Remember the Alamo - Day 4 - "Houston, We've Had a Problem"

10/11/16, “Houston, We’ve Had a Problem”

George Bush Intercontinental Airport, Texas (IAH)

Despite the ironic title I have assigned to today’s entry, today actually went perfectly fine.  This is, in fact, the triumphant airport entry.  Like every other Day on this trip, it was long and exhausting, but we did everything we set out to do.  All in all, it was a very successful trip, but we are both more than ready to go home.  By the numbers, we visited five National Park Site units, including the World Heritage Site, an additional eight National Historic Landmarks, the State Capitol, and the two most famous buildings in Texas (the Alamo and Mission Control).  We did about 20 hours of driving over four Days to this end, and we are just ready to go home.  I will be returning to Texas in six months, and I will then be able to say, “Texas Complete.”  Until then, I can safely say that I have enjoyed my time in Texas, despite the stress entailed in executing our itinerary, and I will be glad when I have another chance to return.

This is usually the space where I would write a reflective entry, but I don’t have much to reflect on.  It is, I believe, my sixth trip into Texas, and the next one will be the last for quite some time.  It is a huge state, and they have been able to build the roads and support structure to accommodate for such expanses.  “Everything’s bigger in Texas” is not just a saying.  It’s true.  Even the coffee sizes are bigger here.  It is as much of an embodiment of the southwest as is imaginable, and my love affair with the Southwest is no less evident here than it is in other states.

I am close to being able to finally say, “Southwest Complete.”  Other than the annoying fact that I neglected to visit the Capitol when I was in Little Rock, I am two trips away from saying it.  The OK, Texas trip I take in six months will be one of them, and I also need to take one last trip to New Mexico to finish off that state.  That will be the end of it.  Technically, Arizona is considered to be in the West, not the Southwest, and I would probably need a standalone weekend trip to Arizona to finish it off.  Boarding will begin in about five minutes, so I will treat the entirety of today’s activities en route and allow myself a little more time for reflection.  It looks like I’m getting upgraded to first class, so I will actually close now to get my new boarding pass.

Aboard DL 3403, En route IAH-LGA

This plane looks like it’s from the same era as the Apollo Mission Control Center.  Somehow, though, surprisingly, it appears to have WiFi.  For that, I am grateful.  However, no outlets and limited overhead storage.  I’m flying first class on a four-hour flight, though, so I can’t really complain.  I’ll be napping soon in this very comfortable seat, which appears to be the newest part of the plane.  As for today’s events, as I said above, they were harrowing but successful.

After I closed last night, my mother and I headed out for ice cream, through a less busy neighborhood than the area where we were staying.  My mother was freaked out by it, but I kept remarking that Austin seemed to be “the Portland of the South.”  It’s, “Keep Austin Weird” slogan only reinforced that idea, as did the hipster gelato place that seemed better suited to Williamsburg than Austin.  They had exotic flavors and wooden spoons.  I just wanted ice cream.  Not this fancy gelato.

We got back to the hotel, and, in process that was far too stressful, planned our day tomorrow.  Only one thing mattered to me, seeing the inside of Mission Control.  We had no idea how that worked, if it was even possible.  I also wanted to see San Jacinto Battlefield, where the Texans remembered the Alamo and finally won their independence from Mexico.  My mother wanted to stop at the Lost Pines.  I had a schedule that would allow us to do everything and get to the airport in time for a flight, but we would need to be on the road by 8 AM.  That meant we would need to wake up before 7 AM.

We did.  I had no appetite when I woke up, so I got ready while my mother headed out in search of her oatmeal.  To my shock, I learned that, in a first, she had done the buffet breakfast without me.  I was heartbroken.  My appetite had recovered by then, and I would have wanted to do the buffet breakfast as well if she was already taking the time to do it.  We were on the road by 8 AM, and we stopped at a Wendy’s across from the gas station for my breakfast.  From there, it was straight to the Lost Pines, which were completely underwhelming.  It was a National Historic Landmark, so I lit up a Julius Caesar for our ceremonial pictures, and we walked around a bit.

From there, it was straight to the San Jacinto Battlegrounds.  At the battlegrounds, there was also the USS Texas, a battleship that saw service in both World Wars.  Both the battlegrounds and the battleship were National Historic Landmarks.  I lit up my Toscano, and we took our ceremonial picture at the battleship before heading to the view of the battlegrounds for a ceremonial picture there.  They had a huge monument, so we drove further up to the monument and walked around inside there.

Next stop was the Johnson Space Center, home of Mission Control.  We learned that the only way to see Mission Control was by a 90-minute tram tour, but we had budgeted for that.  We got our tickets, and I had just enough time to grab lunch before the next tour.  Figuring that it would be the food that an astronaut returning from space would want the most, I opted for a bacon cheeseburger with fries and a Dr. Pepper.  I scarfed it down before meeting my mother back in the line for the tram.

That’s when the rain started.  I was sitting on the outermost seat of the tram, so I got soaked.  I didn’t care.  I just cared about one thing at this point.  Seeing Mission Control and getting to the airport.  Mission Control was, in fact, the first stop on the tram, and they took us to the viewing gallery, where we could see all the instruments.  It was in its original condition, even down to the seatback ashtrays.  I could literally feel the history.  This was it.  “Houston, we’ve had a problem.”  This was Houston!  They did a little talk, and then we headed back down.  I knew this would be my one chance to finish my Toscano, so I lit it up, took my ceremonial picture with the exterior of the building, and smoked it until they had told me I had to get on board the tram.  It was pouring out, which did not add to the experience.

Across the street was the Space Environment Simulator Lab, another National Historic Landmark, but I couldn’t really get a proper picture with it.  Then we went to the space vehicle mockup facility, where they had mockups of all the different space vehicles.  That was really fun to see.  This was where the astronauts would train on the vehicles.  The last stop was the house that contained the Saturn V rocket, the same rocket used for the Apollo Mission that first brought man to the moon.  That was impressive.

From there, it was back to the VC, and we went right to the gift shop.  I got a few souvenirs, and the only thing left to see was the Kennedy Podium, where JFK first said that we choose to go to the moon.  We headed to the car and went straight to the airport, only stopping for gas.  We did our analysis of the trip and both concluded that, while we did enjoy some of the sites we saw, it was a very sparse and underwhelming trip.  We had, quite simply, chosen a boring location for a four-day trip, whose length was necessitated by the distance between all the sites.  We also agreed that we were scraping at the bottom of the barrel with some of the sites, such as Austin and the Lost Pines.  I was glad to have gotten that much close to “Texas Complete,” and we enjoyed our time together, along with two great dinners.

We dropped off the car and headed to the terminal, stopping at build your own pizza place, which had completely customizable options and a long line.  We were both very happy with our third dinner of the trip, my mother since she was able to get exactly what she wanted, me because I was able to get unlimited meats and cheese, along with mushrooms and onions, on mine.  We took our pizzas to the bar, where my mother got a glass of wine while I scarfed down half of my pie.  I would save the other half for the flight.

I headed to the gate, where I learned that two first class seats where available and that I was number two on the list.  Score!  I sat down at the viewing window, where I proceeded to write my earlier entry, closing it when it was time to get my first class ticket.  That’s when things got interesting.  One of the two seats (as in the physical seat) was broken, so I was out of luck, but she said I could have a two-seater Economy Comfort to myself.  I asked if she could just put me and my mother in those two seats.  She did.  It was a tiny plane, so we were glad to have that extra legroom.  I finished my pizza while we were at the gate and then washed my hands.

When I got back, I was told that they now had a seat in first class for me.  Reader, think how big of a boon this was for both of us.  My mother now got the Economy Comfort two-seater to herself, and I had a first class seat for the four-hour flight.  It worked out quite well.  When we were airborne, I ordered a coffee and a bourbon and proceeded to write this entry, which I will now close so that I can relax for the rest of the flight.  I will also close out this trip.  Next stop: The Borderlands with Roberto, which are actually rather close to where we went this trip.

Remember the Alamo - Day 3 - On the Road Again

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.

Remember the Alamo - Day 2 - Mainland US Complete, Again

10/9/16, “Mainland US Complete, Again”

San Antonio, Texas

Well, we did it.  By visiting the San Antonio Missions here, I was able to say, “Mainland US Complete” again.  Other than the Alamo, which is outside of the National Park Service’s management, there were four missions to visit, and I would not make the proclamation until we had visited all four.  Upon taking our ceremonial picture outside of the fourth mission, I could not help but punning, “Mission Accomplished.”  It was not easy, and it was somehow far more strenuous and time-consuming than I had anticipating.  In fact, it, along with the Alamo, consumed almost the entire day.

That was not how the day was supposed to go.  To that end, we had to call an audible, and we reorganized tomorrow significantly, but none of that matters.  All that matters is that we were successful, that we had cashed the check we wrote when we learned about this site’s inscription while we were in Glacier.  It was erroneous for me to have said, “Mainland US Complete” in Glacier, but now that I’ve said it again, my proclamation was accurate.  Why was today such an adventure when it should have been such a simple day?  Well, that’s an interesting story.

After I closed last night, I published and went upstairs.  That’s when I discovered that I had left my key in the room.  I had to go back downstairs to get a new key.  I went to sleep, and I was woken up in the middle of the night by screams of pain.  My mother had somehow seriously injured her back.  In addition to slowing down all of our activities for the day, that put in jeopardy our ability to drive almost six hours round trip to Amistad NRA and back.  It also slowed down our process of getting out of the hotel.  It was past 9 AM by the time we got out of the hotel.  I had wanted to be at the VC for the site by 9 AM.  That wasn’t happening.

We also learned that the IHOP by the hotel was not a proper IHOP and that the four missions were not a short walk from the Alamo, as I had thought.  That meant that breakfast and the four missions would need to be reached by car, not foot as I had planned.  We drove to IHOP, arriving close to 9:30 AM.  I ordered Pumpkin Pancakes with all the fixings, along with coffee.  We sat outside, and the waiter provided great service.  It was 10 AM by the time the food came, and I scarfed it down as quickly as possible, trying to make up for lost time.  We decided that we could shave time off of what we had budgeted for Amistad NRA and the Riverwalk.  After breakfast, we had to go the nearby supermarket to get pain relievers and my mother’s lunch.  It was 10:30 AM by the time we got in the car.

We should have been at the VC well over an hour ago, but we had adjusted our schedule already to make up the time.  The four missions from north to south were Mission Concepcion, Mission San Jose, Mission San Juan, and Mission Espada.  The VC was at Mission San Jose, and the inscription photo was at Mission Concepcion.  I thought that the Plaque was at Mission Concepion, too, so the plan that made the most sense was to start at Mission San Jose, make our way south to Mission San Juan and Mission Espada, then finish up at Mission Concepcion.  For brevity’s sake, I will henceforth drop the word Mission from my descriptions.  We found the Plaque outside the VC at San Jose, but the adjoining slatted roof made for a very awkward picture with the shadow lines.

I did my business inside the VC and discovered that I had run out of pages in the Southwest section of my passport, so I would need to use the general section in a way I did not intend.  I did my stamping, and then we went outside to take my picture at the Plaque.  It was close to 11:30 AM at this point.  I lit up a Bolivar Brasil Exclusivo, and we went to the mission there to take some ceremonial pictures before heading south to San Juan.

When we got to San Juan, we found the ranger station to be closed.  I should note that each of the four missions has their own brochure and stamp, in addition to the main brochure and stamp for the site.  I wanted to get all four stamped, of course.  That quickly proved impossible.  I could get the stamps back at San Jose, but it would not be Official to stamp the other brochures there.  I could stamp the main brochure after visiting the missions, though, but it wasn’t quite the same.

We took our ceremonial pictures at the mission before heading to Espada, stopping at the Riverwalk along the way.  The ranger station was closed there, too.  This was not working well at all.  It was past 12:30 PM at this point, and and I knew we needed at least another half-hour before getting on the road.  This was meaning the earliest we could get back to San Antonio after visiting Amistad NRA was 7 PM.  That was the earliest.  The debate would begin at 8 PM.  None of this was looking good.

We headed to the VC at San Jose so that I could add the San Juan and Espada stamps to my main brochure.  I then noticed that the lighting at the Plaque had changed to make for a much better picture, so I enlisted my mother again to help me take a new picture.  It came out much better.  We continued to Concepcion, which was the spot of the inscription photo, and that was where I would say, “Mainland US Complete”, again.

We got out of the car there and took our ceremonial picture.  “Mainland US Complete, for real this time.”  Then I made the joke I had been waiting all day to make.  “Dare I say, ‘Mission Accomplished’?”  Being in Texas, my mother thought I was making a George W. Bush joke, rather than a pun on the word mission.  It was close to 1:30 PM at this point, and we soon discovered that the ranger station here was closed for renovation, so we would have to go back to San Jose again.

It was now close to 2 PM.  The only way we had a chance of making it home for the debate was if we went straight to Amistad NRA, took a ceremonial picture, and went straight back to the hotel, ordering room service.  What was the point of that?  I had a better idea.  We could call an audible.  We would go back to the hotel now, then spend the rest of the day seeing everything in San Antonio, including the Alamo, then get an early start tomorrow and do Amistad NRA tomorrow.  That would actually reduce the overall driving time of the trip.

I hadn’t had lunch yet, so we went back to the hotel, and I headed out for lunch.  My mother would meet me at the Alamo after I ate lunch, and we would take things from there.  We got to the hotel, and I went to the main shopping mall, stopping at a disappointing cigar shop on the way.  I opted for a Tony Romo’s for lunch, which happened to be right along the Riverwalk, the part that my mother wanted to see.  I told my mother to meet me there.  I got a mushroom and steak flatbread, along with an Alamo beer, yes, all quite good.  I was sitting on an outdoor patio, and, to my surprise, smoking was allowed there.  I lit up a Toscano and scarfed down my meal while I awaited my mother.  The Riverwalk wasn’t much to see, but we saw it and took our pictures.

From there, it was straight to the Alamo, where we spent about an hour.  Although the Alamo is better known for the eponymous battle fought there during the Texas Revolution, its status as a mission makes it part of the WHS.  We walked around, and I got my souvenirs and stamps.  We then took our ceremonial picture before heading back to the hotel for some much-needed drinks, which we brought up to the room.  After the drinks, I headed out, back to the Alamo.  I sat down on the sidewalk across from the Alamo, where I lit up an OpusX Angel’s Share and proceed to write this entry, which I will now close so that I can meet my mother for dinner.  There are three National Historic Landmarks in downtown San Antonio, so I will be visiting those before I meet my mother.

When it comes to picking a hotel, the one thing that matters to me above all else is location.  Whatever the main site of the place I’m visiting (legislative building, World Heritage Site, or some other iconic landmark), I will want to choose a hotel as close as possible to the site.  Even when I went to some place as seemingly mundane as Crescent City, California, I chose the motel closest to the WHS Plaque, so I was able to walk from the motel, in my pajamas, to the Plaque to write my entry.  Our hotel here in San Antonio is across the street from the Alamo, which has enabled me to easily write this entry each night from the Alamo.

There is something truly magical about this.  For the most part, San Antonio is a tourist town, but this one irreplaceable but it history stands apart from all else.  I am trying to think of another city where such an iconic and historic structure stands in the middle of the city.  There is one that is currently slipping my mind.  Perhaps Rome and the Colosseum?  Either way, this is a wonderful spot for entry writing, and I am glad to be staying so close to it.

Over the past 48 hours or so, which have been jam-packed with a full schedule, these entries have been the only chance I’ve had to relax.  Almost every other minute has been in transit or filled with an activity.  It was worth it to be able to say, “Mainland US Complete”, again, and I was glad that we did it up right.  It will be worth it in six months when I say, “Texas Complete,” but that doesn’t make these travels any less exhausting.

Now, here, as I write this, I can still feel the history of this spot.  I can imagine the Mexicans riding in to lay siege.  I can imagine Davy Crockett and his gang defending the Alamo.  I can imagine generations of Texans, up to this very day, imploring their fellow men to “Remember the Alamo!”  I know that, for my part, I will always remember the Alamo.  I will always remember this spot.

After I closed earlier, I lit up the other half of my Toscano and headed to the see the National Historic Landmarks.  I first came to the Majestic Theatre, one of the oldest theaters in the country.  From there, it was the Spanish Governor’s Palace, the only remaining building of Spanish Texas.  There was not much to see there, and I think it may even have been repurposed into an art museum, but both sites had Plaques, so that was enough.

I was meeting my mother for dinner, so I headed to the restaurant, and we decided we needed to do it up right in proper Tex-Mex style.  They had some very interesting menu items, presenting their own unique takes on classic Tex-Mex dishes.  We were along the Riverwalk, and it was clear that this was the touristy part of town.  We ordered margaritas to drink.  I got a pork tamale appetizer and shrimp fajitas for my main course, after my mother said she would make the fajitas for me, since didn’t think the fajitas were worth the effort entailed in making them.

They certainly provided an interesting take on the pork tamales, and the fajitas were, as is my custom to say, quite good.  I assure my reader that there will come a time when I describe a meal in less than such stellar terms.  This trip just has not provided such an opportunity.  The waiter had a serious attitude, but I think it was just a dry sense of humor, and he softened up by the end of the meal.

We walked along the Riverwalk back towards the hotel, hoping to stop at Dairy Queen before the debate.  We were now on a tight schedule, but I needed to stop at a souvenir shop, where I got a couple of keychains.  When we got to the Dairy Queen, it was closed, but we found another ice cream shop, the kind of place where they mix the ingredients in at the counter.  I opted for red velvet and sweet cream ice cream with coconut, Oreos, and chocolate chips mixed in.  I’m sure it would have been quite good, but I could barely enjoy it, as I was starting to get stressed out about missing the beginning of the debate.  I realized I could stream it from my phone, but I couldn’t properly enjoy the ice cream and hold my phone at the same time.

We got back to the hotel just as Hillary was answering the first question, which I heard asked from my phone.  The debate was a disaster for Trump in my opinion though the commentators seemed to think that he held his own.  It was the first half hour that was really bad for Trump, and it cemented my decision to not vote for him.  He clearly showed he does not possess even a basic understanding of military strategy and refused to admit his shortcomings.  He also drudged up some old, discredited conspiracy theories, which tainted the legitimate attacks he leveled on Mrs. Clinton.  It was a sad night for American politics.

After the debate, I headed out to the Alamo, where I lit up my Ardor, glad to be able add another iconic dateline to the list of the places where I’ve smoked this pipe, and proceeded to write this entry, which I will close so that I can publish and get to sleep tomorrow.  We have a long day tomorrow and need to get an early start.

Remember the Alamo - Day 1 - The Gulf Coast

10/9/16, “The Gulf Coast”

San Antonio, Texas

There it is, the little fortified mission whose siege helped win a revolution and provided the title of this trip.  Remember the Alamo.  That’s it, and I did not expect it to be so small.  It is maybe a quarter of the size I thought it was, perhaps no bigger than a basketball court and not much taller than the net.  I spent almost the entirety of the day driving down the Gulf Coast of Texas and back up from the southernmost point to San Antonio.  It was an exhausting but enjoyable day, and I got to see two National Park Sites that I never expected to see when I first planned this trip.

At first, when we discussed this trip, I thought it would just be a three-day weekend in San Antonio and Houston, so the additional NPS units along the Gulf Coast I was able incorporate today were a bonus.  My coworkers teased me about the fact that I am spending four days in Texas when most of my international trips are shorter.  This will be a fun trip, rather than one where I cram as much as possible into as short of a time.  Yes, we will be doing a lot, but, if I was doing the trip solo, I would have included more sites or shaved a day off of the overall trip length.  My mother had no interest in the two sites I saw today, nor would the idea of driving 11 hours to get a few stamps have interested her.  That was why I flew into IAH last night and picked her up at SAN tonight.

After I closed last night, I soon fell asleep, waking up past 7 AM in a panic.  I had overslept.  I was fine on time, but metered parking had begun at 7 AM, and I was thirty minutes late.  I raced downstairs, relieved to see no ticket on my car, and paid the meter.  I then got ready, opting for cargo pants and my Nike slides, which were on their last legs.  I headed down for breakfast, opting for a Texas breakfast burrito and coffee.  I was pleasantly surprised with the burrito.

I was on the road a little before 9 AM.  Once I got on the highway, as is my tradition, I lit up a Davidoff Yamasa Toro and put on Taylor’s album Red.  After keeping with the Y, I lit up a Yaxil Ortiz.  After about three hours of driving down the Gulf Coast, I was soon at Padre Island.  It is a huge recreational area, and the federally protected area had a nice beach.  To me, it was just another stamp.  I would not be spending a day on the beach.  I had a tight schedule.

My NPS pass had expired, so I needed to renew it at the entrance station.  It was a bit of a drive from the entrance to the island to the VC, and I had not quite factored that into my timing, but I had allowed plenty of time, and I was at the VC with a hard 12:30 PM arrival.  I knew that I needed a hard 1 PM departure from the VC, but I did not anticipate needing more than half an hour.  I did my business at the VC.  Then I lit up a Montecristo and took my ceremonial pictures on the beach.  Padre Island was actually a pretty impressive natural feature, but the beach was just a beach.  The ceremonial pictures served their purpose, and my footwear was now wet and sandy.

I would later learn that the hardening of the salt water would break the slides, which had been to dozens of countries with me and will now travel no more.  That was that.  I made my hard 1 PM departure and began to make my way further down the Gulf Coast, all the way to the southernmost tip.  I picked up some snacks at the gas station, along with popcorn chicken and a steak quesadilla for lunch (and a Dr. Pepper, a Texas original).  Again, all quite good.  I switched to Avril’s next album, The Best Damn Thing, for the drive to Palo Alto.   I drove straight, only stopping for a bathroom break, smoking an Aroma de Cuba followed by a Fuente.  The park would close at 5 PM, and that meant they kicked people out at 5 PM.  I was good with a hard 4:15 PM arrival.

Again, I did my business at the VC, learning some interesting titbits about this first battle of the Mexican-American War.  Our forces were commanded by future-President Taylor, but General Taylor was assisted by a certain Lieutenant Grant.  Yes, that Grant.  I lit up a Surrogates and walked the battlefield trail, took my ceremonial picture, and walked back.  As required, I had a hard 5 PM departure.  My mother would be landing at SAN around 9:30 PM, and it was a 4-hour drive to the airport.

That gave me time for dinner.  After I finished the Surrogates, I wasn’t hungry, so I lit up a Tosanao and kept going.  There was a CBP checkpoint, and the border control officer did a brief once-over of my car before waving me on.  After the Toscano, I stopped at a Whataburger for dinner, getting a full meal of a burger, onion rings, and a shake.  My reader would right in anticipating my description of the meal as “quite good.”  It was.

I then continued straight on to the airport, on cruise control and the same highway almost the entire drive.  It was an easy drive, and I made good time, beating my mom to Hertz’s.  She arrived soon after I did, and we added her name to the reservation.  It was a short drive to our hotel in San Antonio, which was adjacent to the Alamo.  The hotel is the tall building in the establishing shot above.  We were in a bit of a rush to get to the room before SNL began, but I had to take a picture of the Alamo.  I was able to get to the front in the Alamo in less than a minute by foot from the entrance to the hotel.

We went up to the room and got situated in time for SNL, which opened with a perfect parody of the VP debate and Trump’s recent “October surprise”, which has caused me to withdraw my support for him.  After Weekend Update, I got ready and went downstairs.  I headed to the Alamo and sat down across from it, where I lit up my new Ardor and proceeded to write this entry, which I will now close so that I can publish and get some sleep.  Tomorrow I get to say, “Mainland US Complete” again.

Remember the Alamo - Day 0 - Moving Goalposts

“Remember the Alamo”

10/7/16, “Moving Goalposts”

LaGuardia Airport, New York (LGA)

“You know they just added the San Antonio Missions [to the UNESCO World Heritage Site list], right?”  That brief sentence was the impetus for this trip, uttered oh so casually by a Park Ranger at a Visitors Center in Glacier National Park during our Last Great Summer Road Trip Adventure.  It was the moving of the goalposts.  There was no way that we would not be making this trip.  Earlier that day, unaware of this new inscription, I had erroneously announced, “Mainland US Complete,” thinking that I had now visited every World Heritage Site in the Mainland United States, along with all 48 States.  The goalposts had moved.  We instantly began talking about this trip.  It was a while before we properly planned it, but we knew we had have to take it, and, from the beginning, this was the weekend we considered for it.

Three years ago today I was flying back from Dallas early due to the government shutdown, having to mostly cancel a trip that would have allowed me to say “Southwest Complete”.  That, too, contains moving goalposts, with new National Park Sites in the Southwest being added almost every year.  I have made numerous trips to the Southwest to slowly work towards that goal, but all of those trips cannot add up to the magic of what that 10-day trip would have entailed.  I am still sore about that, and it is the reason I will never forgive Ted Cruz, nor will I vote for him in four years, no matter what.

The goalposts are moving in other ways, too.  I keep adding new things to my travel list, setting supplemental goals beyond my 17 Goals, which, themselves, represented moving goalposts from my original 4.  We will soon be boarding, so I will need to wrap up and treat Day 0 en route.  Another thing I’m trying to do is visit the “most iconic restaurant” in each state.  I will not necessarily be revisiting states that I visited before I moved those goalposts, but we will be dining at Texas’s most iconic restaurant this trip, a BBQ pit, of course.

When I go to Oklahoma next year, I will be able to turn it into “Texas Complete”, and that is a feat towards which I have been diligently working, likewise for “California Complete” when I visit San Francisco.  Those are both moving goalposts, but I have been able to figure out how to incorporate those goals into trips I needed to take anyway to satisfy the 17 Goals.  These moving goalposts, they are what make travel fun and what allows me to revisit places with a new interest.

On the other hand, sometimes, I delay a trip, and a new site gets inscribed before I make the trip, and I am able to thereby incorporate it into the trip, but many trips have been solely designed around moving goalposts.  This trip is one such trip, as was the trip I took to Louisiana last year and will be the trip I take to Jamaica later this year.  My trip to Greenland will be modified in anticipation of a moving goalpost, and my trip to Mexico last month included a similar stop.  These are what moving goalposts represent.

I actually think I have time to treat Day 0 now.  I slept in a bit and got ready, having packed last night.  As I was about to leave, I realized that I had forgotten to pack my World Heritage Site folder.  That would have been a disaster level event if I forgot it.  I would be leaving for class at noon and not coming back to the office afterwards.  I was able to get everything I needed to do before I left, and I wound up walking out with the owner.  We mutually decided to try a Mediterranean place called Roti.  I got a wrap, which was actually pretty good, but the spices hit me hard and almost knocked me out.

I lit up a Toscano and biked to class.  After class, I biked back to my apartment to retrieve my suitcase.  I walked up to the cigar shop, stopping for donuts at a street fair on 40^th Street.  At the cigar shop, I completed a very familiar pre-departure ritual for the last time, now that the shop is closing before my next trip.  I smoked my Cohiba, said my goodbyes, and hailed a taxi to LGA.

I had no issues with security other than my usual “longbag” issue, and then I headed to the gate, thinking that this was truly worse than a third world airport.  More than once, I said, out loud, that Zimbabwe has a better airport.  It’s true.  I sat down by the gate at a sit down pizza place.  I ordered a pie with bacon, mushrooms, and onions, along with a beer.  It was all very good.

My flight to Houston would soon be boarding.  They announced that they would need volunteers.  To summarize, they made an offer I couldn’t refuse.  I was the first one to volunteer.  I would have to connect in Atlanta and arrive in Houston a little over two hours later than scheduled.  My compensation?  An AMEX gift card for an amount that was almost equal to a week of my net pay.  In the end, they only needed one volunteer.  Since I volunteered first, it was mine.

After they closed the flight, they set me up with my boarding passes, and I walked literally just across the passageway to the Atlanta gate, where I sat down and proceeded to write this entry, which I will now close, as it is almost my time to board.

Houston, Texas

Now that’s a new dateline.  For all the times I have connected at IAH on my way back from Central America (actually just twice), I have never set foot in the city of Houston.  I will not so much as take a ceremonial picture here, though, until we return on Tuesday, but this vista of the First Court of Appeals will serve as my introduction to Houston.  I suppose that I could say almost the entirety of the past eight hours since I closed at LGA was filled with aggravation, and the time that wasn’t was mostly spent moving goalposts in the southeast and discovering that a goalpost in California had been moved making my goal of “California Complete” pretty much impossible under my current travel schedule.  Since “California Complete” is not one of my 17 Goals, it will not be happening under this Travelogue unless I have reason to go to Vegas in the next 11 months.

My LGA-ATL flight was unadventurous, and I spent the bulk of it messaging with my brother, which was the beginning of the aggravation.  I had my leftover pizza along with a club soda, followed by a coffee and cinnamon cookies.  I was under the impression that the LGA-ATL flight would land in the same concourse as the ATL-IAH flight departed.  When I landed, I learned that was not the case.  I landed in the Concourse E.  I needed to get to Concourse A.  I was not in danger of missing my connection, but I wanted to have a cigar, ATL being one of the few remaining airports in the country where you can smoke inside.

I asked where the smoking lounge was when I got off the plane, and this led to more aggravation.  She asked what concourse I was flying out of, and I told her Concourse A.  “There’s one in A, too.”  “A2, okay.”  “No, I mean, there is one in Concourse A, as well.  Do you know what your gate is?”  “A2.”  She looked at me bewildered.  I took the tram to Concourse A and picked out the one cigar that I could spare from my carefully selected stash.

I stopped at an Atlanta Bread Company for a bagel with cream cheese, along with a muffin top (or so they called it).  After more aggravation waiting and my pressure minutes I’d have for my cigar wasting away, she finally asked me if I wanted the bagel sliced.  Huh?  I asked her how she planned to put the cream cheese on it if it wasn’t sliced.  She explained that they give a packet of cream cheese on the side.  Wonderful.

I headed towards my gate, and the smoking lounge was actually a bar, which required a purchase.  It was now about 9:50 PM.  The flight would depart at 10:40 PM, and boarding would begin at 10:00 PM.  I would be lucky to have half an hour with the cigar.  I sat in the bar, ordered an American whiskey, which is horribly overpriced, and lit up my Aroma de Cuba.  It smoked like shit.  I couldn’t wait to be ditch it as early as possible.  I didn’t even want the full half hour with it.  I got into a political debate with the guy sitting next to me, and, as soon as I finished my whiskey, I ditched the cigar, said my goodbyes, and headed to the gate.

When I got to my seat, being in Group 1, the plane was almost entirely empty, but my row, there was a guy sitting in the middle seat (I had the window).  I knew that something was off, from the way he was sitting, from his glazed off look.  I got into my seat, and, as we took off, my suspicions were confirmed.  Almost immediately, his leg next to me started shaking uncontrollably.  It only happened when his eyes were closed.  It was obviously some type of medical condition, whether physical or neurological, so asking him to stop was not an option.  The only thing I could do was use my leg as a shield and wait for his to hit mine, at which point it would stop.  It was as annoying and distracting as hell.  When the beverage service came, I got another club soda and a coffee to pair with the bagel and muffin top.  Remembering the Seinfeld episode, this was not a true muffin top.  It was just a muffin made in shape that resembled the top.  It only works if they make the whole muffin.  They did not.

I spent almost the whole flight looking at trip routes in the southeast, wondering if moving the goalposts to “Original 13 Colonies Complete” was a viable goal based on my current trips planned with the addition of two weekends by car to Maryland and Virginia.  It would all come down to North Carolina, but it looked doable.  I also discovered that there was a newly designated (that’s the word I was looking for earlier) National Monument in California that was not easily accessible from either of my two current trips planned to California.  In fact, it was far closer to Vegas than any other site in California.  That, combined with the difficulties I was facing in the Sierra Nevada region, made it seem like I should abandon the “California Complete” quest.

We soon landed, and I headed to Hertz.  More aggravation.  It was weird leaving the airport at Houston, since I was familiar with the airport, but not its exterior.  I also recalled an incident from when I landed in Chicago and someone woman said that she wished that the rental car companies would share buses like they do in Houston.  They shared them here.  Actually, the whole setup reminded me of DFW.

When I got to Hertz, there was even more aggravation.  Since I had booked the car through Expedia, my gold membership did not carry over, and, since it was so late, the gold counter was closed.  Summarizing here, but I walked up to the guy at the counter ten minutes after he told me he could help me out in five minutes, and he finally pulled up my reservation.  There was a huge line for this understaffed location, and it was late, so I wanted to avoid the line if possible.  When he saw my reservation, he said that I wasn’t a gold member.  I said that I was but that it’s not my fault the reservation didn’t link.  “Sure you are.”  There it was.  He set me off.  No one calls me a liar.  “Are you calling me a liar?” I shot back sharply in a firm but measured voice.  Again, summarizing, he threatened to cancel my reservation, and I asked for his name so that I could call customer service and have him fired.  He told me that I needed to wait on the long line, which my gold member status should have entitled me to skip, and he would give me his name after I waited on line.

After about 15 minutes, I walked up to him, and he said, “Let’s start over.”  I realized that was as close to an apology as he was capable of issuing.  Why he chose customer service and night shifts as a career is beyond me.  He even gave me a shiny new car with less than 10,000 miles.  In the end, I didn’t ask again for his name.  It would be almost 30 minutes to the hotel, and it was well after midnight now.

It was after 1 AM when I got to the hotel.  I checked in, got situated, and relaxed for a bit.  I could see the First Court of Appeals from the window, so I neutralized the smoke detector got set up there, where I sat down, lit up my Ardor, and proceeded to write this entry, which I will now close so that I can publish and get some sleep.  It is late, and I have a long day tomorrow.  A very long day.