Hey, everyone!
Yes, we're in Houston for a few days, visiting KG; his mother hasn't seen him since December 😢
OK, let's start with oddity #1: the "flight" from Wilkes-Barre/Scranton airport, aka Avoca (the small town between that the airport is actually in, thus the airport 3LC -- AVP), was a bus ride to Philly.
Turns out this is a new thing. American, and a couple other airlines in places, have started bussing people from nearby regional airports to bigger hubs. The one story was about a guy getting on a bus at O'Hare thinking it was taking him to the plane to South Bend. And then he was on the road to South Bend.
It's a thing. Like us yesterday (and the trip from O'Hare to South Bend), I would think traffic would be an issue, but what do I know? We got stuck on 476 for awhile, but made it in plenty of time.
It was 5 o'clock, so we tried to figure out what to grab for our flight for "dinner" (there wasn't really lunch) -- we ended up getting sandwiches at the place pretty much nearest our gate. I looked longingly on down the concourse at the place with cheesesteaks...😢
By the time we at them, mine was a chicken parm, K's was a meatball sub, they were not good. And the side of fries were cold cardboard. Not a good start to eating experiences on this trip. 😢
But today we made up for it. First, I found this place called the Craft Beer Breakfast Club and their food was great. I had the chiliquiles and K had the chicken fried steak (the fact the chicken wasn't frying a chicken was probably a sign of a good restaurant)
Then we went out and saw KG at his course and looked over the new parts -- they've almost finished a new restaurant there. We were told we could see him at dinner and off we went on a minor adventure.
Stop one was College Station, about 90 minutes away, home of Texas A&M. I had heard people say it might be the ugliest college town in America and today I don't doubt it. It wasn't as bad as I had heard it depicted, but it's a pretty blah topography and you come in past the golf course, which looks like the ag school should put more work into.
The dominant building is, OC, the stadium, which is very much looming over campus. It is about the size of the one at Penn St, but it is a bit out away from campus. The other buildings are modern looking and made a a brownish stone or brick that is...well, not charming. Here's your requisite Kyle Field shot.
Next stop was Blue Bell creamery. I've never been a huge fan of their ice cream and today sealed it. It was okay, but I now know why Ben & Jerry and Haagen Daz became a thing with their much more intense flavors. The Dutch chocolate definitely didn't have enough chocolate kick.
FYI the blue bells were gone for the season, which I think was the real reason we were there.
Back to "Houston" (KG lives in Spring, which is a northern suburb, so we don't often go into Houston proper) and as I drove, then napped, KG and K made dinner plans.
Turned out to be a place we had eaten before. I'm not going to look it up to see what I thought last time, but this time the waiter, Celso, tried to be entertaining. He really wasn't. The banter about "I will get you whatever you want and don't be in a hurry" was okay, but only needed to hear it once.
K had the huge special, a bone-on filet (yes, you got that right), with a cherry and cab sav reduction. KG had the strip "oscar style"....I had chicken with risotta, which was good, but not worth a picture.
Manana.
