<– Day 17 –Tue. Apr. 28th: Dr. Peppers & Texas Rangers  | TRIP OVERVIEW | Day 19 – Thu. Apr. 30th: Texas Justice, Pacific War, & a Comfy Bed –>

Talking about jeeps and life with Lee (left) and his father Sam (right).

Great day yesterday that started with a question mark … Would Paul Cook respond to my request to see his Power Wagons before we passed Kempner on our way to San Saba. I had contacted him at the last minute, so I wasn’t assured he was available. Since we had nothing else planned, we just went with the flow and hoped Texas would surprise us with something.

Around 11am we were driving south toward Temple, Texas, when I saw a sign for Buc-ee’s. Then I looked across the freeway and saw a giant beaver head with lots of triangle flags, which I believe is the international symbol for ‘Hey, we’ve just opened so come over and take a look!’. I asked Ann if she knew what a Buc-ee’s was. She didn’t. I didn’t either, but told her we were going to find out! So, we took the exit and drove across the freeway for our first ever Buc-ee’s experience.

You really have to see a Buc-ee’s to believe it. HUGE!

Our jaws dropped as we pulled into the massive parking lot. This was supposed to be a gas station/convenience store, but it was enormous. It was so big it seemed like it took an hour just to circle all 112 fuel pumps (yes, we counted them). As many of you know, Ann and I have been through many states in the last few years, but this Texas-sized gas stop was the biggest one, by far, that we’d ever seen. We were even more surprised to learn this was the 35th store.

I’m just one of the many nuts in the store.

That’s a LOT Of picked eggs. I picked up a jar.

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<– Day 16 – Mon. Apr. 27th: Frontier Texas | TRIP OVERVIEW | Day 18 – Wed. Apr. 29th: Power Wagons & Pecans –>

Dr. Pepper Museum in Waco, Tx, and a happy Dr. Pepper fan eagerly waiting to venture inside.

We had big plans for Tuesday morning. Our first stop was going to be the outdoor historic village of Buffalo Gap. So, when I hopped out of bed at 7:30am and saw that it was raining, we quickly changed that plan. Without feeling rushed, we somehow didn’t get out of the room until 10:30am.

The rain was gently falling as we got onto eastbound Interstate 20. Soon we turned southeast on Highway 6. If there’s one thing I like about these Texas state highways it is the speed limit: 75mph. That’s faster than any of the speeds on Oregon’s Interstates. You can get places in Texas, however the places are so spread apart, that even at 75mph it doesn’t seem fast enough.

Eventually we reached Dublin, Texas. I spotted a cool Dr. Pepper sign and asked Ann if she’d like a photo of it. She agreed, so I did a loop around the block, We weren’t halfway around when we ran into several more Dr. Pepper signs. Then we spotted a Dr. Pepper museum reference. That’s when the light clicked for both us. We both remembered reading that besides the Dr. Pepper Museum in Waco, there was a second one in a small Texas town. This was it.

This is the billboard I spotted while driving through Dublin.

Feeling lucky, we jumped out of the jeep to see what this was all about. We learned that Dublin was home to the first Dr. Pepper bottling plant. The Dublin plant used cane sugar in all their soda pop products, including Dr. Pepper, even when the rest of Dr. Pepper world switched to high fructose corn syrup. This fact angered the Dr. Pepper company, so the company revoked Dublin’s right to bottle and sell it. Now, the Dublin Bottling Works bottles and sells a variety of custom flavors and sells them all over the country.

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