A Trip to Buc-ee’s WOW!
Buc-ee’s super convenience store….wasn’t the highlight of our Fort Walton Beach trip but it ranked right up there close!
We were on our way home from a few days at the beach and almost went past a Buc-ee’s exit sign. We made a quick exit to check it out.
History
Now, we had never heard of Buc-ee’s until a couple of months ago. My first knowledge of Buc-ee’s was because the name was printed on a plastic mug that a friend gave my husband.
It hurts me to tell this story, but I will. Maybe it will help someone else to avoid the same mistake I made.
Shopping
My husband and I were shopping one day, not looking for anything special. We were just browsing. He mentioned that he would like to look at a new coffee cup. Well, I brushed him off because we have perfectly good coffee cups at home. They are white, have nice handles, and they all match. None of them are broken or cracked.
I like to keep things simple in my kitchen. An odd assortment of coffee cups or mugs from a bunch of different places is just not my thing. The same applies to plates. I like to be able to set the table with all of the same plates so we have a service for 12 even though we rarely seat more than 6-8. I’m not OCD, I just like plain white dishes and rather dress up the table with color in other ways. No biggie.
Well, a few days later when he was making coffee one morning he mentioned that he needed a cup that was deeper than what he had so that the coffee wouldn’t slosh out. I felt like an anvil had landed on my head. It made my heart hurt.
Essential Tremor
You see, my husband has a familial (essential) tremor. His hands and his head shake. It’s a hereditary thing. His mom and his maternal grandfather were afflicted with it and had it very bad. It comes on around the age of 40 and progresses with time. He does take a beta-blocker to help but the older he gets the worse the tremor gets too. He’s to the point that he prefers not to have to write his name. So in those situations, I go with him to fill out papers, etc. I try not to step in and take over when he’s trying to use a screwdriver or anything that requires fine motor skills. I wait until he asks me to do it….most of the time! Not always….something I’m impatient and say, here’s let me do that. I sound like a terrible person!
Now I realized WHY he wanted to look at new coffee cups! I felt so bad, so bad. I didn’t say anything but immediately went up to Carrie’s house to see if she had any sort of a deeper coffer cup or mug and she did but it was kind of heavy. It was a Yeti I think. I was determined to go shopping and be on the lookout for the perfect cup. Something taller, not so heavy, with a handle.
Friends
I’m not sure if it was at Sunday School with Pat and Lena, or lunch with Pat, Lena, and Bettye but I told them about the coffee cup situation and how bad I felt about it.
Anyway, my husband plays golf every day with Lena’s husband. A day or two later, he came in with a red plastic cup, tallish, and with a handle. It was sort of a junior-size mug. Lena had sent it to him to try using for his coffee.
It was perfect! He loved it. It probably holds about two cups, so now he can have his coffee, drink it and even walk around with it without it sloshing out. I didn’t pay that much attention to the writing on the side at the time, but guess what it was…..a Buc-ee’s cup. He hasn’t used anything else for his coffee since that time.
Super Convenience Store
Buc-ee’s is advertised as a super convenience store……I would call it SNACK HEAVEN! I have never seen so many different kinds of snacks…..they had a whole wall of nut products!
We really didn’t have a lot of time to spend there, so we just made a quick walk-through. The first thing I noticed was that when we walked in the door, someone called out “Welcome to Buc-ee’s!”
We were looking for breakfast food and we found it! They had all kinds of hot biscuits with sausage, egg, or bacon. Absolutely just too many things to list!
It was mid-morning and they were making up the barbecue too. Fresh fruits in cups that you could pick up and eat. They even had cubed cheese in cups that you could grab and go. When I opened the cheese later in the car, it had a couple of toothpicks in it so you could snack without making a mess.
Sweets
Our grandson had told us to be sure and get some coconut peanut brittle, so we found that and got it. I also found some milk chocolate coconut almond balls. Oh my goodness. They are like a bite of an Almond Joy. All the snacks products were Buc-ee’s brand.
I grabbed a box of assorted fudge too and when I opened it, there was a plastic knife in the box. The fudge was already in little blocks, but trust me, all you need is half a block…..thus the knife. How thoughtful!
If we had stayed any longer in Buc-ee’s we would have had enough snacks to last us months!
Gifts
We made a quick trip through the clothing, flip-flops, and hats. They had everything you might need to go on a trip, but they also had some really neat home decor items.
There were beautiful granite cutting boards that I really pondered for a long time. But I decided they were just too heavy for me to use every day. They sure were pretty though! Lodge cast iron cookware and all sorts of pretty dishes, signs, throws…..again, just too many things to mention.
Candles! I grabbed a candle and just love it.
Gas Pumps
Buc-ee’s boasts over 100 gas pumps…..I mean really, can you imagine! We were leaving the store and my husband said “you wanna go down and look at the pumps?” I said no, let’s head back home, but honestly, I was a little bit curious too….lol. Maybe that’s old age…..I don’t care, but stopping at Buc-ee’s was one of the highlights of our trip!
And when we checked out, the lady was nice! Not just the kind of rote “thank you for shopping with us” but genuinely nice. She asked where we were from and made small talk about a Buc-ee’s coming to Mississippi soon. That was good news!
And oh yeah…..I picked up another one of the perfect coffee cups so now we have a spare)))
