Amazed at Buc-ee's

On the three hour drive between Austin and Dallas, my driving friend stop us at a place most wondrous. It is called Buc-ee's. The best way I can describe it is the biggest and best highway rest stop I’ve ever been to. There’s apparently many of them dotted all over the expansive Texas highways. To quote the great Stefon, it has absolutely everything.

Perhaps not all Buc-ee’s are similar in size, but the one we went to is enormous. The gas station portion alone I would say is three times the size of a typical Costco gas station. There’s plenty of space between each filling station too. Because it’s Texas, and large pickup trucks rule the road. So then imagine a whole Costco-size building itself is the rest stop - that’s the scale of Buc-ee’s I’m talking about here. The men’s bathroom alone have about 50 stalls, and it is spotlessly clean.

The rest of the store have anything and everything you could possibly want on a road trip - Christmas decorations included. Need an entirely new wardrobe? You can buy it at Buc-ee’s. There’s fresh BBQ and Tex-Mex at the hot foods section, and the world famous wall of jerky. If you’re a jerky enthusiasts, you’ve got to make a stop at a Buc-ee’s. Any meat suitable for jerky-ing, it is there. You can even buy it fresh, unpackaged.

The whole time we were stopped at the Buc-ee’s, I was just in awe of its amazingness. I’ve only previously been to these sort of fully-featured - and clean - highway rest stops in Asia. Never did I expect to find it here in the United States, much less in the State of Texas. Infrastructure has not really been our thing since they last built the great interstate system, you know? I’ll be long dead before the California bullet train project is completed.

Speaking of my State of California, why don’t we have something like Buc-ee’s alongside our highways? It would be perfect on the interminably long and straight highway 5. You can’t even argue there isn’t space like there is in Texas. I’m not asking for a Buc-ee’s in the middle of Los Angeles. Anyone who’s driven on highway 5 knows there’s nothing but farmland and cows for hundreds of miles. I think this is something California can learn and copy from Texas.

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I am in awe.

Too many crazies out there

Sometimes I forget I even have a BMW M2 Competition: an expensive and fast car by normal standards. I would often look at car videos on Youtube and think to myself, “It would be so cool to have one of these”. Only to realize, “Wait a minute, I already own a cool car!”. One of the very best, too. Top Gear host Chris Harris has a BMW M2 (albeit in limited edition CS trim), and everybody knows he only buys the properly fun stuff.

It’s probably because I drive my M2 so seldomly - it’s almost as if I don’t have a car at all. With the recent high gas prices and the fact I walk to work, the weekend pleasure drives just haven’t been that often. I was also stuck in a rut because my new MacBook Pro has yet to arrive. The mental will to take the BMW out for a spin has largely been absent.

Then there’s the fact that coming out of COVID, drivers on the road are absolutely crazy. The de-facto speed limit on highways now are 80 miles-per-hour, which is a bit too fast for me who likes to cruise at 70. A month ago during a huge rain storm with heavy flooding on the roadways, people didn’t slow down at all! They either forgot how to drive in adverse conditions (it’s been awhile since the Bay Area had much rain), or they don’t care. The size of modern SUVs belies a false comfort that they can drive through anything.

Irresponsible drivers really piss me off.

Even on a typical Sunday morning, when everything should be relaxed and calm, there are still aggravated drivers. Way too much speeding and tailgating going on for my comfort levels. It’s a shame to say this, but I have come to detest driving on public roads. There’s no joy there, only stress. For sure one should pay attention to the road at all times, but it takes an extra level of concentration to drive out there these days. It’s tiring, so I don’t drive as much as I should with owning the fantastic M2.

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A flock of.

The new speed limit is 80 MPH

Last time I checked, the highway speed limit in California is still 65 miles per hour, so how come it seems everyone is going way faster than that these days?

During my weekly errand of taking the GT3 out to exercise its oily internals, I go on Interstate-280 to get to the mountain roads I frequent. Being not oblivious to the fact I’ve got car that stands outs amongst the drab sea of SUVs, I purposely try to not draw extra attention by driving on the slow right lane and following the posted limit. Last thing I want to do is reenforce the stereotype of the douchebag sports car owner flying by everyone and treating other cars on the highway as a slalom course to be navigated.

However, it seems going at a steady 65 on the right lane is considered slow nowadays, because cars on the outside lanes are simply zooming by me, and fellow drivers in the slow lane actually have to switch over to pass me! I’m old enough to remember a time when going at the speed limit in the right lane was considered fast. Now, I’m the slowest of the bunch. From my experience, the present de-facto highway speed limit - the rate at which most cars appear to settle at - is about 80 miles per hour.

That’s quite bit over the standard 65.

I think a large factor that contributes to this phenomenon is that moderns cars are just too good. The typical car have decent amounts of power, and the interiors cocoon the occupants from the outside world really well. Therefore, it’s super easy to cruise at way above the speed limit because the sense of speed is dulled inside, and it feels entirely normal and calm to drive at 80 miles per hour. My 911 is absolutely stable and comfortable into the triple-digits (thank you, German autobahn), which needless to say would be an impound-my-car type of offense.

And it looks like the constabulary of the highways isn’t keen to have 80 MPH as the new speed limit. Last Sunday, as I entered Interstate 280 at the usual onramp, I saw a CHP car cruising along with other motorists. A few miles down at the exit I take to the mountains, I saw that patrol car having pulled someone over for speeding. As luck would have it, moments later I rejoined the highway because I decided on an alternate route, and that same exact CHP cruiser came right on my tail, though obviously I was doing my usual lawful speed on the right lane; nothing to see here.

Soon the CHP car passed me, and later on further down the road I saw it stopped again to the side, having pulled over yet another driver caught speeding. With this many cars going faster than the 65 MPH speed limit these days, it’s the proverbial shooting fish in a bucket for CHP officers.

As someone who at most stay under 10 miles per hour over the limit, it doesn’t concern me that CHP is out there actively enforcing the law on a leisurely Sunday. It won’t be me they’ll catch, because lots of people are going faster than I am, no matter how paradoxically it appears on the surface with my fancy German sports car. I believe that particular CHP cruiser was looking for an excuse to pull me over; sorry to disappoint, but I’m not the stereotypical driver.

Please ignore the fact I don’t have a front plate…

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As Taylor Swift says, spelling is fun!