As we left the corner of Winslow, Arizona we listened to a few Eagles songs along the way. Our destination for today was New Mexico - home of Roswell, the UFO capital of the world and Breaking Bad. This was big sky country, with wide open deserts stretching out for mile upon mile.
Santa Fe was our first pit stop, where we would have our car serviced since it had clocked up an incredible amount of kilometers since we had left Toronto. While we were waiting for our oil change to be completed, we walked over to the nearby Ranch House BBQ restaurant to have an early dinner. When ordering our meals there, we were asked the unofficial State culinary question of, "Do you want red, green or Christmas with that?" Christmas style meant red chile pepper sauce would cover one half of your dish, and green would be on the other half. We chose Christmas and found our first sampling of southern style BBQ a joyful experience!
Our car was given the all clear by the friendly staff at the Honda Dealership and the next morning we headed back out on the road towards Texas. While in Texas, we were looking forward to eating a lot of meat, as Texas is known for fantastic steak and BBQ. Our first stop was in Amarillo at Tyler's Barbeque. Here, we slightly (and by slightly, we mean greatly) over-ordered and this became our main meal for the day! From this experience, we began to learn the lesson that for lunch, it was probably safe to order one appetizer, share it, and call that a meal. Everything is way bigger in Texas! We spent our first night in Wichita Falls and continued on the next morning.
The landscape was also changing around us. Instead of desert and rocks, the fertile countryside was rich with fields of grain, cattle and in some cases, working oil wells. In the main cities, the roads themselves were now a tangle of overhanging, twisted bridges that connected freeways together.
Waking up in the morning at the hotels where we stayed, often meant we could enjoy a complimentary breakfast of waffles, cereal, fruit, muffins and coffee. It also meant that we were forced to endure the latest horror show of morning American television (think CNN or - worse yet - Fox News). As we rarely watch TV at home, this became both amusing and dreadful. Fortunately, at this time of year rather than the upcoming federal election being the topic, the focus was on Thanksgiving, which would take place soon.
Our plan was to swing by Dallas on our way to Austin, where we would stay during the holiday period. We were anxious to make Dallas a quick trip, as the weather was going to turn rainy the following day. While in Dallas we drove by the location where JFK was assassinated back in 1963. We went by the grassy knoll, the school book depository and even the macabre X on the road, marking the location of Kennedy’s limo where he was shot. This turned out to be a highly photographed spot. Following this, we planned to eat some amazing BBQ at the Pecan Lodge, but we turned up at 10:30 in the morning (a full half an hour before it opened) and were disappointed and more than a little shocked, to see a line all the way around the block! I suppose some Texans were getting an early start to their Thanksgiving celebrations! Instead of eating here, we continued towards Austin, stopping in Waco to enjoy lunch at Whataburger, a popular burger chain in Texas.
Arriving in Austin, we were impressed by the laid back atmosphere, compared to the small town of Waco, dowdy Dallas or the tough-as-nails Amarillo. Austin was both a beautiful and vibrant city. We enjoyed strolling down East 6th Street which was filled with cafe's, clubs and eateries - it had a really cool bohemian feel about it, that we both loved. We chose Stubbs, given our theme of all meat all the time – for some full on BBQ, Yummy! While we were eating and listening to live music, we overheard someone ask a friend what she was planning on doing over Thanksgiving. She told him about visiting her parents and having an amazing feast. He said "Okay great, well I guess you can pick me up at noon then!" :-)
Austin, which was already cool in our books, became totally awesome when Colin noticed a passerby carrying a Voodoo Donuts box (remember we discovered these delicious treats earlier in our trip while in Portland, Oregon) – wow. Colin approached his newfound friend who happily pointed us in the right direction. Apparently they had just opened up a branch on Halloween and needless to say, that Colin & Melissa's diet now contained not only a ton of meat, but also a fair number of donuts sprinkled with a little Voodoo love.
The next day, being Thanksgiving, most places were closed. So we got caught up on our laundry and then headed out to a place that was highly recommended which offered a turkey dinner. We wandered over there at 2:30 pm and were told that there would be a three hour wait (gasp!) So we put our name down with determination and went away to a nearby place for a small snack, while we waited out the three hours. We decided to check up on our reservation after 2 hours, and upon our return we found that they had closed a half hour earlier (huh??!!). Needless to say, we weren’t feeling so thankful on this holiday as we missed out on roast turkey with all the fixings. Instead of feeling down for too long, what was to be our late lunch turned into an early dinner back at the tried and true Stubbs BBQ, which tasted as nice as the evening before.
The next day, we walked around exploring different parts of Austin. We were in the (appropriately called) ‘Rainey’ Street Historical District looking for a place to eat when it suddenly began pouring with rain. A local pub was conveniently close by and we went inside to wait out the storm. The weather so far had been quite hot and somewhat humid. As a gust of wind shook the windows, the bartender opened the back door to get a cross breeze, stating a-matter-of-factly, "That's the cold front coming in!" Within ten minutes we were no longer uncomfortably hot, rather it felt as if FALL had hit us hard (The temperature had actually dropped from 24 to 12 degrees C in about an hour)!
The following morning, we made a quick trip to the Apple Genius Bar to replace our computer cord that had stopped working. We were interested in having – what else – BBQ for lunch, and the Apple employee recommended a food truck called Valentina’s Tex Mex. This food truck was well and truly off the tourist path and we ate some of the best food that we’ve had on our trip so far. There’s a reason they’re called ‘Genius’ – thanks for the recommendation!
With our bellies full, we said goodbye to Austin and headed out to San Antonio and what we believed would be hotter weather. When we arrived it was not exactly as hot as we expected, in fact we found ourselves bundled up in scarves and toques during our stay there. We were delighted to be offered a 21st floor room-with-a-view at our hotel, right up until the fire alarm went off at one o’clock in the morning.
Most of the touristy portion of San Antonio was along the Riverwalk. The San Antonio river, which winds around the downtown core, is similar to the Toronto PATH in that there are many shops along this walkway that connects buildings. One difference is that instead of interior hallways, there is water with tour boats and many restaurants and patio bars serving fruity alcoholic drinks and beer along the banks. After sampling the delights of the waterways, we made our way up onto dry land and had dinner at Zinc Bistro, which was very nice and decidedly less touristy. On the next day we visited the Alamo, where the Texas defenders, including Davy Crockett, were trounced by Mexican troops, setting the stage for the Texas Revolution.
Next Up: Southern Style of New Orleans
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