Road Trip Part 4: Dairy Queen

Note: I should have done this post yesterday, before the San Antonio post, to keep things in chronological order. My bad. 

I've done some pretty long drives in a single day before. Many times I've driven from Portland to Pasadena in one day, ditto Boulder to Pasadena, both around 1000 miles. I once drove from Auburn, CA to Rock Springs, WY (800 miles), only stopping because I got caught in an ice storm. Kansas City to Lexington, VA (940 miles)? Sure, I've done that, too. 

But never have I experienced a drive that felt longer than the one through West Texas from El Paso to San Antonio. There is pretty much nothing to see and the towns - if you can call them that - are few and far between. At one point, when we started getting hungry, Elizabeth took out her iphone and checked for restaurants. There were three options within 100 miles: McDonald's, Taco Bell, and a sit-down restaurant that was only open for dinner.

Eventually - and by eventually I mean about three hours after we got hungry; with the cruise control set at 85 you can do the math - we made it to a town with a restaurant that sounded interesting. It was closed on Sundays. Of course. But there also happened to be a Dairy Queen in town. Before the trip, Elizabeth said we had to stop by a DQ for a dipped cone and I promised her we would. (Unlike Cracker Barrel, a brief ice cream stop at DQ seemed harmless.) This seemed like the perfect time.

I've never actually eaten at Dairy Queen. I know I've had their ice cream before, and I even remember stopping by a DQ a few years ago in Sacramento because my dad really wanted a soft ice cream, but I really did not know anything about their food. 

There was no one else in the place. What do people who live in the middle of Texas do for food? Do they eat every single meal at home? Or am I misjudging the situation and there are no people who live in the middle of Texas? Life is confusing sometimes.

I wasn't in a burger mood so I ordered the popcorn shrimp basket. For an instant my mind flashed back to a fried shrimp meal I ordered almost ten years ago in similar-looking terrain in Montana; it made me violently ill. But then again those were hand-breaded shrimp in a diner and I was relatively certainly these would be coming out of a giant plastic back from the freezer.

They were just fine. They certainly looked better than the burger Elizabeth ordered. The shrimp were not as good as Popeyes nor any of the fried seafood you will be reading about soon, but considering this was pretty much our only dining option and I was incredibly hungry, I have no complaints.

Here are Elizabeth's burger and fries. They aren't very good pictures, but do they really need to be? You can figure out what's going on here. 

I would go back to Dairy Queen for an ice cream cone, but I do not plan to ever eat at one again. However, if I find myself in the middle of nowhere and it's my only option, I wouldn't be opposed to another order of fried shrimp.