Monday morning observations collected between New Orleans and Junction, Texas.
New Orleans: Partying like that in the cold with costumes, make-up and consuming alcohol is truly for the young. Well, the costumes and make-up are. Some of the get-ups were outrageous. I wondered if their Mothers knew what they wore and what they did.
Getting out of New Orleans early Saturday was more than a drag. It was a dead stop when everyone tried to cross the Mississippi. Apparently there was some serious accident. Interstate 10 west was a dead stop for over an hour and there was no other way unless you headed 150 miles north to Natchez. I didn’t.
When the road finally opened I headed for Houston, Texas and a visit with long time friends. I like Houston. I’d never been there before. It was clean and modern. The buildings meshed like a Solari design.
Yesterday it was off to Austin via the back roads for lunch with another old friend and then onto Junction City. It is truly named for where it is. Nowhere. It’s a bunch of roads coming together at a point as they cross the Texas hill country. Junction’s population is 26-hundred.
I thought it was small until I remembered the population of where I live in rural New York is only eight hundred. Maybe the eastern trees hide people better and you think there are more of us. Out west, people live in the open and if you drive slow enough you can see what they leave on their front porches.
I had dinner…ah something to eat rather, at a BBQ eatery and gas station combined. It was quintessential Americana and so different from what I am used to. I ordered a BBQ brisket on a hamburger bun and found a picnic table in the front. A couple of Texas families sat eating nearby. Their cowboy hats stayed on while eating piles of food on Styrofoam plates.
I bought a candy bar for dessert and headed to the motel thinking about our cultural differences and our human similarities. The miracle of a shared citizenship is not our oneness. It's the many differences within a common belief of freedom and liberty to be whatever we choose.
More tomorrow
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
1 comment:
It continues to amaze me that many regional differences exist regarding BBQ in the U.S. On your journey, you have traveled through states that prepare pork and classify it as BBQ. Now you are traveling where beef is prepared and classified as BBQ. I do have to say that all of it is damned fine. Have a safe trip and please keep sharing your adventures.
Post a Comment