I Ate My Way Through Texas – a Texas tall tale by Dennis Lange

February 19, 2014 by Dennis Lange

I ate my way through Texas
One Christmas season past.
All it took was an appetite,
And driving hard and fast.

I breakfasted in Corpus;
Ate lunch in San Antone;
Had peachy cream in Fredericksburg,
The biggest ice cream cone.

I darted up to Llano,
And ate some barbeque.
I still felt rather perky
As I drank some Mountain Dew.

I snacked a bit in Abilene;
In Snyder, I ate steak.
I passed on a second piece of pie –
‘Twas all that I could take.

In Post, I drove through the Dairy Queen,
Had a burger and some fries.
I began to see a line of food
Rise in me to my eyes.

In Amarillo, I chug-a-lugged
Three liters of some coke.
I think it was the salty fries
That made me a thirsty bloke.

The Oklahoma border was
Then not too far away.
And I was glad, for my stomach had had
A fairly busy day.

My car was tired; I’d driven far –
Nigh seven hundred miles.
But I found a place, bought a root beer float
And I was full of smiles.

I had them fix a gallon
Which I drank till Perryton.
And I paused to rest, with a sudden pain –
Well… – there was more than one.

I stood outside my resting car;
Then faced toward Lubbock – south.
And all of a sudden I let a belch
That blew off half my mouth.

And I watched in awe at the wind I saw
That blew down ‘cross the plain
And kicked up the dust and the tumbleweeds
Worse than a hurricane.

They said it turned the day to night
The dust storm was so bad.
And the boom of the belch was an atom bomb
(They thought, from Stalingrad).

They had it rough, but the belch was enough
To change me and my mood
I hit the border of Oklahoma
In search of a little food.

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The route in the poem is from the Texas Gulf Coast
north through the Panhandle of Texas to the Panhandle
of Oklahoma, and is about 700 miles.

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The Bard on the Hill