Dude, It’s a Gas Station

We stopped to get gas on the way from Austin to New Braunfels the other day, and Kevin says to me as he's getting out of the car: "I'll pump the gas, you check us in" [on Facebook].

Me:  "Um, dude? It's a gas station. I'm not going to check us in."

We had a pretty funny exchange on Facebook about it after we got home. I posted our little bit of dialogue above, and Kevin responded:  "It's a gas station" could be counted as an understatement. We were at the world's LARGEST gas station (with 60 pumps). They claim to be the world's largest convenience store as well, at over 67,000 square feet, it is 20-times the size of a 7-11 (more like a large WalMart). With 80 soda dispensers, 31 cash registers, 23 flavors of fudge, and 84 toilets… 'It's a gas station' indeed!"

Where I then added: "Ooooooh, 84 toilets. Might have been worth checking in for huh? No."

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We'd been hearing about this "Bucky's" place between Austin and San Antonio. Turns out it's not "Bucky's" but Buc-ee's. Apparently it's a bigass gas station/convenience store that does advertising along the lines of Wall Drug. HUGE convenience store. 20 gas pumps or something (okay, 60, whatever). Gas is 10 cents a gallon cheaper than the neighbor gas station. (Oh, and Buc-ee is a giant beaver.)

Kevin mentioned it to his mom on the phone before we left Austin and she sounded kinda shruggy about it: "It's a gas station, isn't it? There's one on the way to Houston, right?" We kinda didn't think we'd stop but when we were about to pass it we had half a tank and decided we might as well fill up and see just how huge this place was.

Glorious, isn't it? 🙂

I still don't really see the appeal. Maybe if you're coming from the west and you've been driving through one little crappy tiny West Texas town after another (separated by miles and miles and miles of flat nothingness between each town), this place would feel like a joyous oasis filled with unicorns and rainbows and calorie-free candy and OMG would you look at all them gas pumps??? But we came from Austin — Austin, where there are stores and stuff.