Gotta love a gas station on gas station rivalry.
If you haven’t had the life experience of going to a Buc-ee’s, let me try and paint a picture for you.
For miles ahead on the highway, billboards call out with claims of fresh brisket, beef jerky walls, steaming baked goods, and spacious bathrooms. As you get closer, the unmistakable figure of a hat-wearing beaver on a yellow background rises above the tree line and traffic signs, signaling that it’s time to exit. You pull into an enormous parking lot and there’s not an 18-wheeler in sight, just rows of vehicles full of road trippers, locals, and bucket-list voyagers.
You walk past firewood, grills, and patio furniture before the sights and smells of near every type of food rushes up your nostrils, combining in an odd, but slightly euphoric, aroma that fuels the giddy energy of all inside. After perusing the aisles stuffed with coffee mugs, bucket hats, t-shirts, performance fishing hoodies, and knick-knacks, you walk through a corridor of art (all for sale) leading to a row of walled off, private bathroom stalls to take care of business.
After washing up you hit the nut stand for some cinnamon roasted almonds, grab a pulled pork sandwich, a large fountain drinks, and a t-shirt that will be a staple of your wardrobe for the next few weeks, chop it up with a worker for a few minutes, then check out. You blink your eyes and 45 minutes have gone by, your wallet is significantly smaller than when you entered, and you wonder when this man-cave metal sign found its way into your hands.
That’s Buc-ee’s, the iconic chain that started in Texas and is now spreading quickly throughout the country, with locations in Ohio, Virginia, Colorado, and many more in the works.
Now, more people are familiar with QuikTrip. QT is undoubtedly a solid gas station, also sporting a variety of food and frozen yogurt, but without the fanfare that Buc-ee’s commands. Well, a seemingly harmless post got some attention on X last night asking for people to chime in with their “lowest stakes conspiracy theory” and QuikTrip responded with a thought on how Buc-ee’s came to be:
“The United States Department of Agriculture founded Buc-ees as a way to change the narrative about Beavers being invasive and dangerous”
Now I don’t really have a dog in this fight, but the idea that beavers are invasive to the United States is just not true. When European settlers began pushing west, the beaver fur trade was so lucrative that for a brief moment in history, the richest man on earth was a beaver trapper. The National Park Service says the earliest known record of beavers in the US dates back 5 million years.
But wait, wouldn’t that be exactly what the “official” wildlife channels of the US would say if they were giving cover for the beaver? Surely all would have to be on board and toeing a tight line would be required to keep this conspiracy going. What’s the real story behind all these stream damming, tree killing rodents? Could it really be nefarious?
Some people on the internet have sure gotten interested in it…
I guess I’m still undecided on this… There would need to be some big funding behind a gas station operation like Buc-ee’s and who has more money than the people in charge of creating money?
Only time will tell…
