(FYI: posting late…forgot to do earlier 😳)
We met an Iowa couple in Amarillo who was on a bucket list-trip, driving their sweet new Winnebago van (Iowa-built) on Route 66 from Chicago to Santa Monica. Now that’s on my list. We don’t have the same goal this trip, which is instead to get to Albuquerque with a minimum of dawdling.
But today we did get off interstate 40 several times to take in the sights on the occasionally nearby parallel 2-lane Route 66. So glad we did. Shamrock, Texas, just over the Oklahoma border, has a spectacular “Tower conoco gas station (found via audio storytelling travel app HearHere) circa 1936 that was restored for a pretty penny. It looks even more remarkable at night when it is illuminated.
Finally reopened in 2021, the station’s U drop-in cafe was closed because it was a Sunday but we could peak in and see it in all its retro glory. (Traveling on a weekend means a lot is closed, including the tourist office in Tucumcari, NM)
In Amarillo, we could not miss The Big Texan Steak Ranch, a crazy looking roadside mainstay since 1960, where you get your 72-ounce steak meal free if you can wolf it down in an hour. (Not just the 4.5 pound steak but a shrimp cocktail, baked potato, salad, and roll and butter.) The Big Texan 72-ounce Steak Challenge has very precise rules, worth reading for a laugh. http://www.bigTexan.com. To date, there have been: 86,712 attempts, 10,035 champions. How Texas is that?! If you lose the challenge, you pay $72.
We instead found (thank you Yelp) a fantastic Mexican restaurant tucked under a highway underpass near a car shop that promised “we tow and crush.” El Manantial (named after the Mexican telenovela?) was packed with Hispanic families at 2:30 pm on a Sunday and we soon learned why. We had tiny little pork tacos, perfectly seasoned, and a standout speciality, tacos de Birria, lightly fried tiny tacos with red sauce and shredded marinated beef.
Because we were with dog, we found a picnic table at a nearby school playground (the sweet servers at the restaurant suggested). We crunched our way across yellow grass to the metal table for another January picnic. Like our Kansas picnic a day earlier, this one was in 59 degree weather but warmer. No Kansas wind.
On to Cadillac Ranch, a famous public art installation (free!) way out in a field of corn stubble — 10 Cadillacs driven into the ground, nose-down, their rears (once sporting tail fins until they were vandalized which apparently the artists and benefactor were ok with) sticking up from the dirt at an angle, supposedly akin to the angle of the great pyramid at Giza, slathered in many colors of dayglo spray paint. Visitors-in-the-know bring their own spray cans (or buy at a trailer parked nearby). Several were spraying away, creating big coagulated bubbles of red, yellow, green, blue, black paint. Far out! The Cadillac Ranch is the work of San Francisco “art-hippies” bankrolled by an Amarillo billionaire in 1974. Set against a dramatic backdrop of endless land and sky, it was a sight.
We were surprised by how bombed out Tucumcari, NM looked although there are a few cool buildings including a Spanish-style 1926 train station (now a railroad museum) and a building on Main street with lovely decorative terra cotta. Our HearHere audio made the town sound like it was far nicer than it appeared to us so maybe we or HearHere didn’t look closely enough.
Finally got back here about 10 years after my first visit on a tour bus, visiting farms (a peach farm, lavender farm, winery) with some Iowa farmers. This time I had a rental car so I could zip off to fairly out of the way places on roads with names like Farm to Market, although not as many places as I wanted to hit. Need more than one day for that. Next trip I’d like to go to: Gruene, Comfort, Welfare, llano.
Blanco was almost my favorite because it seemed like a normal place almost, with more ranchers than tourists. I did stop at the gift shop next to the Rosebud Cafe where I found good local pottery to buy as gifts and expensive Mexican embroidery. The town square reminded me of Winterset, Iowa, with its limestone courthouse, but the Texas courthouse is smaller… It too has been a movie set (True Grit) as has the Winterset courthouse (Bridges of Madison County).
Sad to leave Austin and return to cold snowy Iowa but feel lucky we made it here. P.S. Austin is trying out a new approach to Uber pickups at the airport. The pickup is a line akin to a taxi line, a specially designated ride app pickup area in the garage where the rental cars are, a short walk from the terminal. Worked well. You order an Uber and then stand in a fast moving line and get the next Uber in line, taxi style except an Uber attendant emails your driver enters your pin/reservation number. Beats landing at a chaotic airport arrival area and trying to figure out which car is your Uber.
Tex-Jap sounds bad (unlike Tex-Mex) but Kemuri Tatsu-ya is a restaurant that fuses Texas and Japanese fare. Interesting idea and sort of worked. The restaurant designer must have had fun, mixing good ole boy Texas and Japanese izakaya (informal pub) decor, think cattle skulls and lanterns. Perhaps the most natural mashup we had was well-grilled smoked pork ribs with gochujang hot red chili paste. The corn with crema and chilis tasted almost Cuban. The ramen dipped in a broth with brisket bits was tasty but unwieldy.
East Austin seems to be the place for inventive food by young chefs, maybe because they can afford the rent, although that may be changing with gentrification.
Our friend Art recommended Antone’s, a blues club that turned out to be a block from the Hilton (where we have a great view from the 17th floor). Antones was sold out Sunday but almost empty Monday with no cover and we lucked out with the Brad Stivers band. Brad plays a mean guitar– rockabilly and blues — and sings well too. Realized he’s my son Noah’s age. Only 28. We hoped to see his drummer Lindsay Beaver’s band Tuesday but Brad filled in for her. Bigger crowd. Lindsey is booked at the Des Moines Marriott downtown on feb 15 so maybe we will catch her there. Didn’t know the Marriott has live music. Turns out it’s the annual Des Moines bluesfest!
I rode all day on a bike around Austin’s Lady Bird Lake before noticing the name of the bike I’d rented was the same as my grandson’s (aka Linus). Fitting end to a fantastic day. Coming from subzero Iowa, Austin was glorious — in the 60s, flawless blue skies, breeze. I may have gotten a sunburn. I’ll take it.
The trail system along the narrow Lady Bird Lake and on passageways between huge skyscrapers downtown is impressive and I felt safe sharing the trail/bike lane with pedestrians, scooters and cars. My rental from Austin Bike rental and tours got off to a rocky start when I walked past the place three times before realizing it located in a metal storage container plopped down in a food truck court in a small pocket of undeveloped surrounded by glass high rises. (How very Austin.) And the container was locked. eventually some nice girls arrived and I was on my way with a very comfortable and sturdy 7 speed “Linus” bike, a helmet, lock and pack to carry stuff.
TakeBetsywithyou 