After Vegas I headed to a place I was sorry to have missed on my way out west... Tombstone, AZ. I've always wanted to go to an old cowboy town and this is probably the granddaddy of them all. Land of Earp and Holliday, the Clantons and the OK Corral, the Crystal Palace Saloon and Boothill. Stuff of legend and many, many movies. I mosied down the main drag for a while before I siddled up to the bar at Big Nose Kate's Saloon, formerly the Grand Hotel built in 1881, now named after Tombstone's first and most famous "shady lady". The BBQ sandwich was tasty and the Sioux City Sarsaparilla was.. um.. good and sarsy. Plus, there was some really cool paintings and stained glass work in the room. When I get my own whore house someday, this is how I want it to look. I mean, I know they just took a lot of these ideas from Better Whore House Living magazine, but still... pretty cool.
From Tombstone it was a relatively short drive to El Paso, where I got to see Margaret and Mia again. They are doing great and looking well and as I write this Mia has just graduated from second grade and is smarter than all of us. We had awesome Mexican food at Margaret's favorite place, Lucy's Restaurant, where I mistook an overturned pool table for some kind of new, or possibly archaic, bar game I was unaware of. In the moment, as I fiddled with what turned out to be the legs of the table, trying desperately to figure out what they did, I genuinely had no idea it was just a pool table on it's side. Even after Margaret laughed at me I still didn't catch on right away. It must have been that my mind was exhausted from being on the road... yeah, that's the ticket.
Next up was a stop I had been excited about since I saw Pee Wee's Big Adventure in 1985... The Alamo! I'm not sure I ever really knew what exactly happened there until recently, but the words were always iconic in my mind. THE ALAMO. I could not drive through Texas and not stop for a look see. Turns out it is right in the heart of downtown San Antonio and it is smaller than you might imagine but, you know, still old and historic and stuff. Davy Crocket wasn't there, but his statue was. And they still sell coonskin caps in the gift shop. I stayed the night in San Antonio and also walked along the famed River Walk. This is a mall and a bunch of other shops and restaurants along a below-street-level river, again right in the heart of downtown. It's quite the happening hang out. I had a fine walk and some genuine tourist trap quality Tex-Mex fajitas before retiring for the evening.
The next day, somewhere between San Antone' and Houston, I saw a sign for Joel's Bar-B-Q. Well, obviously I had to do this. There's a picture of Foxy at Joel's. Sad to say the sandwich was mediocre, but the place had that middle of nowhere Texas charm and was clearly a favorite with the locals. I personally witnessed two separate big ol' country fat asses slugging beers and ribs before driving off in their pick-ups. So, if you're ever in wherever-the-hell-I-was, TX, stop by my joint for some good people watching and some totally average food. It's not like there are many other options.
From Joel's it was a long, slow drive to Biloxi, MS (who knew it was spring break and that everybody and their mothers was driving to New Orleans and thereby clogging up my road?). I checked into my hotel, completely dog-ass tired but determined to get me some hot casino action before bedtime. I took a shower and set off to find the Beau Rivage casino, which has a reputation for being the Bellagio of the Gulf Coast. Well, once I started to walk the casino, it took me about a minute to realize that Biloxi is basically inbred hillbilly bizarro Vegas. I mean, no offense. Not that there's anything wrong with that. I guess having lived in Vegas, I'm spoiled, but to me Biloxi was just not that exciting. Everybody else (the inbred hillbillies) seemed to be having a good time, but this was not the place for me. Hey, good for them for recovering from Katrina, though!
The next day was a short one, as I made a pit stop only a couple hours from Biloxi, in Robertsdale, AL, where my dad's cousin Sandy lives. As they might say in Alabama, he's kin. And kin is kin. Sandy and his wife showed me a great time, actually.. including a memorable trip to the house of throwed rolls and fried okra, Lambert's Cafe. And by "throwed rolls" they mean exactly that. Periodically throughout your meal a waiter will circle the room pushing a cart full of big, fresh from the oven, steaming hot and yeasty pull-apart dinner rolls. The smell will catch you first; then you'll hear the waiter's call; then you'll see people raising their hands, so you'll raise yours, too; than the waiter, across the room and wearing an oven mitt, will grab up a roll from the tray, wind up like a baseball pitcher, and hurl a sinking fastroll right into your outstretched hands. The roll is so fresh that as your hands squeeze around it to secure your catch, bits of bun will break off and go flying, so that by the end of your meal the floor will look like two vast armies of bread soldiers just had an epic battle. After you have secured your roll, still reeling from trying to understand what just happened, another waiter will come around with a big jar of apple butter and you will say 'yes please'. And this dance will repeat itself at least three times before you go. These rolls are damn good. The fried catfish, aforementioned fried okra, fried potatoes and onions, and fried apples were outstanding, too. Plus, they were fried.Well, I guess that about wraps up this story. I spent the night in Alabama, then the next day cruised on into F-L-A and the rest is history. My past has now caught up with my present. If not yet in real life, at least in the blogosphere.
