Bad times in Texas...

I was reading Beck's blog (Life's a Beach!) this morning about how the economy is affecting the area where she lives. She writes about businesses closing and construction stopping on homes being built. The same thing is happening in my area, so I thought I'd do a similar post.

When I first moved here about 4-1/2 years ago, this field with the cows was all I saw from my back yard. In the past two years, this subdivision went up on the other side of the field. (Thank God the little field with the cows is still there!) They also started building houses on the other side of these homes.

But in the past few months, work has stopped and some of them are just standing there as a grim reminder of the times.

The streets are there...with no houses. This has been like this for about nine months.

This is the entrance to a subdivision down the road from me. They built this sign about nine months ago and for about six months after that, a rusted wheelbarrow and big clump of overgrown grass stood in front of it (without the "Loma Verde" on it). I think some of the homeowners must have gotten together and got rid of the grass and wheelbarrow and put the words on it. But there's no landscaping and I think it looks pretty sad...especially considering the fact it's been almost a year ago that they started working on it.

The homes in this area sell for between $100,000 and $200,000. That sounds low compared to the rest of the country, but the incomes are also much lower here so I guess it evens itself out. If you picked up my home and plunked it down in Los Angeles or San Francisco, it would probably be worth over $1,000,000. It's all about location.

About a year ago, they started building a little strip mall less than a mile from where I live. It was finished about six months ago. Here it is now...

There are 12 stores in it and all of them are vacant. Eight of them have "For Lease" signs on the front. The four that don't are empty with no indication that anyone is moving in. Here's the big sign out front advtertising all the businesses:

Here is the Office Max next door to it. There's an Office Depot a mile down the highway, but I guess they thought they could get business. Every time I drive by, I never see more than two or three cars in the parking lot. I'll be surprised if they stay in business too much longer.

This is across the lot from Office Max. That's a new IBC Bank going up. Just what we need is another bank.

What gets me about this whole deal is that even though there are no businesses in this strip mall, they keep all the parking lot lights on all night. How ridiculous is that? And so energy efficient, too! None of it makes any sense.

Driving north on I-35, here's a used car dealership that closed recently...

And a sports bar...

Here's the Office Depot I mentioned. It always has about the same number of cars in the parking lot as the new Office Max. I wonder which one will go out of business first.

And just across the road is the Circuit City where my son worked during the holidays. The management swore up and down to their employees that they weren't going to be closing. then after Christmas, they let a bunch of people go...because they were closing. Go figure.

But on the north end of New Braunfels, they're building a big shopping area with a new theatre and another little strip mall just beside it. The Super Target is already open...soon to be followed by a JCPenney, Best Buy, Ross, Famous Brand Shoes and PetSmart.

It looks like they're building all this fancy stuff around it which may include water features, etc. Who knows.

I don't know what's going in to the little strip mall beside it...there are no signs. Makes me wonder if it's going to end up like the little strip mall by my house.

Personally, I can't believe JCPenney is putting in a store. They're also putting a new one in in San Marcos, which is only about 15 miles north of New Braunfels. AND...keep in mind that Texas' largest outlet mall is in between San Marcos and New Braunfels and has about a gazillion stores. It just gets crazier and crazier. (On a personal note, I can't even remember the last time I was in a JCPenney. They didn't have them in South Dakota, and even when I lived in St. Louis, I never went there. Maybe I'm missing something??)

I guess the Best Buy is going to take over the business of the failing Circuit City.

Here's another little strip mall on the other side of town which I drove by today. Doesn't look any better.

One strange thing I have noticed recently, though. These businesses seem to be all over the place.

I mentioned that to my son the other day and he said, "When times get hard, beauty will be the one thing that a woman wants to hang on to." And he's only 20 years old! He wants to go into psychology...sounds like he may actually be good at it. Well, I guess I'm not the average woman, 'cause I'll definitely pay my utility bill before I get my nails done.

Times are hard...and pretty depressing with no apparent light at the end of the tunnel for quite some time. Tell that to this guy who's playing a fake guitar on a street corner to get people to buy a pizza at Caesar's Pizza.

Maybe I need to change my line of work.

Threadgill's...and Cabela's...

Now that my son, Jon, has a new vehicle (I'll post more on that some other time), I felt like a free woman this weekend. No car sharing, no picking him up or dropping him off...I didn't know what to do with myself. So I called my son, Jeff, in Austin and asked if he wanted to go to lunch. (He's a college student with no money...chances were slim that he'd turn me down for a free lunch.) He suggested Threadgill's because that's where his girlfriend works. I've posted a similar picture of this on my South Austin post, but here it is again.

I got there a few minutes before him, so I took some pictures. Interesting armadillo window treatment.

This is the artwork in the entryway. A different take on the "Hey Diddle Diddle" nursery rhyme...

Now I'm a die-hard art lover of all eras, but these two were VERY strange in my humble opinion.

Pictures like this one lined the walls around the entire restaurant. This one of Boz Scaggs was by our table. Love the shoes...do they say "70's" or what?

There is a lot of history with this restaurant...way back from 1933.

Here's the menu. I just couldn't decide between the chicken livers and the liver and onions. (I'm kidding.)

Lone Star draft beer is $1 all the time. You can't beat that with a stick...but then again, I've never had a Lone Star beer. You have to admit that the selection of side orders (vegetables) is extensive.

So here was lunch. I ordered the "world famous" chicken fried steak. I haven't had chicken fried steak in years so I was really expecting the best...especially since it was "world famous." Looks good...

...but, alas, was very bland. For all its history and "world famous" claim, it was very disappointing. The steak was kind of rubbery and hard to cut, the potatoes were so-so...as were the beans. Jeff had the ham and cheese sandwich which wasn't even worth a picture. (Besides that, he was so hungry he dove right in before I could get a shot.) Oh, well...it was worth it to get together and catch up.

So on the way back, I was glad I was in the southbound lane of I-35 because the northbound lane was much worse than it was when I came up. That's why I don't get up to Austin much...the traffic really sucks and I swear every time I come up I see an accident on the highway.

I decided to stop off at Wal-Mart on the way to pick up some necessities which happened to be right next door to...

Sidebar: The very first time I had been in a Cabela's was when they opened a new one in South Dakota when I was living there. It's in Mitchell, home of the Corn Palace (I got this photo off the web, by the way)...

If you ever get to Mitchell, South Dakota (which is totally not on the way to anywhere, so you'll probably never get there), the Corn Palace is definitely worth a stop. The sides of the building are completely done in corn cobs...and changed every year. Kind of amazing.

Anyway, it's been years since I've been in a Cabela's so I thought I'd stop in. Before I went inside, I got this picture. I love the colors of these Kayaks. I think I'd have to go with the pretty blue one...if I were into kayaking...which I'm not...but you never know...

Here's what you see when you walk in...

This guy reminded me of the ones you'd see climbing around Mt. Rushmore.

The "game" room.

And this mechanical guy was talking about something regarding camping or hunting...I wasn't really interested enough to hear what it was about. I thought it was very corny.

Lots of heads of just about every variety of horned aminal you can imagine...

Then there is the aquarium...

And on to the guns! Just about every make and model you can imagine. That little girl on the far left is looking at all the handguns in the display case. I wonder which one she's going to pick.

"Gun Library." Hmmm...is that an oxymoron if you ever saw one?

The whole Cabela's visit left me kind of depressed. The place was packed. You would never have known there is an economy problem going on. I'm not an anti-gun, anti-hunting kind of person, but between you, me and the fencepost, I think Cabela's is WAY overpriced and just a gimmick to get consumers to spend their money...which they were definitely doing today. After all, they have to get back the millions of dollars they've spent on building these ridiculous, incredibly materialistic stores. My dos centavos.

So, driving out of the parking lot, I saw this...

...but no one was around. I guess my "learn to ride" lesson will have to wait. Oh, well...