Tay-Has!

Texas

After a long last day in New Orleans, I hit the road early for Austin, Texas. The drive got progressively unflattering toward Texas. About 30 miles West of Baton Rouge in I-10 is boring. There are some times when you're going over swamps, and it was kinda cool. Those stop a bit farther west and it gets flat and dead. There was a stretch of about 40 miles where the only things I saw billboards were for Adult Toystores. Oh, the people that must frequent that highway...

Slightly after that, around where you enter Texas, there were June bugs everywhere. It sounded like it was raining because of the frequency with which bugs were splatting on my windshield. It was gross. Don't drive there, I still need to wash that off more.

Farther along, you arrive in Houston. I drove straight through. It was grossly humid and about 102° F. I wanted to get to Austin, where humidity does not exist, as it hadn't rained there in about 80 straight days. I'm so okay with that kind of heat with no humidity, so to Austin I drove.

I arrived in Austin kind of late and went to a place adjacent to where I was staying called North By Northwest, a restaurant and pub with some pretty good beers. One of them -- if you find yourself at this restaurant soon, you must try – The Blackjack. It was their Okanogan Black aged 6 weeks in a bourbon barrel. Had a really silky body to it, and was pretty thick. Had some bourbon, wood, and caramel flavors in there that really did it for me. I got quite a few Blackjacks over the course of a week.

They also had some pretty amazing food, one of which, I tried. It was Quail wrapped in Bacon. It was stuffed with Jalapenos and goat cheese, served over golden raisin rosemary polenta cake with a blasamic reduction. It was amazing.

The next day I went downtown to check out 6^th street, where all the bars are. They had a crafts festival going on and had shutdown the seats for it. Wasn't quite expecting that, but it's neat that they do that kind of stuff downtown in Austin.

I made an effort to go to another restaurant and brewery not too far from where I was staying. It was a chain called BJs. They had Jester King beers allegedly on tap, but evidently pretty much nowhere does. I was told that they have been under-producing their kegs and trying to stick to bottle conditioning their beers. I have tried their Black Metal Russian Imperial Stout, and it was amazing. Very heavy beer. Puns. I, one day while in Austin, looked up a few places online that served it. They too, were lying to me on their websites. It took me most of a day to finally locate a place, The Black Star Co-op. It was solid, they had their own beers, they had Drink'in the sunbelt, a Hoppy wheat beer from Jester King. I didn't much care for it, and was a little upset that I had made a day out of it to find it. I went to a beer-crazy gas station somewhere in town where I was told I could find it. I did. I found the Wytchmaker Rye IPA from Jester King. It was delicious. Nice bitter hoppy finish with a complex flavor upon entering. Be warned, though, it's one of those beers that is pretty much impossible to pour. Lots of carbonation. Take your time.

I talked to a friend from UVM that had moved down to Austin (sup Andy) about a year ago about what I should do while I was there. He recommended Hamilton Pool to me. It is swimming hole that used to be in a cave a long time ago, but it collapsed, leaving a partially covered pool with very cool water. I took some pictures of it, it was really quite the site. And a swimming hole on a day (like most in the Austin area) that was over 100° out. The water was very cold, and it was quite an enjoyable time. I went and swam under the waterfalls, it was great. I looked up and tried to gauge how high the overhanging cliff was and got a bi of vertigo doing so. I don't know if you've ever gotten vertigo at a time when you're feet are unable to be on the ground, but it was disorienting. Anyways, I assume it's about 60 – 80 feet high. It seemed pretty huge from down in the water. I really wanted to get up thee and jump but but didn't for two reasons:

1. You can actually get in a lot of trouble for straying from the paths at this park. It's outside of Austin, they're in a pretty bad drought and it's been ridiculously hot out there for awhile. The whole trail seemed like it was about to catch fire.
2. I'm not jumping anything higher than about 40 feet by myself. That's just not too smart.

It was plenty deep, though. Someday, when they're not about to ignite, I'll be back.

After a long swim, I headed back to BJs and got dinner. I got their chicken fried steaks. Do that. It was so much food [pic]. It was delicious. They also have great beers on tap, as well as beers they brew themselves, which are not all that awesome, but some are worth a try. I'll recommend the Irish Red, or the P.M. Porter. From them.

A guy that was at the bar at BJs told me to get tacos from a place called Tacodeli before I left. My GPS had an amazing pronunciation of this establishment's name [Tah-Code-Ellie].

I went to Tacodeli, and you should too. They have an array of tacos available. I ordered 3, got charged for 4, was confused, received 4, but whatever. I got to try more of their menu that way, and I was down with that. I don't remember the names of the Tacos I got, and there's a somewhat overwhelming amount of tacos to choose from, but I'm sure they're all pretty incredible.

I went to a few bars on 6^th street, the only ones with any kind of draft selection were the places that also served food. Chupacabra Cantina was pretty good for both their Tex-Mex, and their draft selection.

Away from 6^th street, over on 2^nd or 3^rd, a few blocks West of Congress was a bar called the Ginger Man. Excellent bar, great draft selection. I highly recommend. I got there during happy hour (most drinks are $3.50, then, on thursdays, for a half hour after happy hour, drinks are even cheaper. I managed to get 3 beers down, paid $12 including tip. All amazing beers, too. One was Old Rasputin, a stout that if you drink good beer and are unfamiliar with, you're doing it all wrong.

After seeing a lot in Austin, I drove south about 1.5 hours to San Antonio. San Antonio is said to suck by most everyone I've talked to, but it was actually kind of cool. Apparently, according to someone I know who lives there, I went to the place with the best Mexican food in town. Casa Rio, I suggest you go here because from what I've been told, there's not a whole lot else. They had the most amazing Chilli I've ever had. It was just hunks of meat inside a bowl of this brown chilli sauce, not like the chilli I'm used to which has a bunch of vegetables together in a stew-like fashion. This was amazing, and it deserves a mention. Their salsa was great too, which is my typical barometer for what kind of a Mexican food establishment you are.

River Walk, San Antionio

I walked a ways by the river, through the river walk downtown, all the way to Blue Star brewing company. Don't bother. Their beers were kinda bland.

I walked back by Casa Rio, across the river there was a guy wielding a lasso, saying “Margaritas, $2, Margarita pitchers, $10” That was a deal I couldn't pass up on a hot day like that. Went and got myself a margarita. Paid $3 with tip. Dope deal. I'm into it. And... pitchers? Strange, but I guess you can order up to 5 margaritas at a time. I don't remember the name of this place, but that was an awesome way to spend an afternoon, honestly. Must just be good for a visit like that. Seemed like a lot of people were tourists.

Anyways, after Austin and San Antonio, I drove up to Dallas, and met up with a friend, Chris. Chris, myself, and his room mate kicked it off by getting some pretty legit pizza at a place. I got two slices and a soda for under 8 bucks. Huge slices, solid deal.

After Pizza we went to a upscale taproom/restaurant called Meddlesome Moth. This place had an amazing selection of beer, but the employees were assbags. I ordered an Old North Coast Rasputin stout (so good), and the guy gave the shittiest pour ever. I asked another bartender if they could fix the situation and they told me that it “just pours that way, and to wait and let it settle,” which is not true. I've ordered that beer at the Farmhouse Tap and Grill in Burlington, VT, and even more recently at the Ginger Man, in Austin. Had none-such issues. I had them top it off, which brought my 8 oz. Pour up to about 6 oz. Whatever.

We all went outside and sat down at one of 3 or 4 empty tables outside. A waitress came up to us and asked us to get out of the seats because they had an hour and a half wait for tables at that time. This was a lie, the restaurant had very many open tables, inside and outside. There was nobody waiting around for a table. This was a bit aggravating. I didn't enjoy myself here.

We lastly went to a bar called Malarky's, an Irish pub near his apartment, which had a game of giant jenga there! It was so cool. It was a game of Jenga with a bunch of blocks made of 2x4s. It was a lot of fun and I am the reigning champion of the world.

The next morning I set off for a really long drive from Dallas, through Amarillo TX, through a corner of New Mexico, and up into Colorado.

The drive to Amarillo was totally flat, boring, dying, dry, and desolate. It was basically a stretch of road with a 70 mph speed limit that would reduce down to 30 mph as you approached anyplace with a population >500 people. It was different, that's for sure.

I got to Amarillo and was going to look around at what was going on. After a bit of a drive around, it was pretty evident that nothing was going on in Amarillo. I went to a Whataburger (fast food chain), and left as fast as I could.

I was in a strange section of town upon my departure, so my GPS took me through TX – 1061. It was sort of incredible, in a “where the hell did that come from,” kind of way. Around some turns, I'd say these little baby canyons that seemed like echoes of everywhere west of there. Kind of neat. If there was any room to pull over, I was going to try to record a short little video, but I had none such luck.

It eventually took me through northern TX over to U.S. 385. I took this over to some other road, through the northeast corner of New Mexico, and up I-25 into Colorado. I want to make the latter part of that drive again during the day at some point in my life, because southern CO's I-25 was BADASS. It was a crazy ass drive. 75 MPH speed limits are great. I feel way worse about going 85 in a 75 than I do about going 80 in a 60. Seriously. 75 is a reasonable limit.

All in all, Texas was an awesome, crazy, badass adventure. Austin was a wonderful bubble of liberal sanity in that massive state, and would probably be the only place in that state I could see myself living. Maybe if it gets a little less over 100 degrees all the time, and a little less dry. Seeing rivers with no water in them is kind of depressing.  

I took a lot of pictures between Dallas and the New mexico border (sunset, above), but I only thought they were interesting because of how boring Texas's landscape is.