Throwed Rolls and Cowboy Whores (NSFW) (Not really.. but there are nipples)

I set off from San Francisco, emotions and thoughts veering wildly in every direction at once, but my car firmly planted and pointing straight towards Vegas. Of course. Where else would I go when all else fails and I am down to my last few bucks? That last great American desert oasis of hope. Where dreams come and go but the stench of desperation clings and suffocates. Well, speaking for myself, anyway. But seriously, it was great to see Dan and Kash and the rest of the guys again. I am proud to say that I got Kash re-hooked on poker... he once was lost, but now he's found.

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.

After lunch I swung by the OK Coral and Boothill... although I was just a leeetle too cheap to pay to go inside them. I got the idea from the outside. I spent most of the morning just wandering the streets wishing I was wearing a cowboy hat and a six shooter. I weren't looking for no trouble but I also had no intention of backing down from none, neither. Anybody looked at me crosswise and I'd shoot 'em down where they stood. In my brain I was your Huckleberry.. either a sheriff, a bad guy, or a mysterious hired gun, it didn't really matter. I had my horse (a fine black Korean-born filly) hitched nearby and I was ready to take all comers and ride off into the afternoon haze, vanishing like a spectre, leaving the townsfolk to wonder whether I was real or a phantasmagorical instrument of retribution sent from the heavens...  It's a hell of a thing, killing a man. Take away all he's got and all he's ever gonna have. Well, that's how it went down in my brain, anyway. With apologies to Clint for stealing his lines and persona.

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.

Ch. 4a - Rosa's Cantina

Down in the west Texas town of El Paso... I saw two of the most beautiful people in the world. For that is where my friends Margaret and Mia live. Mia is Margaret's daughter, for anyone who doesn't know. I met them in Las Vegas, then they moved to Jersey, then I moved to Jersey, then they moved to El Paso, then, as you know, I decided to quit my job and go on a month long road trip, zig-zagging my way cross-country. It had been almost a year since I'd seen them and there was no way I wasn't gonna zig (or was it a zag?) through El Paso. Plus, I had never been in Texas (except the airports.. everyone has a layover in Houston or Dallas eventually) and it had been far too long since I had had good Mexican food! I rolled into town at dusk and we met at one of Margaret's favorite Mexican restaurants right off the bat.. she knew what I wanted. Holy god, the food was so good! Jersey and New York just do not have this kind of stuff. Oh, and it was pretty damn awesome to see Margaret and Mia, too!

There's Mia, she's seven and couldn't be more pretty, smart, funny, loving, or toothless. We had a great time watching TV, building forts with couch cushions, playing train, bowling, and playing on the playground at her school. I had sure missed her. More than just a good kid, she really is an amazing person and I am so glad that she and her mom are happy and living in a great place in El Paso.

As for El Paso, like the T-shirt said, it ain't Kansas, and that's a good thing. It's a really pretty town, I thought, yet not like I pictured it at all. It is a desert, but it has mountains that run right through it and give the neighborhoods a more interesting texture. It is a sister city to Juarez, Mexico, which you can see right across the river and the Border Highway, marked by a giant Mexican flag, a flag I'm told is the world's biggest.. who knew? By the way, if you ever go to El Paso, do not go to Juarez.. ever. It is pretty much the center of one of the largest drug cartel gang wars in Mexico, and therefore the world. It's sad, but I repeat, it is not a place to go.. ever.

There is a place you must go, however, if you ever find yourself in Texas: Whataburger! I have many friends from Texas (everybody in Vegas was from freakin' Texas it seemed) and they all talk about Whataburger as if it is the holy grail of burger joints. I have had many a fast food burger (some say too many, I say that is impossible) and I was always skeptical of the supposed greatness of Whataburger. I've had In N' Out, how much better could this place be, really? Well, by golly if those Texans don't know of what they speak.. Whataburger was purty dang delicious! Maybe I was just super hungry when I had it, but I swear the burger was at least as good as In N' Out, the fries were better than McDonald's, and even the ketchup was somehow better than typical Heinz. I was impressed and vowed to get another one before I left (a promise I kept with great enthusiasm). My only complaint about the place is how the name is pronounced; everyone in Texas says it like they are saying "water-burger," not "what-a-burger". Why is this? No one could explain.

The second big tourist stop on my visit was the El Paso Saddleblanket. All along the highway heading into El Paso were billboards insisting that I come see the Saddleblanket world headquarters, where I would find untold quantities of western... well, stuff. I didn't really know what the hell was gonna be there but I knew I wanted to go.. I like all things western; in fact, I always wanted to pretend I was a cowboy. Actually being a cowboy would probably suck, but pretending to be a cowboy could be ideal. Anyway, the Saddleblanket turned out to be a huge complex of wholesale stores selling everything from big Texas style ranch furniture to Mexican trinkets, pottery, and jewelry to actual saddle blankets and other horse tack. It was an impressive display and the prices were good, too.. I bought my T-shirt and a couple cowgirl bags for the girls and mosied on out of there.

The final highlight was a genuine Texas steak dinner at The Edge of Texas, a cool old restaurant (formerly a whorehouse, seriously) outside of town on a real working 88,000 acre ranch... Yeeee-Haw!! We had us some genuine Texas steer and, let me tell you what, it was mighty fine. Mighty, mighty fine. And the big open sky as evening fell is what Texas is all about in my city-slicking mind.. seeing that every night would be the good part about being a real cowboy.

But, of course, the best thing about El Paso is that my friends are there. They'd probably be the best part of whatever town they were in, I think. Not only was it beyond-words great to see them, but I love that I got to see with my own eyes all the places and people that they've been telling me about for years.. I can really visualize their stories now. "Hey," I can say, "I know where 'that' (whatever they're talking about) is!" I like being able to say that.

El Paso was the fourth stop on my journey.. I still had one more to make. Late September and the only thing between me and the coast was Vegas, baby... Vegas.