I live in a state with a lot of Texas transplants - a lot of transplants in general I guess, but lots from Texas. I am a transplant myself, although not from Texas.
Anyhoo, I always wondered what the draw was? Sure, we have beautiful mountains, but we have no water, cool temperatures, and snow in the winter. After visiting Dallas last weekend, I figured it out. Those Texans get on the Interstate and can’t find their way back home . . . they keep driving and they end up here. Why? Because OMG Dallas has the worst signage I’ve ever seen on any road system anywhere!!!
Seriously . . . you exit the interstate and need to figure out where to turn after that. Forget Mapquest because the directions they provide on there for anywhere in Dallas totally suck. So you’ve exited and discover tht there are no signs to tell you where to go. You also discover that there’s an inner loop that LOOKS like it will take you back to the interstate, yet it doesn’t . . . it just takes you to the other SIDE of the interstate on a frontage road. But, how would you ever know this when there isn’t a friggin’ road sign anywhere to tell you this? And the only road sign you DO see is the one that says “go here to get back on the interstate” - the sign that is 20 yeards PAST the exit. OMG! So you end up back on the interstate, completely by accident, going the opposite direction. You plan to just get off at the next exit, and turn around to get heading the right way so you can get to your destination. But WAIT - you can’t do that . . . because the next exit takes you to a tollway - one without any BOOTHS on it. So if you don’t have one of those fancy schmancy automatic charger things on your windshield, your screwed. And no, they don’t tell you this - you just happen to have been lucky enough to have a Hubby who knows a bit about Dallas and warned you about that. So you keep going to the NEXT exit, which is exactly the same as the original one, so at least this time you know you can take that little loopy frontage road thingy and get back on the Interstate without needing to read an actual sign. So you head back in the other direction, following the wonderful directions Mapquest gave you. Ya - they suck the same this time as they did last time. You finally SEE the hotel, so you just start driving toward it until you get closer and closer, road signs being no help whatsoever.
All this just to get from the AIRPORT to the HOTEL. You haven’t actually tried to go anywhere real yet. Boy are you looking forward to tomorrow!
So that is my theory on why people leave Texas. They get on the terrible road system and just decide to keep driving to somewhere where they actually make road signs.
But, did you have a great time with your family and was the weather wonderful?
One of my best friends lives in Dallas. It is an interesting city.
I need to buy the car map, one that talks to me when I am frustrated.
Hope you at least had other great experiences.
Unfortunately, some of us eventually figure out the signage and never get back to Colorado.
I miss CO almost daily.