NEW BRAUNFELS — It's a sunny Saturday afternoon, and everybody's at Buc-ee's.

I do mean everybody. It's hard to find a gas pump to pull up to, and that's saying something, because there are 60 of them. There must be about 500 cars here — some in a stream snaking into the three entrances, some lined up to try to get out, but most of them happily parked in the parking lot or at a pump pouring in $3.32-a-gallon gas.

Inside Buc-ee's, which opened earlier this month at Interstate 35's Exit 191, at least 800 people — parents towing candy-seeking kids, teenagers picking up sunscreen on the way to the Guadalupe, wide-eyed grandparents parsing the multicolored rows of yogurt-covered pretzels — are literally bumping into each other within the store's 67,000 square feet as they forage for snacks, buy brisket sandwiches, check out the purses, invest in a stuffed beaver or buy a sack of deer feed.

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