A Nameless Blog

Yes, yes, it’s been awhile.  I have no excuse beyond my own laziness.  Don’t worry, though — I have a doozy of a post for you.  Well, it’s a post that was requested almost a full month ago, but still just a post.  You see, over New Year’s I went on a roadtrip to beautiful Brownsville, Texas, and my company requested a post about it.  As you know, I avoid diary-style posts, so much like the Mexico post from 2007, I shall skirt this pledge by avoiding strict narrative and sprinkling the post with lies.  Enjoy.

On the way to Brownsville, we made our first daylong stop in San Antonio.  It took fourteen hours, but it only felt like thirteen and a half.  The following are observations exclusively about the roads of New Mexico and Texas:

Arizona highways are scattered with signs that read, “Blowing Dust Area”.  New Mexico phrases such signs differently: “Dust Storms May Exist”.  It’s so Zen.  Dust storms may exist… somewhere.  Coupling the Zen sign is the warning, “ZERO Visibility Possible”, which feels like an error in syntax to me.  I know what they mean, but if zero visibility is possible, then all visibility is impossible, right?

The truck stops in New Mexico love to advertise.  Every half mile is an ad for some gas-stop/tchotchke mart.  Most advertised tchotchke: agate bookends.  Toppling books must be a major problem among the travelers of America’s highways.

As we passed through Las Cruces, New Mexico, Guns N’ Roses’ “Paradise City” came on the iPod.  It seemed apt.

Texas knows how to organize a fuckin’ highway system — they’re much more explicit about keeping slow traffic in the right lane: “Left Lane is for Passing, You Inconsiderate Pussies”.  That sign is every five miles along I-10 in Texas.  Arizona could use that kind of firmness, for as long as I was in Texas, I was never annoyed by a slow driver in the left lane.

When iPod music grows monotonous, stand-up comedy is great at keeping a driver alert.  The star of the trip: Paul F. Tompkins.

San Antonio’s highways have a convenient innovation: turnaround lanes.  If you miss an exit, you can turn around without running into traffic lights (it’s even called a Texas U-turn, evidently).  Maybe Texas has a lot more people who miss exits, but Arizona could still use them.  (Note: you can take the Texas U-turn concept way too far by utilizing it on every surface street, but that would be stupid.  I’m looking at you, Michigan left.)

Okay, enough about the highways.  Let’s go to the Alamo.

First off, I’m glad I went.  I learned a lot of little details I never would have cared to know otherwise — like how small the actual mission is, or that it’s right in the middle of downtown San Antonio.  Seriously: stand at the giant stone sculpture of Davy Crockett et al and you’re fifty feet away from a steakhouse and a Ripley’s Believe it or Not.

So as not to bore you with details, the salient fact of all Texas history is the following: there is murder and destruction at every turn.  As someone who’s only visited, I’m surprised that so many people have died for the honor of one of the six (six!) flags that have flown over Texas.  As far as land goes, it’s pretty much the same as the rest of the Southwest.  What’s so damned special?  You guys didn’t even have the Cowboys back then.

We went to a pizza place in San Antonio called Big Lou’s.  It was featured on Man v. Food for having gigantic pizzas (their biggest at forty-two inches).  Since there were only five of us, we conservatively went with the twenty-incher.  Still, it was a little too much pie.  It was delicious, but needlessly huge.  Also, they should make their ordering system a little friendlier.  (That last sentence was written in case Big Lou himself is one of my regular readers.)

As unapologetic tourists, we went on the Riverwalk boat tour.  Again, so as not to bore you with details, here’s the biggest fact: San Antonians (San Antonites?  San Antonioats?) are ridiculously proud of their city.  The Riverwalk was a WPA project during the Depression; ain’t that neat?  Carol Burnett was born in that hospital right on the river; ain’t that neat?  We don’t tear down buildings; we reuse them.  That used to be the library, but now it’s (something I’ve forgotten); ain’t that neat?  Every time, I had to admit that yes, that is neat.

We also went up the tower at Hemisfair Park.  The park was built for the 1968 Hemisfair, which is one half of a World’s Fair.  The tower is 750 feet tall, the tallest point in town, and not particularly interesting otherwise.  It was nice to see an unfamiliar city from above, but I’m sure I’d appreciate it more if I were from there.  Here’s a simulated conversation I had atop the tower:

“That over there’s the Alamodome.”
“What, that big stadium-lookin’ thing with the poles?”
“Yup.  Two thirds of those beams are underground.”
“Mm.”
“They built this place to try to attract an NFL team.  Now they just use it for boat shows and George Strait concerts.”
“Well, maybe they can convince the Jaguars to move.”

I almost forgot the best part about the Hemisfair tower — the 4-D movie!  A lot of tourist attractions have this, so you might be familiar with the concept.  The idea is that they show a short, uninteresting 3-D movie while also jiggling the chairs around and occasionally spraying you with water.  This time around, the water was purportedly bull snot.  That’s right — in the Flying Over Texas (or whatever the fuck it was called) movie, the viewer at one point is suddenly a rodeo clown.  You hide in a barrel, look up, and see a bull just in time to snot on you in four dimensions.  As fun as that was, I’m most satisfied to know that the fourth dimension is snot spray.

The next day, we went to Austin.  We walked around the Capitol, strolled the UT campus, had an authentic faux-Polynesian lunch, and arrived at the LBJ library just in time to see it close.  The two salient facts from this day: Texans love statues, and Texans still have an uncomfortable attachment to the Confederacy.  The Capitol and the campus had the expected statues of people in the Alamo (nope, you can’t escape the Alamo), dedications to lost firefighters, and Sam Houston.  Sprinkled throughout were Jefferson Davis, Robert E. Lee, and a few dedicated to lost Confederate soldiers.  I understand appreciating history and all that, but let me ask you something, Texas.  After the Texians finally established the Republic of Texas, did remaining Mexican apologists erect statues of Santa Anna?  If so, then we have no issue — you just have a weird way of recognizing history.  If not, maybe you should consider replacing that Jefferson Davis with an LBJ or a Troy Aikman.  I don’t want to sound like a dick or nuthin’, but give it a thought.

The rotunda at the Capitol had portraits of every Texas governor.  I sent a picture of Dubya to the ladyfriend as a joke.  Joke’s on me, though, because now that picture comes up every time I call her.  It makes me wonder exactly what she thinks of me.

After that, we made it to Brownsville for some delicious home-cooked meals.  The four-hour trip features pretty much nothing, save the outskirts of Corpus Christi.  Though, we did pass a gas station/truck stop called the Kuntry Korner, which sealed the Most Unfortunate Spelling award for the week.

Brownsville has a great little taco place called El Rey de Taco.  Amazing tacos with tasty meats.  There’s a restaurant in Sunnyslope called Los Reyes de la Torta, which might be Phoenix’s best Mexican restaurant.  It seems that if you call yourself the king of some Mexican dish, you have to mean it.

One night, I was reminded why I hate Monopoly.  Twenty minutes in, everyone knows who’s going to win, except it takes three hours for it to finally happen.  It’s mostly luck-driven, and it’s completely joyless.  I’m pretty sure only board design kept it popular for so long.

I won’t go into detail about every party, family member, and delicious meal, but I will hit some high points.  First of all, everything was outstanding, except one thing: menudo.  My lily-white tastebuds evidently aren’t primed for intestines.  I wanted to enjoy what was probably a good batch, but alas, menudo is what separates the honkeys from fully embracing Mexican cuisine.

The New Year’s Eve party was a big’un: fireworks, grilled meats, tamales, and a bounce house.  I could write paragraphs about each, but I’ll winnow it down to a sentence apiece.  Here goes…  Growing up in Arizona, I got to remedy my inexperience with fireworks by making an acre lot look like a WWI battlefield.  Nothing tastes better than carne asada pulled fresh off the grill.  That is, except for homemade tamales with chicken and/or beans inside.  As for the bounce house, the kids said it smelled like dog poop.

My roommate’s family came in droves.  I met mustachioed uncles and mothers relieved to let their kids loose on the bounce house.  There were friendly brothers, interesting cousins, and delightful nephews.  Clearly, the lesson of the trip is to appreciate your family and cherish the times you spend with them.  Nearly every adult I spoke with said something to that effect.  All told, I’d say there were at least a hundred immediate and extended family members at the party.  I was told that it’s “only a fraction” of the whole crew.  I guess the real lesson of the trip, then, is that Mexicans love to fuck.  Who can’t get behind that?

-Darrell

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