Amarillo is a shithole

I was supposed to be going to Austin to see SXSW, however a supreme lack of planning on my part meant there was no-where left to stay! After a quick review of my options I ended up going to Houston. The city has loads to see and do, as long as your not looking to do it on a sunday. As such, it turned into quite a busy time for me, at least after the first day...

Houston is where the Astronauts take their problems. After a while it occured to NASA that if the spacemen insisted on contacting Texas then it would make sense to build a space center there. What they have now is an astronaut training facility, as well as a LOT of cool equipment.


I saw the floatation tank where a replica of the international space station is underwater, I saw the training facility for astronauts, and I saw the rocket that went to the Moon! (At least parts of it - the thing is one GIANT replica, but only some of it is original). The only tinge of sadness on the day is the knowledge that the new space mission to the moon has been cancelled, but this news has not been updated at the centre - they proudly boast of the former future plans.

While in Texas it would seem silly not to go see the Rodeo - especially as it was in season. I wasnt quite prepared for how big a thing it is though. They had a giant cowboy market, featuring livestock, hats and saddles. One thing I wanted while in the US was to get a cowboy hat, but they cost £300!! At least for the ones that dont look silly. So that was one dream left unfulfilled... Onto the main show, though, and things soon picked up with the National Anthem. Now, Im sure your aware that Americans treat their anthem with a lot more respect than we do, but get a load of this: The arena is dark, the central screens show the American flag and a choir start to sing. A woman standing on a galloping horse enters the arena holding a huge American flag. Then... the flag starts to shoot out FIREWORKS. Yes, fireworks - I did say that.

Anything after that was going to seem a bit anti-climactic, and I was starting to feel that you could only see men riding so many angry animals in competition without getting bored when the rodeo pulled out two events that completely transformed my opinion. The first was a calf grab. 22 18 year olds line up while a heard of 11 calves run like crazy. To win, they need to tie up the calf and bring it to the center of the arena. Aside from the comedically overweight contestants chasing after little cows, the highlight was the last calf captured. A girl managed to get hold of the calfs tail - quite a common tactic in this game. The calf, however, was not about to play by the rules. It sprinted off to get the hell away from her. The girl, ready for the challenge stood her ground. Unfortunately she was lacking the weight of the aforementioned contestent, and got dragged around the arena for a full ten minutes on her front. I have nothing short of full respect for this girl, no matter what she was getting dragged through she held on, tiring out the calf before eventually capturing it for the win. A true hero.


As if this event could be topped, they then had a bucking sheep riding contest... for 5 year olds. Little children riding angry sheep until they fall off. the kids took it really seriously too! One of them held on even after falling off and kind of got a hell of a trampling until the sheep ran off. As the rodeo came to a close and Keith Urban came on to sing, I left the arena in tears, actual tears of mirth. Shit country rock cant erase the memory of children riding sheep.

One final note on Houston. As I was leaving the greyhound station Barack Obama came on the news. The guy behind me, who had been asleep until this point started shouting out the most racist abuse Ive heard in my entire life. To a TV. The deep south may have created this aura of a lost sense of nobility and gentility, but it has a long way to go to live up to this.