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Surfing Road Trip to Waco, Texas?
After finishing my university sophomore year, I had to spend four weeks in Texas for AFROTC Summer Camp. One of my classmates and I decided to drive from San Jose, California rather than taking advantage of the free airfare offered by the Air Force to Abilene, Texas.
A trip of 1,529 miles in an MGB that had seen better days.
After passing through El Paso the tallest thing on the horizon was the oil company buildings in towns like Odessa, Big Spring, Sweetwater, until we arrived at Dyess AFB in Abilene. We did pass through any number of towns that were smaller than the aforementioned towns in this paragraph.
Abeline was a dry town during our time there and there were some residents, not a majority, that had adopted an airmen and dogs keep-off-the-grass policy. We were allowed to go into town after our second week of training and my classmate and I were asked by several residents if we could get them on the base, specifically to visit the base swimming pool where they could swim and drink some beer. Dyess AFB was a federal reservation so beer was available and could be consumed at the pool.
We did go to a drive-in movie where everybody reclined on the hoods of their cars, backs against the windshield. At some point the shadow of an illicit beer bottle would pass across the screen. That led to many beer bottles flying across the screen. I will admit I found that very appealing as a university student and thought perhaps I should change my major to Anthropology.
The B-52 wing was in Thailand at the time, as the Vietnam War had not ended. The C-130 wing was still on the base. There was a rumor was that the B-52 wing jumped at the chance to go to Thailand so their families could get out of Abilene. Another rumor that was floating around was that two main gate guards shot-up the Welcome to Dyess AFB sign one night. I don’t know if those rumors were true.
To be fair to Abilene and Dyess AFB, things have changed. I talked to a Dyess B-1 bomber crew a few years ago at an airshow at Davis-Monthan AFB in Tucson. They said that Abilene has become a great place to live for the crews and their families. I didn’t ask if the drive-in was still showing movies. Abeline was not a dying North Texas city when I was there and the people I met in Texas on that trip were polite. After four weeks in Texas, I was dropping a few y’all’s into conversations.
I never made it to Waco, but I did come across an interesting video of surfing in Waco. Coming from the West Coast there is The Wedge, Mavericks, Rincon, and Cortes Bank to name just a few surfing destinations, but Waco, Texas… really. In Waco you can ride more than just a horse.
Published in General
When you were there (in Abilene) was it true that women there don’t treat you mean?
There was no time for dating. Monday through Saturday you were up at o500 hours. A morning two mile run and then breakfast and training until dinner. Saturday was a morning barracks and personal inspection. After dinner every day you cleaned the barracks. Sunday was a free day unless you failed the Saturday inspection. If you failed the inspection, you were doing yard work, like painting rocks along the paths around the barracks.
The highlight of my 4 weeks in Texas was a ride in the T-37. It was my second ride in a two-seater. The first was a ride with an Oregon Airguard pilot.
I was told by the T-37 pilot that I would taxi the aircraft to the runway, and I would pull the stick back as he worked the throttle for takeoff. I had never done that before. He also let me roll the T-37 several times during the flight.
Stock photo of the T-37.
Huh. There ain’t much in Waco, but I guess there is a big wave pool. The hot newish thing in Waco is Magnolia Market. It is a little market square for tourists to buy overpriced lemonade and ice cream. I would rate it above the Dr. Pepper Museum and below the Ranger Museum and Waco River Walk, which has a bridge that was once the longest suspension bridge west of the Mississippi River.
Waco Surf is a serious surfing operation. Professional surfers use it to train. The waves are apparently high quality waves in shape and dynamics. And since waves can be reproduced consistently, they are excellent for learning and for practicing. [I’m not a surfer nor have I been to Waco Surf, so I am relying on second hand reports.]
I know a bunch of Baylor University alumni who would emphatically disagree. (I live about equidistant between Waco and Abilene.)
You are either unaware or intentionally ignoring the phenomenon that is the “modern farmhouse” style popularized on television (mostly HGTV) home renovation shows, an major hit of the genre being the Gaines’ “Fixer Upper,” based in Waco. From which the whole Magnolia enterprise was spawned.
I enjoy the Dr. Pepper Museum in Waco (which is not owned by the Dr. Pepper company). I’m not excited about Dr. Pepper per se, but as a history of one example of the entrepreneurship and hustle that seems so prevalent in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.
There were (and still are) a lot of Baptists in town.
Abilene is a fine city that is far from dying. It does not have a lot of big city excitement, and is probably better for families than for young single adults looking for a lot of flashy entertainment. Friends who grew up in Abilene are now seeing their own children move back to Abilene.
It appears the drive-in theater closed in late 2022 after vandals destroyed its equipment.
Texans are generally very polite. When I moved here I thought I was already a pretty polite person. But I soon realized that I had to work on raising my own politeness level if I was going to fit in with the locals. The politeness is one of the things that drew us to retire to Texas. Our son’s first active duty Air Force assignment was in San Antonio. His reports on Texas politeness began as soon as he crossed the Texas state line driving from our then-home to report to duty. So he encouraged us to look at Texas, which we did, and now live here (about 120 miles east of Abilene). People driving cars in the Dallas-Fort Worth Metroplex are an exception to the normal Texas politeness.
“The sun has riz, the sun has set, and here I is, in Texas yet.”
Summer in west Texas will test your commitment. :)
Our son (a kid who loved the cold weather in western New York, where we lived at the time), spent his summer AFROTC session (about 2008) in Montgomery, Alabama (90 degrees F, 95% humidity). When he came back from that hot, humid session still enthusiastic about the Air Force, we figured he was ready to make the commitment that his ROTC scholarship required at that moment.
Side note, of particular value to him in that summer session were the observations of several of the guys in his group who were former enlisted, and so had already been in the Air Force for a few years. He found their observations very helpful to his own decision process.
Our son had (and has) no interest in flying an airplane. His thing is the electronics and computers behind the scenes. During his twelve years active duty he was an engineer and project manager on new technology development.
There was a time I was assigned to a Big XII basketball package and made many a trip between DFW and Baylor. I was not impressed.
One more reason I appreciated the Navy. Went from Oklahoma 100F to San Francisco 65F in July. On a new supply ship. Actually got chilly at night on watches. Which is I why I wound up here in 1973. Now looking forward to Colorado summers soon.
Yeah, You gonna be in Texas for a while. About 785 miles east to west on Interstate 10. Also about 785 miles by road north to south on U.S. 83.
I was initially thinking Waco for the Eclipse meetup, but ended up going with Dallas as the hotels were crazy expensive
Sounds like a fun place to visit.
Dallas is probably the best city to visit in Texas.
The best places in Texas that I know of aren’t cities.
I highly recommend the Texas Ranger museum in Waco.
I spent a week there one afternoon. (credit Harry Chapin) It’s not very impressive. I used to do what I call the triangle. I would work in either Houston or Dallas and drive up or down to see my daughter in Killeen (Ft. Hood) when she wasn’t deployed.
The Hood is very close. It’s closer than 6’th street in Austin. You have thousands of young adults with a paycheck and nothing to do. I see why they built a wave pool. When I visited her in that area there isn’t much to do off post. My two favorite things are a cave system under I35 that was discovered when building the highway, and Big Hoss BBQ.
That took guts . . .