We just completed our drive from Fort Smith Arkansas back to Chicago. With breaks, lunch, traffic, and a detour to see the Arch in St. Louis, it took 13 hours (got back to Chicago at 10:45 PM). Have lots of stories to post, and hundreds of pics to show, but I’m way too tired now. Regardless, we’re back in Chicago safe and sound.

We left Austin yesterday (Friday) morning for to next leg of our journey: Fort Smith, Arkansas. Left Austin at 9:45a and got into Fort Smith at about 6:45p. It took a bit longer because there aren’t any direct interstates between the two, so we had to take US Highways most of the way. This isn’t too bad, since they are two lane and fast, but they slow down around the towns (some stoplights).

Anyhow, we got here safe and sound and had a relaxing evening and a good nights sleep. Ev and Deb are running some errands right now, but when they get back we’ll start exploring.

Today we headed northwest of Austin, an area that borders the Llano and Colorado Rivers. (The Colorado in Texas is a different river from that which created the Grand Canyon.) The Colorado used to be a huge problem in Texas, as heavy rains would cause the river to rise and flood the surrounding countryside. It was a catch-22 for the people living around here: the river is one of the few consistent sources of water in a very dry area, yet it could cause horrible floods. In the 1930s, as part of the national works programs, a number of dams were built along the river to provide flood control and generate power.

We first drove up to the town of Llano where we had lunch. Then our first tourist stop of the day was a Dam at Lake Buchanan. It’s a very long dam, at over 2 miles, and is designed in an unusual way: it’s a series of many arches (versus one big arch, like Hoover Dam). The sucky part is that post-911 you can’t walk on the dam, like you used to be able to do. Too bad.

Next up, we headed south toward the Inks Lake State Park. This is a very pretty area. On one side you have Inks lake and the river. On the other side you have red cliffs and hills (this area is quite hilly–reminds me very much of PR–except drier). At the top of a ridge is a picnic area with a very unusual sight: a castle! Yep, believe it or not, but there is a giant castle in Hill Country. It is amazingly cool to see in the distance. You can learn more about it here.

We drove down the road a bit more and stopped at Longhorn Cavern State Park. Here you can tour one of the largest caves in the area. While the rooms aren’t as big as those in PR, it does have some really cool sights. Plus, it has a a very “cavey” feeling–there are a lot of low places that you need to really hunch down to make it through. The cave also has some interesting history: It was used by the Confederates as a storage area for gunpowder (made from bat guano, was a speakeasy during the 1920s, and is now used for weddings, concerts, and movies (both filmed there and shown there). In fact, it was used for the cave movie, The Descent.

After that we headed back to Austin and had dinner. Now we’re just resting and getting ready for our departure. Tomorrow we head out to Fort Smith Arkansas to visit with one of our old friends who just moved down there.

 

Today we headed west, into Hill Country. We wanted to check out that area (to see if it really was hilly) and while there, check out a winery or two.

We first stopped at a winery called Driftwood, about 45 minutes west of Austin. It has a small tasting room, but has really great views down into the valleys. We spent about an hour here, drinking some nice wines and chatting.

It was around lunchtime, so the woman at the winery recommended a BBQ place called Salt Lick. It’s a really huge place, laid out with picnic tables. You can get regular BBQ plates and sandwiches, but we went for the Family Style. They give you three sides (slaw, potatoes, beans) and a plate of meat. The meat plate is sausage, pork ribs, and beef brisket, all heaped together and then sauced.

I wouldn’t call it healthy, but it was delicious! Plus, if you order the Family Style it’s all you can eat! We really loved the ribs, so we ended up getting more of those. All you can eat BBQ for $11 a plate ain’t too bad either.

If you are going to go, it’s best to do lunch during the week. It was busy, but we got seated and served pretty quickly. During the weekends the place is a madhouse. We asked one of the cooks (Mexican, of course) and he said they get about 1,000 people on Saturday nights! People wait for nearly 2 hours just to get in. (I believe it–the parking lot was the size of a Walmart lot.)

After being stuffed with tasty BBQ, we headed over to another winery to the west, located between Fredericksburg and Stonewall. It’s called Becker Vineyards and is one of the bigger tourist winery stops. It’s a bigger place than Driftwood, but slightly more annoying (tourists). It quieted down after a while and we were able to sample a number of sweet wines (our favorites–we like Reislings). After tasting half a dozen of them, we walked out with six bottles.

We asked the guys if we could get a tour, but they were a bit hesistant. Then they asked us where we were from, and Evelyn gave her “I just got back from PR working at the worlds largest radio telescope” speach and we were in. The entire room of people were listening to her tell the story! It was pretty darn funny.

So, we got to tour the winery. Saw where the grapes are pressed and stored, saw all the oak barrels, and the bottling system. Also went down to the celler. Amazingly, it’s the largest private basement (of any kind) in Texas. But here’s the kooky thing: It’s only about 3 times bigger than ”normal” sized Chicago house’s basement! It was big, but was nothing like the huge underground spaces I’ve seen in other places. It’s just that basements are so rare down here, I guess. Anyhow, the tour was very nice, and the guide, Henri (a Frenchman who came to Texas to be a cowboy–really!) was great.

It was about four by now, so we headed back to the Austin area. On the way we stopped at the LBJ State & National Park, which is located west of Johnson City (the birthplace of President Johnson). We weren’t sure what to expect, but it ended up being very cool. You can take tours, and they have a whole farmstead recreated with people living on it. Basically, you get to see “living history”–real people doing real chores around the farm.

It seems really cool, but we got there late (4:30) when they were shutting down, so really couldn’t see much. However, one of the people “living” there stopped to introduce herself and explain what was going on. We explained to her that we were thinking of moving to Austin / Hill Country and she gave us some background about the areas. It was very nice of her to do that, especially since she was getting off her shift.

I must say, all of the people we’ve met down in Hill Country have been really nice. Maybe it’s because we’re tourists with our Chicago accents, I don’t know. But face-to-face interactions have been great.

The driving is a different matter: I do believe that many of these people went to driving school in Puerto Rico. That’s a good and a bad thing. Good because they are more adept at getting from point A to point B–unlike people from Chicago, who seem to take a minute to decide to turn right at a green light. Bad because they merge in without looking or signaling. It’s nowhere near as bad a PR, but it’s a lot less like Chicago and a lot more like PR. Maybe it’s the heat.

Anyhow, we got back to the hotel safe and sound, but Evelyn was pooped and fell asleep. It’s around 9 PM now, so I’ll have to wake her soon so we can get some dinner.

Update: Oh, I almost forgot: Yes, Texas Hill Country is hilly. It’s not high mountains, like PR or eastern TN, but it is hilly. It’s nice and rolling without the stomach churning curves of PR. A very pretty area, even in dry season (now).

It’s just about midnight and we got back from our evening of adventures. We started out by going to the Brick Oven restaurant, which was a really nice pizza place. As an added bonus, Tuesday is $10 for a bottle of wine night!

After that, we headed back to downtown Austin to visit the book and music stores. First stopped at BookPeople, which is really a kick-ass independent bookstore. We didn’t have much time to really browse around, but we did pick up a couple of books and plan to go back. If you are in Austin, be sure to visit.

Next up were the music stores. First, called “Waterloo”, was right across the street from the book store. It has mostly new stuff, and is pretty good. I found a new Kate Bush documentary that I hadn’t found before (Kate Bush – Under Review) which I picked up.

After that, we headed over to “Cheapo” which is HUGE. It’s a gigantic space filled with new and used CDs, DVDs, and LPs. Evelyn spotted some rare Kate Bush LPs which I, of course, picked up. Also found a Batman DVD for Ev and a new Ladytron CD for myself. All in all, a very successful visit.

It was getting late, so we headed back to the hotel, and here I am updating the blog while sipping on an ice cold Real Ale and chewing on some leftover pizza. I’m liking Austin more and more.

We started out today by visiting the Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center, located to the southwest of Austin. It originally opened in 1982, though the new grounds and buildings were opened in 1995.

It’s really nicely set up. Beautiful buildings include a vistor center, gift shop, cafeteria, and administrative buildings. There are a series of formal gardens, along with several hiking paths. Plus, there is a tower that you can climb up to get a panoramic view of the area.

We spent over two hours there, and left mainly because the camera ran out of power–Evelyn took over 225 pictures! You can easily spend most of a day on the grounds. If you like flowers and plants, be sure to check it out. Also, if you like butterflys, this is a great place to visit, since they have gardens set up specifically for butterflies. Pretty cool!

The next stop was the Austin Books, so we headed up to the North side of the city. We were hungry, so after finding the store, we went for lunch. We found a place called Banzai that serves sushi, so we stopped there. It was a nice place with some good food.

Now full, we headed up to Austin Books. It’s Austin’s biggest comic book store, and the largest comic store I’ve ever been in (and Evelyn and “dragged” me into a lot of stores). Needless to say, she was very pleased.

I must say, it was the best organized comic store I’ve ever been in, complete with really cool drawers for all the back issues (making it much easier to search for books). If you are a comic fan, and are near Austin, you MUST stop in this store. It’s amazing, and I’m not even a fan of comics. We walked out of there with four new Batman figures, a bunch of books, and a new T-Shirt. All in all, a very successful visit. I was just glad that we were able to walk out with as “little” as we did!

Next up, we headed back south to the SoCo area (and I now know what that means: South Congress). There are a ton of cool restaurants and shops down in SoCo (the Zen place we had noodles at is here). Lots of antiques, and generally “hip” stores. We stopped at a well known place called Uncommon Objects, which was really cool. A hipsters antique store is what I’d call it, though it’s too expensive for my taste. Regardless of price, the whole strip is worth browsing around. Lots of cool stores and places to eat.

In the end, I was thirsty, so we picked up some Texas beer (Real Ale Brewing Company) and Evelyn got some Goats Milk Ice Cream. (I was happy to see the ice cream. It was recently written up in one of my foodie guides–Rosengarten Report.) Then we headed back to the hotel to rest for a bit.

So, now it’s coming up on 7 PM. We’ve been able to relax a bit and will now be heading out for dinner. After dinner, we’re gonna head out to the super-huge independent bookstore and to the two big used music stores. Hopefully we can escape without spending too much money, but I’m not holding my breath.

If the weather holds tomorrow, we’ll head into wine & hill country. It’s supposed to rain, so we may have to forgo that and instead do museums.

We were tired after getting here. Evelyn was worn out and my back was killing me, so we started out slow. Ev took a nice long bath (the first time in months–only showers in PR) and I cleaned up the dozens of spam messages in my inboxes.

At around 5:30 we went driving around a bit, but I forgot my maps, so we couldn’t navigate around very well. Plus, my back was giving me shooting pains down my legs, so we went back to the hotel so I could pop some Aleve and pick up the maps. Problems solved.

Next, we headed up Congress Avenue into downtown. Congress is like State Street in Chicago and it dead ends into the state capital. I needed to walk a bit, so we parked and walked around the capital grounds. (A nice thing down here is that all the government parking and meters are free after 6 PM, and there are tons of lots, so parking isn’t a big deal, at least in the evening.)

The capital is really cool and you are free to walk around it–it’s open until 10 PM, though the guided tours stop at 4:30. And, as the Texans point out, the dome is taller than the US Capital building’s. It’s really cool to look up and see the four levels of Texas Governor paintings (including dear GWB), starting with the old guys at the top and then working down. The whole building is very classy and cool–lots of hand-carved wood and marble. We plan on going back and spending more time.

We were hungry, so went looking for food. Headed back down Congress (too fancy downtown–we only have jeans). We had passed a number of restaurants earlier, but wanted one closer to the river (for reasons to be explained below). We ended up at a place called Zen. Calling it a “fast food” place doesn’t do it justice. It’s a really kick-ass Japanese noodle joint. Evelyn had a salmon noodle dish and I had a steak one. Both were excellent.

The area we ate in is called “SoCo”, though I have no idea what that stands for. Nevertheless, it reminds me very much of the Wicker Park area in Chicago, except nicer (less traffic, cleaner, etc–put some of the cool parts of Chicago into a washing machine, clean off the scum, and you have Austin). There are a number of kooky looking stores that we are going to check out in the coming days.

After dinner we walked a couple of blocks North to the Congress Bridge. The bridge spans the Colorado River (which is the city’s North-South baseline). Every evening, at dusk, the largest urban bat colony emerges from underneath! You can find a couple of pictures here. It was really quite amazing. Suddenly you see hundreds and hundreds of bats streaming out. Then they follow in formation down the riverside.

Imagine a huge “S” of bats flying overhead–in a line that’s literally 3 blocks long! When they go overhead it’s like looking into a sky of black stars–there are that many of them. It’s really an amazing sight. (There are estimated to be 1.5 MILLION bats living under the bridge–and they all emerge every night.) As you can guess, Evelyn was pretty darn happy. She’s currently trying to figure out how to “take home” the giant bat sculpture near the bridge.

Tomorrow we’re going to start out visiting the Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower park. Then we’ll head back to the downtown area and walk around a bit (I’m not in the mood for doing too much driving–my back needs a break). After that, we’ll be off to Austin Books, which looks to be a kick-ass comic book store (gotta check out the Batman stuff). Take a look at the video on their site. It looks pretty cool, at least to a geek: Austin Books.

After Evelyn gets her fill of comics, I’m gonna drag her over to BookPeople, which is a 40,000 square foot independent bookstore which has been rated one of the best in the country. Then we’ll probably walk across the street to two highly rated music stores. Should be fun.

On Wednesday we’ll probably head out to Hill Country to visit come wineries out there (yep, they make wine in Texas) and see how hilly Hill Country actually is.

Today we got up around 6 AM and had breakfast. We’re staying at La Quinta, since they are cheap and decent. We were a little less than happy with the room in Little Rock (it was showing its age), but they did have a nice breakfast–you could make your own waffles, which I thought was neat. Anyhow, we packed everything into the car and were on the road by 7 AM.

The ride (on I-30 toward Texarkana) was really pretty. I’d like to take some time in the future to explore it more. There are a lot of state parks, and several archaeological sites, which I’m sure my brother Mike would be interested in. (On the way back to Chicago, we’ll be staying in the Ozark region with our friend Debbie, so maybe that will be our chance to explore.) Anyhow, from what I’ve seen so far, I would recommend checking out the western region of Arkansas. It’s quite nice looking, at least from what we saw.

We got into Texas around 10 AM, though Texarkana, which is a small city that strattles Texas and Arkansas. It’s got all the usual city stuff (bunches of big box stores) and had some nice houses.

We stopped at the Texas Welcome Center, which was really excellent. A beautiful new building with tons of maps, fliers, things-to-do, etc. Really top-notch and the best Visitor Center we’ve seen so far. We walked out with a bunch of things-to-do ideas. (It was especially nice, because they well organized everything by region. We are going to Hill Country, so grabbed fliers for just that area.)

Shortly after, my breakfast was wearing out, and I was getting grumpy and tired due to hunger, so we stopped at a little BBQ place at around 11:30. It was really nice. We had some beef brisket and pork shoulder that was very tasty. Leaving, I knew we were in Texas: Mine was the only car parked in a line of Ford and Chevy pickups. The only thing missing were the gunracks.

Driving though Dallas, was, as always, a pain. A good deal of traffic and too much road construction. I’m not a big fan of Dallas, mainly because it has that big city vibe, and is hotter than Chicago in the summer. Anyhow, we got though, and then headed south though the infamous Waco (boring, kinda dumpy, at least from the highway) and then on to Austin.

By this time it was around 3:30 and the traffic had picked up. It was pretty slow getting into Austin, and parts were confusing (I-35 splits in two and recombines–kinda like Local and Express lanes, but not marked that way). In the end, we finally found the hotel and checked in at around 4 PM.

The Austin stretch took longer than the day before, since there was road construction pretty much from east of Dallas all the way down to Waco. So, even though the distance was a bit shorter (around 500 miles) it was just as tiring.

We were pleased to find that our hotel room is a good deal nicer than the one in Little Rock (bigger, cleaner, newer). Plus, as you can probably guess, the free wireless works in this hotel.

(Which reminds me: I was a bit disappointed earlier today. I wanted to do a Very Special Post titled “I-35 Mile 232.2 Rest Stop”. You see, the rest stops in Texas are WiFi HotSpots. I was able to connect, but I couldn’t get through to my site for some reason. Too bad.)

 

Our adventure started on Sunday morning. We woke up around 5:30 AM, got our final packing done, had some breakfast, and were off. Out the door by around 7:15, which is what we were planning. We figured that leaving on a Sunday meant less traffic (and that was the case–thank goodness).

The trip down I-57 was, as always B-O-R-I-N-G. If there is ever a route that needs Robot Drivers, it’s this one. Nothing but 65 MPH on a straight flat line. We rolled through Illinois without a problem, just a long (couple of hours) hike. Then we curved over to Missouri and connected with I-55 South. Missouri was just the same as Illinois, except no “Welcome Center” and shitty rest stops. Luckily, we were only in MO for a bit and quickly passed into Arkansas.

Once in Arkansas things started looking up. Much greener, and more hilly, as we moved from the East (around Memphis) toward Little Rock (in the center). We rolled into our hotel, on the west side of Little Rock, at 5:30 PM. A total of 650 miles in 10.25 hours–an average speed of 63 MPH. Not too shabby–especially since that included lunch and pee breaks. (Thank goodness for 70 MPH speed limits outside of Illinois.)

Little Rock was our halfway point, so we were only spending the night and wouldn’t be able to explore much. We ended up driving around a bit and found a really good mom & pop grocery/taco place. Really nice looking with good food. It was funny, here we were in the middle of Arkansas eating at a place that could have been in Chicago. I was really surprised by the number of Mexicans we encountered in Little Rock. They were outnumbering the white-trash hicks!

After dinner we headed off to beloved WalMart (hey, we’re in Arkansas–we HAVE to go to WalMart). Picked up some snacks, drinks, and a cooler. Again, I was surprised by the mix of people. It was probably the most diverse WalMart I’ve ever walked into (not that I visit them a lot, but still). Hispansics, Whites, Blacks, Indians (not Native Americans), etc. It was pretty wild.

On a funny note, I bring up two strange things we saw in Little Rock. First was the street names in our area. The main street running by our Hotel was Mabelvale Road. We took that up to a three way intersection: Mabelvale Road, Mabelvale Pike, and Mabelvale Main. We took Mabelvale Pike (I think) to the mall, where the road became Mabelvale Plaza. The Little Rockers must love Mabelvale!

On the way back was the second thing that made me chuckle. It was a political sign. One of those big “vote for….” that people stick in their lawns. Well, there were a bunch that said “Vote For Doc Holliday”….guess what for? Sheriff! I almost bust a gut. I’ve got a picture of it that I’ll post later.

 

We just arrived in Austin, safe and sound. Once we’ve rested a bit, I’ll write about our adventures so far.