From The Lone Star State

Earlier this month we moved to Benbrook, TX (population 22,000, map) which is on the southwest corner of Fort Worth (population 650,000). It connects to Fort Worth by Interstate 20 or the “back way” through a little country road. Fort Worth is about 30 miles from Dallas (Arlington is in between). The whole area is called the DFW Metroplex and has six million people. Fort Worth is the cowboy side of town where life is a bit slower. They say this is where the west begins. Sudi’s school, Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary, is about 10 minutes from Benbrook.

Gettin’ Here: The Drive

It was a 1,300 mile drive (our route) from Mom and Dad’s in Chula Vista, CA.

The rocky hillsides leaving San Diego County are beautiful (pictures below). Seeing them was worth the crack Sudi noticed our windshield had suffered. We saw Mark and Dan’s Cracker Barrel in Yuma, AZ. In Tucson, we couldn’t find a stinkin’ Subway so we gave up and kept moving until we got to a nice little town called Benson where they had our Subway. Aside from a short drive through some impressive boulders, the rest of the drive through Arizona was like watching a never-ending slide-show of cactus and Dr. Seuss trees. We passed through a huge storm and noticed that apparently nobody lives in New Mexico. That is, until you get to Las Cruces which is set in front of some 8,000 foot mountains where we spent the night and ordered a pizza. Day one was a ten hour journey.

Day two was under eight hours because we floored it. We passed through El Paso on the border and noticed things starting to get green while the mountains started shrinking. I had no idea the area near El Paso was made of lush farmland. We left the I-10 for the I-20 toward Fort Worth and passed through Midland which is where President George W. Bush was raised. Lots of oil pumps around there. It got progressively greener heading toward Abilene then finally on into Fort Worth which greeted us with a wonderful thunderstorm. We spent a couple nights in the seminary’s very nice hotel before moving into our apartment in Benbrook.

What’s Different from San Diego

Here it’s greener, more hamburger-only restaurants, less crowded, friendlier people, more telephone poles, hotter, less health food stores, bigger ants, more trains, triple the rain, most houses are brick, no ocean, many lakes, flatter (but somewhat hilly), more laid back, Target sells groceries, more butterflies, cows and ponies. And old ladies drive trucks. Fort Worth is fairly diverse with a mostly white, black and hispanic population.

Mom and Dad: no worries. We are OKAY. Within an eight mile radius we found Tofurkey, veggie burgers, rice milk, soy ice cream, nutritional yeast flakes, tofu and Nayonaise. Mark, no worries: we live one mile from Cracker Barrel and there’s a steakhouse on every single corner.

Here at Home

Our apartment is the same size but here we have a fireplace, dishwasher, washer, dryer, garden tub and covered parking. We have four windows in the living room which makes it nice and bright. As in La Mesa, we are a mile from a lake and have a little bit of a view from the balcony (not of the lake but of the suburbs and green areas below). Lucy is here visiting and next month Mom and Dad are coming in their motor home. Sudi starts school later this week.

Here are pictures from our drive and of home here in Benbrook. You can see our pictures here: Driving San Diego to Texas and Our Home in Benbrook, TX.