Stories of Hope 2023 (Texas, Oklahoma, Arkansas, Missouri)

On April 27th of 2023, myself, 16 other students, and 3 teachers embarked on a trip to the south of the United States, with the mission to investigate stories of Hope.

The whole experience was absolutely incredible, from the people I met, to the new foods I tried, to the ongoing challenging of my own worldview. To learn more about the project that this trip was focused on, travel to this link.

I want to start off this post with the people. I met incredible people on this trip, from the tour guides to the people on the streets, to the people I was travelling with who I didn’t know so well. I made many great friends over the trip, because of different car situations and hotel rooms.

The trip really did have an impact on my worldview as well. Going from Canada to the US is a jump that you wouldn’t expect to have many differences, but it ended up being very, very different. For example, while on this adventure my car started two tallies, one for the amount of US flags we saw, and one for how many injury lawyer ads we saw.

The total was:

over 600 flags
78 injury lawyer billboards

My view on the south of the US definitely changed after the trip, and I, grateful for that shift.

We went to many restaurants and food establishments over the trip, so I thought I’d give them all scores…

Restaurant	Place, State	Rating /10
Matt’s El Rancho	Austin, Texas	6/10
Franklin barbecue	Austin Texas	7/10
Buccees	Waco, Texas	7/10
Torchy’s tacos	Waco, Texas	8/10
The biscuit bar	Fort Worth, Texas	9.5/10
? (Grilled cheese)	Dallas Texas	5.5/10
Terry Blacks Barbecue	Dallas, Texas	8.5/10
Bagel place	Dallas, Texas	9.8/10
Cattleman’s steakhouse	Oklahoma City, Oklahoma	5/10
Thai kitchen	Oklahoma City, Oklahoma	7.5/10
Society	Tulsa, Oklahoma	8.1/10
Lone wolf Banh mi	Tulsa, Oklahoma	7/10
Cracker Barrel	Bentonville, Arkansas	8.7/10
Crystal bridges	Bentonville, Arkansas	3/10
Paula Deen’s family kitchen	Branson, Missouri	9.6/10
Silver dollar city	Branson, Missouri	8/10
Golden Corral	Branson, Missouri	7.8/10
Pizza ranch	Branson, Missouri	8.2/10
Embassy suites breaky	San Francisco, California	6.7/10

I also gave the hotels scores…

Hotel	State	Rating
Fairfield, Austin	Texas	7/10
TownePlace, Waco	Texas	7.5/10
Fairfield, Dallas	Texas	6.7/10
Spring Hill suites, Oklahoma City	Oklahoma	8.8/10
Fairfield, Tulsa	Oklahoma	6.9/10
Spring Hill, Bentonville	Arkansas	8.9/10
Fairfield, Branson	Missouri	6/10
Embassy, San Francisco	California	9.4/10