pantstributor

A trip to Muleshoe with Olivia

I have been asked to share the wonders of Muleshoe with you, where I visited my grandmother and the Muleshoe Heritage Center with my boyfriend David over the Christmas holidays. (This is a great opportunity for me because I still haven’t managed to blog about any parts of this trip on my own blog…)

But can we please start with the fact that on the way to Muleshoe from Austin, we stopped at this awesome donut shop in Abilene, which is not (incidentally) a great place:

(This is unfortunately one of only two times in 3 weeks we ate at a chain, not including Starbucks or the Hyatt hotels we stayed. Okay never mind, we patronized chains.)

Anyway, here is a very scandalous picture:

So I took that picture, and then we ordered some donuts. I don’t usually like donuts, but it was good to stop driving. Anyway, so we are sitting there, amused by the old man at a table behind us, drinking coffee that tastes like water. A really massive man in overalls comes in, and he is like a caricature of a Texan. It is getting embarrassing, having my British boyfriend sitting there, trying really hard to not laugh.

Then, the girl behind the counter gets a phone call. She answers it. She looks at me and says, “Excuse me, my manager wants to talk to you.” I am completely baffled. But I pick up the phone. The manager asks why I “took a picture of our display.” I am not entirely sure that that picture (look at it again!) is really classed as “a display,” but whatever. I stutteringly say I am on a trip and blah blah blah. She seems somewhat satisfied.

Meanwhile, David has seen the massive man stuffing sugar packets in his pockets. The old man told him to stop stealing, and the massive man throws all the packets back on the counter, saying he didn’t want them anyway. Riiiiight. When he left, the old man said, “I wish he’d just go and die.”

Welcome to West Texas. I am not sure what that story means about the region, but it is a place with towns named Levelland, Sweetwater, Muleshoe, etc.

(Incidentally, a warning: these pictures all have the timestamp on them. Apparently it was a default setting on my new camera that I didn’t know about. It is super annoying! Sorry.)

Muleshoe is a smaller town, from a more innocent time. People do not wish anyone else a quick death. But they will interfere if they see you stealing sugar packets.

Okay but seriously, here is a typical landmark in Muleshoe:

There are a few more landmarks. First, there is Carolyn’s Christmas Creations, which is a year-round Christmas store, but it has lots of other things, like baby gifts and yard furniture (including a restored ancient buggy!) and lots of purses.

It used to be Joe’s Boot Shop, which was quite famous, but has now moved to a bigger town.

Okay, but seriously, the most important–or at least second most–thing is the Mule, which went to Washington for Bush’s inauguration:

I can’t really remember why Muleshoe has that name, but as you can see from the statue, it really is about mules.

And now we will move on to the most important thing: The Heritage Center. Wait, wait, it’s not boring.

It was started by a group of high school students who didn’t want the railway depot to be torn down. Muleshoe and outlying areas were basically only founded in the late 19th/really early 20th Centuries with the advent of the railroad. Even though that wasn’t that long ago, it somehow seems really old.

After they rescued the depot (this took a while), people started donating stuff to them. Like, an old ranch house, which has now been restored to its original glory. You should go to see it (my grandmother can give you a tour), but I will share with you this old electrical plug, which I swear is what ET was based on:

How awesome is that thing? It’s basically an extension cord, but much cooler and prettier. I would like to bring it back.

Anyway, there is also a chop house, where the ranchers from the XIT Ranch ate:

And there is an old school house:

This is one of my favorites because my grandmother is on the right, and the other woman is the hostess and also knows a LOT about this town. It is really interesting because there is such a sense of community among the people who work at the Heritage Center. A lot of the volunteers are 60+, and they give so much time to it, but it also gets a lot of help from high school students. I really like that.

That, folks, could be your hotel room if you were among the land prospectors who came out to Bailey County to think about buying some cheap land. It’s pretty cozy, huh? It’s in a one-room “hotel” that was also donated. I think it’s sweet, but it had like 12 beds in it or something, so not exactly what you think of as a nice hotel now.

And now, my favorite: The Dugout. I loved Little House on the Prairie books, and on the prairie, if you remember, there aren’t many trees. So you have to make your house in the ground, like this one, which is under construction:

I’ve never seen a dugout in real life! Or in any life, except in a little cartoon in a Little House book, I think. Anyway, I couldn’t go in it because it is under construction, but it should be open fairly soon, knowing how fast these Muleshoians work.

A few more things about Muleshoe:

1. Tumbleweeds are a major threat. Nay, a local obsession. Here are these predators, which do actually cause a lot of headaches because they get caught around the town and in fences and under your car:

2. We played a lot of games of the family classic, Hand N Foot, which is a complicated game that lends itself easily to cheating. I had to upload it into YouTube: The cheating, explained.

3. When you go there, you have to eat Mexican (Tex-Mex) at Leal’s.

© 2009 Poshdeluxe.