10/10/16,
“On the Road Again”
Austin,
Texas
Here we are,
in the capital of Texas, after spending about eight hours in the car and four
hours doing activities. We spent almost
the entire day on the road. While we
were able to spend the entirety of yesterday in San Antonio, that was the
exception for this trip, we were on the road again, today, Day 3 being spent
much like Day 1. The only difference
being today we embarked on our quest together, as opposed to Day 1 when I was
on my own awaiting my mother’s arrival at SAN airport that night, as I made my
way down the Gulf Coast. Today was a
very harrowing Day, though on paper it might not seem like a lot with our only
activities for the day being two National Park Sites and dinner at Texas’s most
iconic restaurant.
We did everything we
meant to do, making up for the audible we had to call yesterday, and we eventually
arrived at the hotel completely spent, no longer having interest in going out
for any evening activities. This is the
last night we will spend in Texas this trip, but I have left some unfinished
business here, and I will be returning to Texas and Oklahoma in the spring and
spending a night in Waco. In the
meantime, I have many trips between now and then, many more opportunities to be
on the road again, but that is the future.
It is time to recount today’s events.
After I closed last night, I soon went to sleep, and we woke up early to
get an early start. My mother went out
to get her oatmeal and wound up at a McDonald’s, so she brought back breakfast
for me, which I didn’t want to eat until we were on the road. It would be almost three hours to our first
stop, Amistad NRA, which is right on the Mexican border. As soon as we started driving, we got a low
tire pressure indicator light, which seemed odd, but I told my mother to pull
over somewhere, and I got out to kick the tires. They were fine, so I shrugged it off. We continued, stopping only for gas, which
somehow set us back 20 minutes. We
listened to an old favorite, Avril’s first album, which we listened to on so many
road trips together when it first came out.
However, one loop was all my mother could tolerate of the punk rock, so
we switched to John Williams music, followed by film scores.
Before long, we arrived at the VC for the
NRA. I asked a few questions as I got my
stamps, and we learned that Diablo East, about five miles down the road, would
have the best views. We parked there, I
lit up a Romeo y Julieta, and we started walking to a spot that seemed to have
a good vista of the reservoir, and we could see Mexico off in the distance. I pulled out my brochure to take a ceremonial
picture, and, to our shock, we discovered that we were standing in the exact
spot where the picture on the front of the brochure was taken. We had some fun with that. We walked around a bit as I finished my cigar
before getting back on the road. Our
next stop was the LBJ homestead, known for my purposes as Lyndon B. Johnson
NHP. We stopped only at a Stripes for
some snacks and a corn dog and Dr. Pepper for me, which, at 3 PM, served as my
lunch.
From there, we continued to the
homestead in Stonewall. The VC was
actually part of the State Park, and I had seriously estimated the extent of
the park. The ranger, not an NPS ranger,
at the VC insisted that the Stonewall unit and Johnson City unit were two
separate National Park Sites. That was
not possible. She seemed not to
understand what constituted a National Park Site. I help up my unigrid brochure and asked,
quite simply, if the Johnson City location had a separate unigrid. She had no idea what a unigrid was, so I
said, “This is a unigrid.” She confirmed
it was the same one. The Stonewall unit
had the birthplace, the cemetery, and the Texas White House, while the Johnson
City unit had the boyhood home and another VC.
It would be very tight to see everything before the Johnson City VC
closed at 5 PM, but it looked doable.
I
lit up a Surrogates, and we headed straight to the birthplace to take our
ceremonial picture there, continuing straight to the Texas White House, which
had a VC, an old Air Force One, and the house itself, where the Johnsons lived
most of their adult lives. It was a nice
home, and we then had to race to get to Johnson City. We
got to the VC with 10 minutes to spare and then took our ceremonial picture at
the boyhood home before getting back on the road and heading straight to
Driftwood to go to the Salt Lick BBQ Pit, Texas’s “most iconic restaurant”. We stopped at pumpkin stand on the way and
got some pumpkin pie ice cream cake, which was okay but not worth the
stop.
Soon enough, we were at Salt
Lick. It wasn’t just a restaurant, it
was a whole experience. We parked and walked in to the pavilion, past the pit itself, and sat
down. I got the classic Thurman’s
Choice, which consisted of brisket, ribs, and sausage, along with all the
fixings. There was a separate alcohol
stand about 200 feet away, and you had to get the alcohol there and bring it
back to the table, so I went to grab a Shiner Bock.
The food soon came out, and, while the
fixings were disappointing, the meat was everything I expected out of a
traditional Texas BBQ. It was
heavenly. After I finished, I went
outside with the rest of my beer and lit up half a Toscano while I waited for
my mother to finish up. I sat in the
corner of the patio and had, what I like to describe as, my Magnificent Seven
moment, pretending I was in an old cowboy movie as I smoked the same cigar they
smoke in those movies. I was finishing
the cigar as my mother was coming out, and we headed to the car.
From there, it was the Texas Governor’s
Mansion, and we were now under time pressure to get there by dusk. We actually managed to get there right at
sunset, and I scoped out the situation while my mother parked the car. She met me in front of the mansion, and I lit
up the other half of the Toscano. We
took our ceremonial picture and then walked across the street to the Capitol,
which I had seen in 2013 when I visited Texas during the federal government
shutdown.
My mother was very impressed
with this building, which was the seventh largest building in the world when it
was built. We took some more ceremonial
pictures there, managing to do so right before dusk. I finished the cigar, and we headed back to
the car. From there, it was straight to
the hotel, and we were completely spent when we arrived.
We checked in, grabbed some drinks from the
bar (rye and seltzer on the side for me), and brought them back to the
room. We could see the dome of the
Capitol from our room, and we relaxed a bit before I headed down with the rest
of my rye to the outdoor pool, where I sat down in view of the general
direction of the Capitol, lit up my Rinaldo, and proceeded to write this entry,
which I will now close so that I can publish and strategize for the rest of the
evening and the rest of the trip. It isn’t
even 9:30 PM yet, which is actually relatively early for me to publish my
entry, but I will save any other adventures of tonight for tomorrow’s entry.
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