A Week in Waco

Well I have been in Waco since Monday and I am leaving tomorrow. I am here for a work conference and I have to admit that it would not have been my first choice for locations. It is an EPA sponsored conference for our region and I figure we should be able to find someplace between New Mexico, Oklahoma, Texas, Arkansas, and Louisiana that is not quite so desolate, but apparently not!

So I probably did not come into the city with the best attitude, but I have to admit it is kind of a neat city. I did not spend much time driving through Baylor, but from what I saw it is a beautiful campus. I am also impressed that there seems to be so much redevelopment in the downtown area, I am a big fan of revitalization of cities.

Here are a couple of the neat things that I did while I was in Waco:

The Cameron Park Zoo

It is a really neat small town zoo. I of course forgot to bring my camera, so all of the animals were crazy exciting. There was a black bear swimming in a pool, big tigers using a log as a scratching post, a capybara just hanging out under the water fall, and meerkats that were just too cute.

The Dr Pepper Museum

I had a plan to just go to the gift shop and skip the museum, but I am glad that I went through it. It was really interesting. I found out that Dr Pepper was invited at a drug store here in Waco and originally people would come in and ask for "a Waco." The museum explained how soda pop became known as soda pop, why the first soda fountains were in drug stores, and why there is no period after Dr in the name. And the best part is at the end you can go into the Soda Fountain shop and order an original Dr Pepper. It is made with the syrup and then soda water is added...it is the best Dr Pepper I have ever had!!!

So I guess the morale of the story is you can't judge a city by its lack of reputation!