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DATE: June 10, 2002 High Temperature: 105 Low Temperature: 85 Meat intake: Beef, Beef, Beef, Pork Source material: Eat Your Way Across America, emails from Tom Welsh & Ed Ward, Lonely Planet: USA. Miles covered: 500
"where the hell have we been," you ask? Well let me tell you something. We've been in Austin. Let me vent for a bit, then I'll get back to what we've been up to. We had the perfect storm of technical problems. Car. Computer. Phone. You name it. Ya know, I bet the Amish don't fall behind on their schedules due to technical glitches. Same for the Cajuns. Maybe they're on to something. As mentioned earlier, John's car had been acting up with the cooling system. We finally decided we should call ahead to Austin and make an appointment to bring it in. So we did. John got up super early and took the car to the far reaches of Austin to drop it off. I offered to watch over the hotel room. This trip is not just about eating meat. It's about giving, too. So anyway, the car guys call back and tell us that the car won't be ready till the next morning.... but I digress. Let me go over the time leading up to this. We'll get back to what happened when we get there. But first... Monday.
Right after sending days 1 & 2 of the trip, my computer shut down. It turns out it had been running on the battery. Something was wrong with my AC adapter. I had just bought this computer on eBay and I guess the adapter wasn't everything the seller said it was. "Win" my ass. So I knew I wouldn't be posting anymore updates until I got this problem fixed. New Mexico and West Texas aren't known to be hotbeds of technology. Getting a new AC adapter for a Mac G3 Laptop wasn't gonna be easy. And it wasn't. A guy at a Radio Shack in Big Spring, TX told me I probably wouldn't find a part until at least Midland. And he should know 'cause he was a Mac guy, too. Probably one of only a handful in Big Spring. He felt my pain. That much I knew. You're probably wondering what all this has to do with meat. Well, you can't just eat meat. You need to get hungry first. And stressing over fixing a computer, so we can share this with you, is just the kind of stuff you need to build up a hankerin' for meat. And hanker, we did.
We awoke in Roswell and took a drive down to the UFO museum in Roswell. Ya know, something happened there back in 1947. Either that, or they're all on drugs. And I don't take the Roswellians to be the drug types. At least not the cool kind that make you think you see space ships crashing and Martians getting out. That's more of a California thing. They had all these affidavits signed by various people who witnessed things. Farmers who found the broken up ship. Retired Army people who were told not to ever discuss it. Old ladies who weren't gonna let the man tell them what they could and couldn't talk about. Oh yeah. Something happened.
After leaving Roswell, we just drove and drove. And drove. Then drove. As mentioned in the previous dispatch, our meat intake was a little low up until this point. I mean, sure, we had meat on our pizzas the night before, but c'mon. That's not meat. That's toppings. So we found a place in Tatum, NM right before the Texas border called Tiny's.
Not the true BBQ we've been talking up. But a cool little place. Cowboys galore. New Mexico cowboys. And they were talking about going to Canadia (not a typo). John had a big old beef rib. I had brisket. We then shared a little chocolate pie a la mode. Then we were back on the road. There was still a lot of distance to cover. I mean, we hadn't even crossed the border into Texas yet. And that's one big state.
So we drove and drove. And drove and drove. Then, all of a sudden it was 6 hours later and we were hungry again. Just in time for Coopers in Llama, TX. I tell ya, in Llama, the roads are paved with meat. Upon tasting the $32 worth of beef and pork that we bought, John Harris said the following: "I now know that, up to this point, I have never really tasted meat." We were up to our asses in meat. There's so much BBQ going on in this area that I couldn't imagine a vegetarian ever living here. I don't know that a vegetarian would want to drive through Llama. There was a BBQ place on every corner. We need to learn to eat less and more often. We were so full that it took quite some time before we were hungry again (but you'll have to read on to find out just how long it took).
Belllies full, we could finish up our drive into Austin. I made a few calls to some friends in town (for those of you who I know who live in Austin and I didn't call you, uh.... I couldn't find your number or something.) and we motored on to the Austin Motel (Austin Chronicle's best motel in Austin), checked in, then took a jump in the pool.
After a jump in the pool, we dried off (you never really dry off in Austin, but you know) and walked across the street to check out some live music at The Continental Club. I gotta tell you, we were tired, so we didn't stay there long. After that we just went back to the hotel and watched some TV and got to bed, because we had a long drive ahead of us the next morning... or did we?
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