Salt Grass Trail Ride

I’ve live in Texas my whole life and in the Houston area for 16 years. Nobody does rodeo like Houston. Three weeks of Rodeo, about 20 evening performance averaging 50,000 in attendance each night. The Houston Livestock Show & Rodeo is Texas size. In January of 1952, E.H. Marks formed the very first trail ride as a way to increase awareness of the Show. Though only four men made the first journey from Brenham, Texas, the attention they raised attracted more publicity than ever expected, as more than 80 men signed up the next year. The trail rides are a signature tradition of the Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo today.

I’ve been associated with Wagon #1, the founder’s wagon, of the Salt Grass trail ride for about 4 years. The trail ride is organized by wagon. It has approximately 25 wagons with 40 riders associated with each wagon.In the beginning the riders slept on the ground or in tents. Today it RV’s, Stock trailers, water trucks, & generators. Today there are 13 different trail rides coming from all across Texas. This coming Friday (February 29th) all 13 trail rides converge in Memorial park near downtown Houston for Saturdays Rodeo Parade. It really plays havoc with the traffic on the freeways.

It's trail ride time in Houston!

Football Season is Over

I follow High School Football especially the Katy Tigers from Katy, Texas. This year they had a 16-0 season. That is a long season for a high school team. The perfect season ended December 22nd at the AlamoDome in San Antonio, Texas when Katy beat a tough Pflugerville Team 28 to 7 in the 5A Div II Texas State Championship Game.

Game Story

With all the games, maintaining the Texas Football Stadium Database , a couple of major holidays, and my real job, I have had very little time to blog. Look for more blogging in the coming months.

TexasBob

Texas High School Football Stadiums

Several years ago I was trying to find out what Texas High School football stadium had the largest seating capacity.

In a state where High School football is king, what school district had doled out tax money to build the most bleachers to seat the most high school football fans in the state of Texas? Was it the famed Ratliff Stadium in Odessa? Made famous not only by the success of the Odessa Permian football team but by the best selling book “Friday Night Lights” Ratliff holds only a mere 19, 302 fans. No it was Alamo Stadium in San Antonio with a capacity of 23,000. The stadium, built in 1940, was Civilian Conservation Corp project, a depression era program to employ young men during the depression.

This search for the largest High School Football stadium took me down many roads and in the end I had collected a lot of stadium information. TexasBob.com, my alter ego webpage, had been on line for several years and I decide to publish the information that I had collected. Over the years this has grown into a massive undertaking.

I now have a listing for every football stadium used for regular season games for every varsity high school team, every college team and both professional teams in the state of Texas. This amounts to 1140 stadiums, each listing has a map link to the stadium and other important information. Of the 1140 stadiums I have pictures of 550 stadiums. I have picture of all the majors stadiums but I take special pride in having a picture of most of the six man football stadiums. A good example of this is the one pictured above in Loop, Texas.

This has also created an amazing number of Texas football stadium facts and figures. For example: currently 46 High School Football Stadiums in Texas have full video scoreboards with replay capability.

Here are some selected stadium links:

Texas High School Stadium Facts

High School Stadiums with Video capability

Ratliff Stadium – Odessa, Texas

Longhorn Field – Loop, Texas

Texas Football Stadium Database

The Netherlands

I would never complain about a country that starts its name with “The”. There is boldness to it. No, it’s not Texas but it is where I find myself this week. The Netherlands is a friendly place visit, everyone here speaks English, although it’s not my English. Between their accents, my accent and me being generally hard of hearing communications can be a challenge. I have learned a few linguistic tricks. When you ask for water in a restaurant your server will say, “With or without gas.” A logical question when you think about it. What they mean is carbonated or non-carbonated water.

Most of my life my preferred beverage has been Dr Pepper. In later years, in order to keep my cute figure I have switched to Diet Dr Pepper. Dr Pepper in Europe? Forget about it. A good second choice is that global beverage from Atlanta, Coca Cola, better yet, a diet Coke. You can find them almost anywhere go in The Netherlands, but you have to know what to ask for. The correct request is, “Coke Light” please and they will bring you one. Did I mention that you still have to have a bottle opener?

RR Starr Restaurant - Concan, Texas

I found another diamond in the rough. The RR Starr Restaurant in Concan, Texas. Click here to read my review.

TexasBob

"The Alamo" - Revisited

The first time I visited the Alamo was in January of 1969. I was attending the Mid Winter convention of the S.P.E.B.S.Q.S.A. with my parents. (That is another story for another Blog on another day.) Except for this small convention the city was pretty empty by today’s standards.

That morning I stood in front of the Alamo and took a picture with a Polaroid Land Camera. It was a clean shot, with nobody standing out front. I approached the front of the Alamo chapel and opened the door and went inside. The sign just inside said, “Gentlemen, Please remove your hats.” As the door slammed shut behind me it echoed off the chapel walls. This was quiet solemn place. There couldn’t have been more than 6 people inside including the staff.

I’ve visited the Alamo many times since that January day in 1969. Now when you visit the Alamo the crowds are large. The Alamo is the number one tourist attraction in Texas, followed closely by the number two tourist attraction, the San Antonio river walk.

I was at the Alamo a few days ago with family from Massachusetts. Of course they wanted the obligatory picture made standing in front of the Alamo. It was so crowded that when you have your picture made in front of the Alamo, it’s with about 150 of your tourist friends with you.

I did discover a trick that I want to share with you. If you want a good clean shot of the front of the Alamo All you have to do is get there at first light in the morning. About 7:00 am I walked to the Alamo to take this picture and all that was there was one security guard who knew how to stay out of the picture and another photographer. It's a great time to take a picture.

Texas Bob

Ouch! $3.00 a gallon

Having worked in the oil patch all my life, both in Texas and abroad, the high price of gasoline still takes me back a bit.

All of us, and you know who you are, who have work around the smell of crude very long have seen the good times and the bad, mostly the bad. Now times are good. Everybody who wants a job has a job, but when you're old enough to remember when gas was $.29.9 or less, 3 dollar gas is a bunch of money.

I remember when I was growing up in Odessa, the pivot point of the Permian basin, if you really wanted to see high gas prices you had to drive down to Crane or out to Kermit. Gas in those communities was an incredible $ 0.45 a gallon.

Here is the sad news, my half ton Siverado Pickup gets about the same miles per gallon as my Chevy Impala did in 1968.

TexasBob (on the road)