Don't Drink the Water in Waco

Mom, Dad and I were lucky enough to travel to Baylor University in Waco, Texas last month to watch Kylie and the Lady Techsters play softball. Most of us know Dad's history with Texas...College Station, to be exact, and his intense animosity towards Texans of all kinds. For the sake of everyone, I hoped that Waco would fall higher on his list of favorite Texas cities...and for the most part, it did...

Waco is a small city in between Dallas and Austin with a population of just over 110,000. As far as I could tell, there's not much to it so Baylor University is the city's saving grace. Not only is Baylor a top Christian university (so the folks by default have to be nicer than those at A&M, right?!) but it is also full of beautiful, elaborate red brick buildings. When we weren't watching softball or hanging out with Buggy, we were able to drive around and see the campus.

The school even has a zoo license of some sort so they are able to keep bears on site!

The athletics complex at Baylor was absolutely incredible. The softball and baseball stadiums are located right next to each other, built of red brick, and include all of the expected amenities plus some. That would be a great stadium to play softball in.

Even though the weather was much colder than expected we enjoyed seeing Kylie play FIVE games over the course of three days in this fabulous stadium. They played Rutgers and Louisiana - Monroe two times each and Baylor once. Here are some actions shots from the games.

It was great to see you Ky and I can't wait for our road trip out to Louisiana in a few weeks!

P.S. Next time we'll know...

Before we arrived in Waco, Kylie warned us that the drinking water was gross. I didn't think much of it since I'm not very picky about my water. How bad could it actually be?! Well, we quickly learned the hard way. At one of our first meals out, we ordered water and it tasted like soil...probably just a fluke. NOPE! The water tasted the same at every single restaurant we went to. I even think one of the waitresses looked at us like we were nuts when we ordered tap water. When Kylie said the water was gross, she was not kidding! I cannot count the number of full glasses of water we left on our tables because we took a few sips and decided quenching our thirst was impossible when it was more like drinking dirt than ice water.

I thought it was a bit strange that the water tasted bad every where in town and that the locals seemed to think it was totally normal so I did a bit of research. I came across quotes like:

"Nowhere on Mother Earth does the water taste as bad as in Waco."

"The taste and odor associated with Waco's water is a serious problem..."

"One thing all Wacoans have in common is the bad taste in our mouths."

Come to find out that the poor quality of the water is a known and ongoing issue in Waco. There are two different alleged culprits of the water issue that are probably related in some way.

The first is that Lake Waco contains a significant Cyanobacteria population. This blue-green algae is believed to produce the compounds that make the water taste "green".

The second, more interesting (and unproven) reason is that there are dairy farms located north of Waco so the city is essentially down manure creek and receives all of the dairy farm runoff.

Both of these reasons are disturbing...but we survived and everyone in Waco is still alive so I guess the water can't be all bad. Hopefully Waco can get the water problem fixed before my next visit.