Before we left for the hill country of Texas, my buddy Ben ended his email with
Be sure to visit Buc-ee’s!
I figured he was referring to some kind of roadside anomaly, the kind I’m prone to pull over for.1
Along coastal Texas on US Route 10, we began seeing the recurring visage of a happy beaver emblazoned on yellow and wearing a turned-up cap.
Forgetting we were no longer in America but in the Republic of Texas, we thought,
“Eh, we’ll give it a try. Sounds like a cutesy version of Sheetz® or maybe a cut-rate version of Wawa.®
Dazed and Corn-fused
We pulled in to behold least 50 gas pumps lined up under a canopy the size of an airport arrival gate.
Nothing, my friend, could’ve prepared us for the gob-smacking tsunami of American travel consumption that is Buc-ee’s.
On the sidewalk a bronze Buc-ee greeted us, a sure nod to ancient history.
Perhaps on that very spot, the proto-beaver emerged from the coastal swamp lands and cried:
Dam. I have a great idea!
Inside The Oasis
What’s NOT inside? That’s the question. (You did ask, right?).
Imagine a Wal-Mart Super Center® trimmed and stretched to twice its length.
I shuffled past displays dedicated to Yeti® coolers, punn-y kitchen signs on distressed wood, and a swath of Texas-themed apparel.
Becky, dumbstruck and clasping her Diet Pepsi®, wandered toward a huge display of Buc-ee’s brand cookies.2
Calling out to her, as in a dream, she barely heard me above the din of hundreds of customers swimming in the pools of travel conveniences.
Holy Smokes
My nose led me to a theater of smoked meats where a dude in a cowboy hat was swiftly chopping up BBQ brisket.
In the food case before me lay scads of warm breakfast burritos, freshly assembled and wrapped.
I grabbed the brisket and egg version: Lap food for more miles on Route 10, one of the ugliest and scariest roads I’ve ever traversed.3
We walked a football field to the check-out counter. The clerks were warm and friendly, as one would expect in Texas.
Becky remarked to me
Wow, this place is huge!
An older man in boots and hat looking like a retired rancher quipped to her,
“There’s an even bigger one outside-a San Antonio.”
Someone at Laity Lodge later told us you could buy a saddle in there, and I’ve no reason to doubt either claim.
Making Sense of Buc-ee’s
Having distanced myself a bit from its gravitational pull, I’ve reflected on what makes such a “convenience store” possible in America:
Bigger Is Sometimes Better
When Arch "Beaver" Aplin started Buc-ee’s in 1982, he imagined a Texas-sized store. That intent has not slowed. There are now 41 of these massive hangars.
This mega-stop is a mesmerizing destination of social electricity in a marketplace of shadetree truck stops, aging 7-11’s, and nasty restrooms.
Buc-ee’s bathroom in the New Braunfels store was named the 2012 "Best Restroom in America" by Cintas (Wikipedia).
Buc-ee’s Brings in the Buckies
The store we visited was packed. That anecdotal evidence paired with their expansion seems to indicate a strong bottom line.4
Along a stretch of road like Route 10, Buc-ee’s feels like an oasis, a destination even.
Wheels, Wheels, Wheels
Buc-ee’s simply wouldn’t exist without the immense number of cars and trucks on our major interstates.
Cars are faster and safer than ever, and commercial ground transportation has only increased in the last few decades.
Buc-ee’s knows just where to place their convenience malls, and I vote for a PA Turnpike version ASAP. The lines at Starbucks are SOOO annoying.
Mom & Pops
Contrast Buc-ee’s with Kountry Korner.
We were on our way out of north Texas on a two lane road a week later as the sun was setting near Mt. Pleasant, TX.
As I refueled, two domestic cats stood guard of the front door and prowled about. A couple of local teenagers with dyed hair bopped in for soft drinks.
The hyped food offering was Hunt Brother’s Pizza®, a mass-produced product attached to many of smaller gas stations throughout the southern states.
The men’s room was in fact grimy, but very private (!), festooned as it was with a quaint “cowboy” plaque and stick-on letters.
That sort of attention to hospitable detail you simply won’t find in a Buc-ee’s.
In Praise of Ike
On this recent leg of The Row House Road Show, Becky and I drove 4318 miles in our Subaru without a major hitch.5
Many of the back roads we took through Texas6 were two-laners, some with 75 mph speed limits! It felt a little dicey at times.
Still, we experienced no mishaps, nor witnessed any accidents in 19 days.
We can partly thank President Dwight D. Eisenhower. He signed into law the establishment of our Interstate Highway System.
This relatively safe transit system is an astounding feature of American culture and infrastructure.
I remain, though, a staunch advocate of walkable places and bicycling. Am I of two minds?
Yes. I mean No, not really!
Here’s what I’m learning: We can build safer and healthier places that aren’t car-centered, AND build great roads for when we really need them.
This tension is exactly what I spoke about on March 11th to Friends of L’Abri Nashville. My talk was called What is a Car? A Theological and Cultural Reflection on what Drives Us.
The question is, how much of this car-driven life do we really need? I’m still trying to answer that for myself and the country I love.
Buc-ee has his own answer. 🐾
For instance, the highlights of our ‘73 family road trip to Las Vegas were:
Holding an actual horny toad lizard at a rest stop in New Mexico. It peed all over my palm before heading back to the desert.
Devil’s Tower, years before its Close Encounter with movie fame.
A two-headed calf, in taxidermy, at a roadside gift shop.
Circus Circus, a casino (!), which had a second floor arcade just for kids like me who had little interest in gambling with their parents on the main floor and who needed to be baby-sat by dazzling lights and thrills. A few years ago, I asked my Mom if a recurring memory of a Japanese lady diving for pearls in a tall aquarium was based on reality. She affirmed it was, at Circus Circus. And some of you went to Bible camps.
We’re still eating these:
Four lanes each way of heavy 18-wheeler traffic and a 75 mph speed limit that every vehicle seems itching to overtake. I can handle such driving; it brings out the Al Unser, Jr. in me, but it is nerve-wracking and tiring.
There are other bottom lines such as ecological and social impact, but I have no data on those. My hunch is the company “gives back.” Maybe to beaver sanctuaries everywhere? I can only hope.
Going into Kerrville and back up north to Fredericksburg, Marble Falls, and then onto Mt. Pleasant, we passed through what’s called the Texas Hill Country. Worth the drive!
A minor incident involved a dead battery one night in downtown Memphis just as the night life got cooking. Becky and I found ourselves waiting for our AAA guy as we watched the Sixers play on the TV at the bar…in Hooters. Cute animal mascots seem to be a motif in this email. 🦉