Road Trip: September 30, 2011

Dear Husband,

Today we started on our 8 day road trip.  We didn’t have many plans for it, but we knew we wanted to get way, way out of Houston and head toward Colorado where we not-so-secretly would love to live.  I thought 4:00 would never come today when I would leave work and stress and luon behind and leave town with you.

Before we left town, we grabbed dinner at a little place on our food bucket list, Hubcap Grill.  I had read that their burgers beat any gourmet burger in the city- we had to eat it to believe it.  You gave me a dollar to put in the jukebox (you know what makes me tick), and we hoovered the best burgers we have ever had in our entire lives.  Hands down.

 

We left town later than we had wanted, but how late can you be if you don’t have any plans?  We knew we wanted to make it to Kerrville, TX, and that’s what we did.  Around midnight, we rolled into the Super 8.  It’s not the Ritz but we're not Ritz kind of people?  It had a clean bed and lock on the door- pretty much all we need in a place that’s just a pit stop.

In the morning, we woke up to an unexpectedly beautiful sunrise in Kerrville.  Who knew??  We rolled into the continental breakfast with no surprises- waffles, sausage, biscuits and gravy- little to eat that we preferred before a run.  We got dry cheerios, a wheat bagel, and peanut butter.  You smashed your PB bagel into the bowl of cheerios to make them stick.  Why do things like that make me love you more?  Weirdo.

After breakfast, you asked me about my run.  I was hoping you forgot.  Training for a marathon is the pits when you’re on vacation, but it’s so much easier to go when you go, too.  We ran 6 miles- 3 down the main road through town into the old square where we ran smack into the finish line of the Kerrville triathlon.  We got goosebumps as we ran the course backward cheering for the trailing line of finishers.  We ran to the river that is barely winning the fight against the drought, turned around, and ran back up the hill to the hotel.  You told me I could go faster, and I did, but I ran out of juice.  Those blasted hills.

We cleaned up, packed up, stopped by the Donut Palace for coffee and our favorites- apple fritter for you, cinnamon cake donut for me.  We were on our way to the best trip of my life.

Around 2:00 or so, we were ready for lunch.  When people say there’s nothing between Kerrville and El Paso, they mean THERE IS NOTHING BETWEEN KERRVILLE AND EL PASO.  We decided to push for Ft. Stockton- it was a bigger small town and had better odds of good places to grab a bite.  Every restaurant we found on our phones was boarded up.  We drove through the main square, followed signs to “historic Ft. Stockton”, drove up and down every “main” street, and couldn’t find a living soul in the town.  I told you we may or may not be on the set of Texas Chainsaw Massacre.  We finally found a Mexican restaurant with good, fresh food (we both got chicken tacos- SO GOOD), mediocre service, and clean bathrooms.  When you’re road tripping, clean bathrooms are a serious priority.

And then, we found the mountains.

We hit El Paso just in time for an orange and pink sunset over the mountains, and we made it to Las Cruces exactly when we had promised Goggle we would be there.  I had never been to her townhome- white adobe with a lava rock yard.  Inside, it looked just like her house in Pagosa that I remembered- all of the same furniture, nick-nacks, and pictures of our family.  She forced every bit of food she had in the house down our throats and invited her neighbor over for strawberry shortcake.  When I’m a grandma, I hope I show off my grandkids as much as she does.  Tony (her neighbor who fixes everything for her, and in return, she buys him a full pie from the local bakery) came over and you 2 talked about racing bikes and racing cars.  He told you old stories about being a formula car mechanic, explained the history behind the orange T5 in his garage, and asked you all about your drink of choice when you’re on the bicycle.  You were smitten with this man, I swear.

I was beat.  You were beat.  We were stuffed.  Goggle told us to go to bed.