Chicks on the Road

Enough with the west coast

The western US is drop dead gorgeous. It can’t be denied. But enough already. Give it a rest. I just purchased a book called The Best Scenic Drives in America.  Suffice it to say it’s west coast heavy what with the Grand Canyon and the Oregon coast and Hwy. 1 and many other stunning vistas and bottomless gorges. I love the west coast but there is plenty of beauty to be found in other parts of the country. Hi-ever, my biggest gripe with this book is the pick for Texas. And it’s only one pick. O. N. E.

‘At’s right, West Virginia gets five entries but Texas only gets one. Texas is probably the size of five West Virginias yet the authors could only come up with one lame as a bad comb over entry for the second largest state in the union. Our Lady of Guadalupe, I freakin’ beseech thee. What up, yo? West Virginia is certainly worthy of five entries, but only one for Texas? Get my shotgun, I need to shoot a Yankee in the ‘nads. Frankly, the entries for most of the deep south are pretty spare. Not cool, dude.

Oh, but let’s not stop there, let’s add a dash of insult to the chili cook-off of injury and not even choose a scenic drive for the state of Texas. Instead, let’s choose a drive through a city wherein you get to stop at some old missions that have nicely cut grass. The scenic drive chosen for Texas is the San Antonio Missions Trail.

Now, I like San Antonio. It’s not my favorite Texas city and it’s a cool enough place. Nothing against San Antonio but, gentle woodland folk of the blogisphere, this is not a scenic drive. The missions are groovy. The Alamo is certainly worth a visit and there is a monument to the homos right in front of it. No kidding, there is a monument in front of the Alamo honoring gay people. Seriously. I know. It’s Texas. Tell me about it. I’ve lived here for 35 years. Nothing surprises me anymore.

If by some chance the authors of this book, or more likely their moms, stumble upon this little ol’ blog whilst Googling their accomplishments, I shall now give them some scenic Texas drives that were regretfully left out of this otherwise lovely book. I will give said authors the benefit of the doubt and suspect that they had one too many margaritas while shopping for cheesy crap along the Riverwalk.

1. The Texas Gulf Coast – From South Padre Island up through Aransas Pass into Galveston Bay and up the coast to High Island. Not the most scenic ocean coast in the world, but lovely nonetheless and a far better choice than the one in the book.

2. Texas wildflower drive – From Houston to Brenham up to Austin. Simply awesome.

3. Texas Hill Country – New Braunfels, Canyon Lake, San Marcos, Austin, Fredricksburg, Marble Falls. Beautiful scenery and cool watering holes…

4. Lake Amistad to Big Bend National Park – The drive into Big Bend at night is frightningly beautiful. It’s dark as dark can be and the headlights of the car shine on the brush that grows on either side of the road. This is all you see and if you’re lucky, a roadrunner will be keeping pace with the car. It’s all quite stunning during the day too.

5. Rio Grande coast from Big Bend up to El Paso – The mountains in Mexico and the Rio Grande on your left, the Texas desert plains on your right. Make a stop in Lajitas to buy Clay Henry III (he’s a goat) a beer. Pop the top and pop it in his mouth, he tips his head and chugs it right down.

There ya go. That’s five right off the bat with both hands tied behind my back. I suggest you go back and fix yer little ol’ drivin’ book. Ya hear?

Tags: Books, Scenic roads, scenic view, Texas

Ommmm

Texas is a funny place. It’s south but not really South. It has its racist, segregation roots like Looziana, Mississip, Georgia and Flor-da, but I wouldn’t consider it the ‘Deep South’ as I do those states. It’s not really southwest either ala New Mexico and Arizona.

Nope. Texas is diff’rnt. We are rugged individuals around these here parts. We can’t really be pinned down. You may enter the state thinking we’re all Bubba redneck cowboys but that will change when you realize the largest art car parade is in Houston; the desert town of Marfa is home to a thriving, contemporary art scene; Austin is wonderfully weird and there’s a Caddillac Ranch in the panhandle.

This past Sunday we headed towards Galveston in search of Buddha. You wouldn’t necessarily think you’d find Buddha in a small, Texas town called Santa Fe. But, this is Texas, after all. You simply must toss any notions you had about the state out the win-der.

In Santa Fe you will find the wonderfully serene Lihn Son Buddhist Temple.  It seems so out of place but not. That’s Buddha for you. On the temple grounds you’ll find these amazing statues among the flowering trees and bamboo. It’s simply exquisite. I took many pictures. The photos below are of a 15ft reclining Buddha. I’ll post more pics as I process them.

Tags: art, Buddha, sculpture, Texas

Rustlin’ up some bbq

There are lots of different ways to get to lots of different places. For the most part, when we’re making the trek to Austin, we take 290 up through Giddings. I enjoy this drive because we stop in Giddings at the DQ. ‘Tis mandatory that one stop at a DQ when one is on the road. Thus spake eb. The other route would be up through La Grange. There’s a whole lot of nuthin’ up that way, but it does the trick and you get dropped off in south Austin.

Hi-ever (that’s how they say it in east Texas, y’all), on our recent trip to Austin we headed out I-10, almost got to San Antone but took 183 north through Luling and Lockhart. I have to say, I don’t think I’ve ever taken that route to Austin before.

This weekend I’m going to be out of town, but the queen will be around and she just might head back to Luling for the Watermelon Thump. ‘Ats right. Apparently Luling is known for its watermelon production. How one lives in a place for 30 some odd years and doesn’t know this bit of information, I dunno, but I didn’t know Luling was all up into growing watermelons. They will, of course, have a watermelon thump queen. People actually campaign for votes. No kidding.

Up past Luling is Lockhart. It’s a small Texas town and one would think you could find some dang good bbq in all small Texas towns. We checked out B*lacks bbq (the * is because I don’t want some riled up bbq dude coming after my gay ass for dissin’ his bbq). Let me just say, I would not recommend. Nope. Too bad. They did have the atmosphere, though.

Tags: bbq, food, Texas

It’s Oreg’n not Ore-gon

We arrived in Seattle, got us a car and headed down to Portland for a visit with good friend Trisha who totally indulged my need to see great scenery. All mountains and trees and rivers are not created equally. If you’ve seen one you’ve seen them all? It’s not true. As the queen would say, “Don’t be con-trary.” Of course, she was also admonished for calling the state ‘Ore-gon.’ Hehe.

Our first stop was a visit to the Columbia River Gorge. Even with a lingering mist, this is a fabulous view.

Our next stop was over there. See it? On the top of that mountain on the right. There’s something there. I promise.

Tags: 10th anniversary, Oregon, scenic view

The 10th anniversary celebration

The queen and I met in April of 1998. Here it is 10 years later. Time does fly by, figuratively and literally. The shots in this post are from the airplane on the way to Seattle for our anniversary Alaskan cruise.  I do enjoy the window seat when there is something to see and the sun or clouds aren’t blinding the view.

The picture above might be of California farmland – love the patterns. The shot directly below was taken over the Great Salt Lake on the east side. There is a reason they call it ‘great,’ because it is absolutely huge. Humongous. I thought we were at the end of the lake. Mais non. We were only halfway over.

The others are pics over beautiful and surreal New Mexico.

Tags: 10th anniversary, Anniversary, New Mexico, Plane shots, Salt Lake, Utah