No Country (dancing) for Young Men

Driving in shifts to help cover the distance, we continued our long drive to Fort Worth, near Dallas.

Having returned to breathable altitudes after our Grand Canyon chapter, we decided we would replace a lack of air with an overload of petrol fumes in the form of the world’s second most popular spectator “sport”: NASCAR!

Not only were we going to see the most American creation since the Stars and Stripes, we were going to see THE race of the season: the Nascar 500 Sprint Cup (made famous by the film Talladega Nights) at the Texas Motor Speedway!! God Bless America!

We approached the Speedway, which, even two days before the main event was boasting a festival atmosphere of gargantuan proportions: There were team trailers, people camping, RVs bigger than houses and a lot of dudes wearing camouflage and hunting caps, which seemed strange at a race track. We purchased our tickets from a bemused Texan sales rep, who somehow could tell that we weren’t regulars to the race scene; she guaranteed us it was the best sport ever on the basis it was “loud”. We were satisfied.

Tickets held proudly in hand, we set off towards the nearest Walmart to get all the essential supplies for the race: A crate of beer.

Supplies gathered, we shot out of town with the intention of a blog update in a quiet bar and a good night’s sleep. We checked into yet another generic hotel in the form of America’s Best Value Inn. We checked out our room, which offered no increase in quality, and no reduction in price from a normal hotel. We suggested to the receptionist that they rename the place America’s Average Value Inn. The request fell on deaf ears, so we set off to find a bar to do some bloggage. We were wandering for a mere moment, when, over the horizon, a glorious deep flourescent glow  emerged from the horizon: Hooters. The blog would have to wait.

We marched in, and instantly unleashed a torrent of English banter with a host of new friends we made at the bar. The single goal of every guy at the bar was to simply marvel at god's finest creations (in hot pants), which resulted in an atmosphere closer to a Sunday Mass than a bar. 

perverts

We explained our travels which became the stuff of legend within minutes; most of our new drinking companions had never even crossed state lines, so a journey with mileage approaching 5 figures seemed like a revelation. Naturally, all the Hooters girls were blown away. With the bar on the verge of closing time, we were asked to sign some employee cleavage and have our pictures taken.

Pimps

We shifted down the road to a nearby late bar, where we met some truly awesome Texan girls! We never learnt their names, strangely, so we will refer to them as “the girls”. Naturally, being in Texas, it wasn’t long before we were discussing line-dancing. The girls promptly learnt we had never done it, and in a role reversal to the normal evenings, we were bundled into a car. Confused, but slightly excited, we found ourselves a few minutes later in a hardcore country line-dancing club. We had a splendid time, got really drunk and tried to dance (failed).

Advanced Moves

Adhesive beard tactic is a success

Somewhat hammered, we got a lift back to the hotel from the leader of the girls. We gave her a kiss on the cheek as way of goodbye, and stumbled back to our room where we realised that Tom had left his laptop bag in the girl's car. We sat, head in hands for some minutes, devastated by the loss of much photo and video data from the trip. With no idea what their names were and no way of making contact, we knew the future of the blog was buggered. Suddenly there was a knock on the door. Tom tentatively pushed the door open, blotchy eyed and sniffling; There stood “the girl”, bag in hand! She had spent the previous 10 minutes with the receptionist describing our persons in order to locate our room!

We were gobsmacked, and touched. She disappeared into the night, content that we had our bag back. We reminisced on some of the friendliest company we had enjoyed since our arrival: Texas was proving to be the most hospitable state so far, which was quite an achievement considering the competition offered by such a warm, welcoming nation!