The End, this Time...

 We fly back to Pennsylvania tomorrow.  😢

The last two days went quickly.  

After a busy but not too busy morning, yesterday Dbrolaw and I played golf at the Kid's golf course, with RR walking (and riding) around with us.  It was like brutally swampy -- like 80 with 80% humidity.  It's a hard course and Dbrolaw and I took our lumps and there weren't many highlights. 

We stopped at Rosa's, a local Mexican chain, for Taco Thursday.  It's good.   We couldn't eat it all.

Today we went to the Rangers game.  It was an afternoon game, to let the Yankees go back to New York.

Here's my stadium pic:

The place rather reminded me of Houston, which we visited last week, maybe mostly because of the architectural feature of the retractable roof.  They all look a lot alike.  But Globe Life Park (no need to remember this name, like all other sponsors, might change in the next few years, especially if Globe Life goes out of business) has few features to make it distinguishable.  Those arches (with the retired numbers on them) seem to be "it," in Houston there's the grass wall behind the centerfield fence and the Crawford boxes down the leftfield line (for easier home runs).  It was fine, with good views from everywhere, but it might lack "character."

But here's character:

That is the stadium's "boom stick."  In case the sideways view throws you off, it is a foot+ long sausage, covered with cheese whiz and jalapenos.  Dbrolaw brought one back to our seats.  My stomach had immediate sympathy heartburn.  

He ate some (he claims half; we need an official measurement), but the guy in front of him was enraptured.  First he took it and had pictures taken with it (like it was his and "look how big it is"!!!), then he took a large piece and...stuffed it ALL in his mouth.  Like a whole hot dog's worth.  He almost choked.  It took many minutes for him to finally grind it down, with bits drooling out of his mouth.  He finally got it down.

I won't bother with the poor managing in the game and the Yankees winning 2-0. 

By the time we got home and did all we needed to do, dinner was an afterthought.  So we returned to Sunday's venue -- Wise Guys, where Dbrolaw and I shared the Gangsta BBQ pizza.  

 So, it's over. 😭. We've had fun, but it's time to go home (for a night) and do laundry.  We'll miss the kid, Dbrolaw and SS here...it's great to see them again.  Seems kizmet that our last pre-covid trip was to here and our first "post"-covid trip was to here.  Because of them, it's a favorite place.  We look forward to coming back...even if it IS Texas. 

Thanks to all of you for reading.  Love y'all (as they say here)

Adult, or not a kid?

Today I am going for synoptic. Not sure I'll get there. The rain cleared late Monday morning, so we ventured into downtown Dallas and saw the Kennedy site. Not much to tell -- Dealey Plaza has a couple monuments to Dealey, and the Book Repository is still there, with a museum in it, but much of the skyline has changed in the 58 years since. 

The lowlight was getting panhandled 3 times in a hour, and they were pretty aggressive.  In my mind, the most intense panhandling I've ever seen, and that includes London, Paris, Berlin, and New York.  

Then off to Fort Worth.  I will state the obvious: Dallas and Fort Worth are nothing alike!  Dallas is high rises and feels business like.  The central part of Fort Worth is more touristy and cowboy-friendly.  Near the stockyards the businesses were boots, hats, saddles, or bars/eateries. 

We ate at a biscuit place.  Just a half block from the stockyards building.  

Then we waited around for the 4 o'clock cattle drive, which is the tourist attraction in Fort Worth.  Cattle drive is "cattle drive" as this video attests.

You feel sad for the cows.  Not that the cowboys have much more energy.  (not sure if video is going to work -- new tech for me, and seemingly for "blogger" 😂)

Dinner was the culinary highlight of the week.  We made late reservations at Del Frisco's Double Eagle (double eagle seems to be a thing here) -- a steakhouse.  

We stopped for a wait-on-the-table drink; when it came time to settle up, there was a squabble over who was getting the bill.  Dbrolaw wanted it; so did the Kid.  "I got this," he says and his mom tells us all not to let him get it (🙄) and he says, "I'm an adult" and puts his card on the bill.  LoL. 

He had the rack of lamb, but the rest of us had steak.  This is the filet mignon with the night's special: lobster butter and chunks of lobster. 

The filet melted in your mouth -- almost like butter.  Not like meat at all.   Yum yum. 

We finished the night with a drink in the area (known as Sundance), which was dead and many places closed on Monday night. 

As we ordered, RR decided to supervise the Kid on drinks, to which he said "I am not a kid."  Discussion followed about the difference between this and the "adult" line earlier. 😂

Tuesday was pretty much a washout, with the rain continuing to late, late afternoon. 

We ate dinner at the Kid's golf club, which specializes in smoked meats.  And Tuesday was smoking day.  We all had some variation of the brisket -- here's RR's brisket plate with the mac and cheese.  

They also had ice cream for dessert, which was quite good.  They get some specialty stuff.  The wait staff didn't respond to my question about their arm being tired (Kids! don't know that you have to hand crank it to make it at home 😀.)

And now we are two days from going home.  😒

Not exactly food porn

Hi everyone! I'm back. As to the title, as you may recall, one of the features of this blog is what we have eaten in many venues, in many countries actually (you may remember that our last BIG trip, to Germany, Prague, and Zurich left us NOT wanting anymore German-style cuisine). Galveston has not been a winner so far. One might say that just being in Texas gives you little hope, but there's always Tex-Mex (see later) and BBQ. Nothing here has been haute, haute cuisine. Last night's dinner was very, very good and deserves kudos. So kudos. Let's start there. RR wanted to go the "Strand" and walk around. As is often the case with RR, where such a place actually is is a whole different question. We ended up in the historic district, which had some streets with little shops. I had seen a billboard (eating tip: this is NOT a great way to find a good place to eat) that claimed that this place was the "original Tex Mex restaurant in historic Galveston." The name is Taquilo's. That's where we ate. I start with a picture of the salsa.

You will note that the red salsa doesn't look like salsa. It was also warm. It was pretty spicy and had a texture...well, like beanless chili. It was verygood. My entree was delicious. Enchiladas with verde sauce.

That was a hit. And I got credit for finding it. While there, we looked at places nearby. Catty corner across the street was a place called Ruby & Paco. RR looked it up. It was seafood with a Latin American twist. She wanted to eat there. But they had a dress code! (WTF!). We went in after dinner (I violated their dress code, as I was wearing shorts) and tried to get res for tonight. "We have no openings." "Nothing?" "Nothing. You could come for lunch." I got the impression she looked down her nose at me in my shorts as she said this. "No, we are busy for lunch, sorry." So, no Latin inspired seafood. Instead, we had Miller's Seawall Grille. No, their specialty isn't really seawall. But it is right across from the Gulf. The food wasn't great, but it was okay. I had the flounder, fried, on top of "crab dressing." I think this is like a crab cake, but called a different thing. You can see it here.

The best part of dinner was our first dessert of the week -- a brownie ganache with ice cream. We couldn't eat it all.

And, finally, here's yesteday morning's attempt at pushing RR's "I'll try anything" mantra -- it was labeled a "bouda," which she told me had something and rice in the middle. I got the spicy. You see how much was eaten. :). But I did a Google search and I still don't know what it really was. So, there's our food adventure in Galveston. It ain't Berlin, but then where is, with curry dogs everywhere? I've been promised high end chow in Fort Worth. Okay, maybe not in THOSE words. :)

We're back -- in Texas. Go 'stros!

Yes, after 14 months (almost exactly) of hiatus due to "the 'rona," we are back on the road. In that prolonged period, known to RR ("recent retiree") as the "year of no fun," Mrs. Intrepid Traveller, yes, retired. Of course thinking that retiring meant lots of opportunities to travel. Whoops! Thanksgiving trip? Nope. Christmas trip? Nope. Spring break trip? There was no spring break on this year's semester calendar. Nope. May trip to London? Nope. You can see why she might be disappointed. Anyway, here we are in lovely (you can figure out if it is surrounded by air quotes or not) Galveston, TX. Why Galveston, you might ask? Well, we were coming down to see Kid 2, and Bro-law X and Sis-law numero uno, and wanted some beach time (there was none, absolutely none, last year -- the year of no fun). So we rented a condo on the water on Galveston Island. First, there's no beach here. The Gulf is across the road and it almost rolls onto the road at high tide, which is surprisingly not much higher than low tide. The Gulf. A strange thing. OTOH, it was 79 and windy when we got up yesterday morning. Can't say it wasn't warm enough. The effin' guy on WBRE weather kept talking about "a chance of snow flurries" last weekend. Where's my eye roll emoji? One of the things we decided to do on this trip, once it was clear it was possible, was to go see baseball games at the two Texas parks. Last night we went to Minute Maid (go 'Stros!) and saw a great game between the 'Stros and the Angels -- Houston broke a 1-1 tie in the bottom of the 8th with 4 runs. And it was quick. Last night's ballpark was #22 as RR and I attempt the much envied "every ballpark" checklist. When we finish a mostly ballpark trip in early July to the southeast, we will be left with just 4 to visit -- Fenway and three on the West Coast. We really liked Minute Maid. One part we liked (which we were told we wouldn't like about Rangers Park next week) is that the park is right downtown and you can see the city through the big windows in the outfield. I guess they did away with the distinctive slope in centerfield some years ago, so it is not quite as quirky a field as it was when it opened. There's still a big wall of shrubbery behind the centerfield fence (not unusual in these newer ballparks, like Philly) and there are seats in a "box" in the leftfield corner -- the "Crawford Boxes" -- which make homers a bit easier to hit there. All-in-all, a good experience. I finish with a photo from our seats. This will be the first of several blogs this next ten days -- we fly home on the 21st -- but they won't be daily. That'd feel like work and RR (when does it become something other than "recent"???) isn't having any hint of that. :)