When I lived in Austin, I’d drive home to see the folks in the D/FW area once or twice a month, which meant I’d pass thru Waco. My lingering memory of the place is from one stop that I made during the Branch Davidian standoff. A guy at the drive-thru had apparently gone apoplectic and was screaming at the intercom, and raw sewage (or something just like it) wafted from the big empty field next door. Around that time, Olive Garden won the title of “Best Romantic Dinner” in Waco.
Soon I began to look for ways to both shorten the drive† and avoid Waco. On Thanksgiving, I’d drive out west to US 281 and then go north that way. If it was going to be a 4 or 5 hour drive, no matter what, at least I had the choice between a (relatively) open road, or hitting bumper-to-bumper jams around Hillsboro and having to pass thru Waco.
No offense, Wacoites.
† When my parents would come down to visit they’d tell me about finding tchotchkes at this place or kolaches at that place, and had I ever stopped to check those things out? No, because I was doing what I could to whittle that road trip down as close to 2.5 hours as possible without being pulled over. It wasn’t until a couple of years ago, when I made the trip with my own kids, that I realized there were tasty kolaches for sale in West.
