Not Necessarily Interesting News

I had to drive to Fort Worth today to pick up some new wheels for my Defender so we decided to make a family day of it. We got up early and hit the road. First stop, West, Texas to get some kolaches at the Czech Stop. I think there’s some sort of rule that if you’re driving between Austin and DFW that you must stop there for some of those awesome pastries. We stocked up on hot sausage kolaches and some apple ones for a snack later.

We hit Ft Worth at 10:30 and met the guy that I was buying my wheels from. On our way into town we noticed that they had southbound 35W closed down to one lane and the same with 820E. Well, we’ll take the loop around town to the west to get back to I-35 south. As we passed the airbase we saw the Blue Angels getting ready to take off. If we’d have known we would have changed around our trip to go see them. Too late now. As we passed the airbase I remembered something that was somewhere southwest of Fort Worth but I wasn’t quite sure where. I pulled out a map and the GPS and set a course for Dublin, TX about an hour southwest of town.

If you’re from Texas you probably know what’s in Dublin. The original Dr Pepper bottling plant. The plant also holds the distinction of being the only Dr Pepper bottler that still uses cane sugar instead of high-fructose corn syrup. We drove into town and straight to the plant/soda shop. We were surprised at exactly how small the place was. We got tickets for the tour and grabbed a bottle of DP while we waited. I like Dr Pepper but never went too far out of my way to get it. This stuff was so much better than the normal soda. It doesn’t taste as ‘syrupy’ I guess you could say. My son and I finished off the 8oz bottle in a couple minutes. The tour was interesting and looking at the years of memorabilia was pretty neat. During the tour they give you more Dr Pepper to drink. After the tour we grabbed some DP to take home and hit the road. After we left I realized I totally forgot to take any pics of the tour. Dummy.

The rest of the drive was through miles and miles of ranchland. I love doing long drives like this. I find it quite relaxing.

Today was the company car show. Yes, our company has an employee car show every year. There were about 80 cars entered of all types. Everything from little 50cc dirt bikes to a Hearse.

I entered in the off-road and racing class. There were a whopping three cars in the class. Mine, a spec-racer, and an old vw-buggy. During the awards the spec-racer was picked by the judges as best-in-class. I had won this last year so wasn’t too upset. I got to talk to all the former J**pers about their glory days and how much they always wanted a D-90. I figured after they announced the winner in my class that that was it and I had to get back to work so wandered back to my office.

About an hour later a cow-orker dropped by and said congrats. I said, ‘thanks for rubbing in my loss, bastard’. He said, ‘um, you won People’s Choice. Where were you?’ ‘Yeah, right’ was my response. He went back to his office and the show was over so I went down to pull my truck off the ramps I use to twist the suspension. I got to my truck and, sure enough, there was the People’s Choice trophy sitting on my hood. Wow. I beat out fully restored Ford Fairlanes, dozens of Vettes.

I heard the Vette club wasn’t too happy. I spent all of 2 hours cleaning up the truck after I had it out mudding last weekend. The exterior looked decent from 20 feet but up close it was a mess. I had a few pics of it offroading pasted in the window. I talked to a few people and they said they voted for mine because I actually used it for its intended purpose instead of it being a garage queen. Sweet. I’ve taken a first place trophy of some sort in every show I’ve entered.
After all that, I took zero pics of my own truck in the show. I did get some pics of the other cars though.