is the best, I really hope they open up more stores in the UK. Even their basic burrito is Boojum-rivaling, for like £2. 

I had a load of fast-food actually, but didn't bother taking photos because it didn't seem worthy. It was all really good though. In-n-Out Burger is really damn good for your basic burger and fries. I won't harp on about how better the meat tastes again, but it just does. 

So I kicked about Austin and San Antonio for a couple of days just, then came back to Big D. Spent a couple of days just walking about downtown Dallas, which is just really nice. It's small enough to walk around, but also big enough to house a load of really interesting shit. Not even counting the State Fair which was briliant.

It's located at the Cotton Bowl, which was shut unfortunately. It's a 90something thousand capacity stadium which used to be home to the Cowboys, and now hosts a load of events including the big college game between Texas and Oklahoma annually. This guy also lives here.

'Big Tex' is the massive, wonky, old but deadly mascot of the state fair. He even talks which is really strange because his mouth moves like Chucky, only he's like 60 feet tall. 

Speaking of tall, that's the HUGE ferris wheel which is something like 220 feet tall, making it the biggest in the US.

The state fair is known for it's range of foods, mostly of the fried variety. They have contests every year for the most original idea, and the tastiest treats. Previous winners include fried beer, fried bubblegum and fried butter. Yeah. So I couldn't go and not taste some cool fried stuff.

That's fried peanut butter and jelly and banana sandwich. It was SOGOOD. Probably the most delicious desert I've ever eaten. All the joy of a PB&J, but all gooey and warm and delicious on the inside, and crunchy on the outside. 100%.

I had to have the state fair staple also, the 'Corny Dog'. I'd never had a corn-dog before, but it was pretty good. So strange with the sweet fried corn-bread and the savoury 'dog butting heads, but it works.

And of course, fried Oreos with some sweet tea. It seems that just deep-frying stuff is a way to automatically make them better. Because Oreos are already class, but this was better. Again, it was all warm and melty on the inside which was great. Also, 'sweet tea' is the southern version of iced tea. But it's really god damn sweet. Like it must be 50/50 water/tea to sugar. Pretty good though, and it's served everywhere here.

And that's about it. I have a few more photos, but I'll just whack those up on Facebook or something at some point. I'm a bit disappointed in myself for not sticking to a more strict format for this blog, and especially for neglecting my camera after the first few days here. I guess the most important thing is that I've had a kickass time though, and I'd hugely recommend that everyone should visit Texas at some point. It's pretty great and I'll definitely be back. 

I've spent my last few hours here sorting my stuff out for the trip home, while also heavily bathing in moisturiser, because I AM BURNT. Oh, and the first presidential debate is on, so I'm kicking back with a couple of beers while I soak up the last bits of Americana before I go.

Thanks for reading me you guys, and I look forward to seeing you all IRL soon. 

TEXAS FOREVER.

Love, Donavan. From the great state of Texas.