Ted is a Texan! (for the day)

Ted made it all the way through New Mexico and into Texas. Here he is almost at the state line:

• The Alamo, in San Antonio, is where Texas defenders fell to Mexican General Santa Anna.
• Texas is the only state to have the flags of six different nations fly over it: Spain, France, Mexico, the Republic of Texas, Confederate States, and the U.S.
• The King Ranch in Texas is bigger than Rhode Island
• More wool comes from Texas than any other U.S. state
• The capitol building in Austin, TX is made of Texas pink granite

A favorite pit stop for Ted's family is Cadillac Ranch in Amarillo, TX

•  Cadillac Ranch was created by Chip Lord, Hudson Marquez, and Doug Michels who were part of an organization called Ant Farm
• The cars are old running used or junk Cadillacs in a progression representing the evolution of the car line and set half-buried at an angle corresponding to the angle of the pyramid of Giza in Egypt
• The cars were quietly relocated two miles the west in 1997 in order to place it further from the growing city limits
• The cars are periodically repainted: once white for a movie filming, once pink for one of the patron's wife's birthday, once flat black for the passing of artist Doug Michels
• As a birthday present for Marsh, Stanley Marsh's brother had a Volkswagen beetle mounted on a skid with wheels in a manner similar to the cadillacs being buried in the ground and presented it as a "Volkswagen ranchette."

Texas is apparently very windy this time of year:

Ted and friends had lunch at McAlister's Deli. A sandwich and sweet tea could revitalize even the most weary hearts.

When I made my trip across the country, I found that us Californians take good sweet tea for granted. It's hard to find real sweet tea anywhere other than the South, where they use real sugar cane and brew the tea fresh every day. In fact, when my grandma orders sweet tea, she makes sure they use real sugar cane, otherwise she won't drink it. McAlister's sweet tea is brewed daily using rain forest certified black tea and pure cane sugar. Totally jealous of this one!

Even though Ted is pretty small, he looked (and felt) even smaller against the world's largest freestanding cross in Groom Texas.

• The cross is 19 stories tall and weighs 1,250 tons or 2 1/2  million pounds
• It took more than 100 welders and was erected in July 1995
• Two million people pass by each year and one thousand people stop by every day
• The construction took 8 months

Ted made it all the way to Oklahoma tonight!

•  The U.S. acquired most the Oklahoma in 1803 in the Louisiana Purchase from France, the panhandle region was acquired in the annexation of Texas in 1845
• Homesteading was first permitted on April 22, 1889; 50,000 people swarmed the area that day. Those who tried to jump the noon starting gun were called "Sooners"
• The aerosol can, parking meter, and the shopping cart were all invented in Oklahoma
• Oklahoma's state capitol building is the only capitol in the world with an oil well under it
•  Clinton Riggs designed the YIELD sign. It was first used on a trial basis in Tulsa
•  The official State Meal of Oklahoma is chicken fried steak, fried okra, squash, cornbread, barbecue pork, biscuits, sausage and gravy, grits, corn, strawberries, black eyed peas and pecan pie

Until tomorrow, we wish Ted a good night in good ol' Ooooooooooooooooooooooooklahoma!

(facts via: qsl.net,wikipedia.org, mcalistersdeli.com, crossministries.net, infoplease.com, awesomeamerica.com)