Texas BBQ

One of the "benefits" of moving to Texas is the BBQ. Now BBQ in Utah usually means putting some KRAFT BBQ suace on the chicken breast you cooked on the grill. Down south BBQ takes on a whole different meaning.

Texas Monthly publishes their top 50 BBQ spots once a year and last week, the list came out. Number one on the list was a small place (4,000 pop) in Lexington, TX called Snow's BBQ. They are only open on Saturday so you have to get there early. We left at 9 in the morning and drove 75 minutes to Lexington from College Station. The line was already out the door at 10:30 in the morning. We waited 30 minutes in line and were next when the owner came up and said, "That's it, we're all sold out today." Our disappointment was high but there was nothing we could do.

Looking at the list of top BBQ places, we noticed that the Town of Taylor was only 30 minutes away. Louie Mueller's BBQ was number 5 on the list. We were hungry, had invested 2 hours of our time and decided another 30 minutes would be worth it. We arrive in Taylor (pop 10,000) and found this old, run down store front with a line coming out the door. We pulled in, waited 30 minutes and we're rewarded with some of the best tasting BBQ I'd ever eaten in my life.

The photos tell the story. Pay attention to the "Man Plate" that had 1/2 lbs brisket, 1 regular sausage, 1 chipolte sausage, slice of cheese and two pieces of bread.

ARE WE SCARED YET?

Fun Farewell at Lagoon

The girls had fun at Lagoon with the Howe's and the Hughes.' We had a BLAST! I'm just glad that Rachel went on Rattlesnake Rapids and I stayed on shore with Abby.

New House

Well here it is. Everyone wanted to see a photo of the new house. Nothing to write home about really. Homes were very difficult to find that fit our needs. The crazy thing about this home is that Amy has never seen it. I took video, uploaded it to youtube, then Amy gave the thumbs up or thumbs down. The home has 4 bedrooms, 3 bathrooms with 2 living rooms, a study and a formal dinning room. I said I'd never own a white brick home...

Mountains vs. Water Towers

Most people in the Mountain West are familiar with the tradition of putting the first letter of a town on the nearby side of the mountain. This might have been the early version of Googlemaps. The pony express could see which town was next before they actually arrived.

In addition to the towns posting their letter, schools started to do the same. The University of Utah has it's U on the mountain put there in 1905. Of course Brigham Young University had to follow suit. In 1906 they set out to put BYU on the mountain but after backbreaking work to get the Y finished, they postponed, then abandoned the project. Now high schools have gotten into the act with letters on the mountain. For a great website on this subject visit Mountain Monograms.

Texas (at least part of Texas) is different. While a few towns in west Texas can boast the letter on the hill (El Paso has at least two), the flat land of east Texas doesn't provide a vehicle for the monograms we love. What do you do in the flatlands? Why build a water tower of course. Not only do you have room for a letter, usually you can put your entire name on the tower. If you don't have your name on a water tower, then you're not an official town in Texas.

Towers make better canvases than mountains. On a water tower you can have graphics to add that extra touch. Perhaps my favorite tower however, is located in Raymondville TX.

Texas Snake

This snake was going across the road while I was house hunting in Texas. When Amy sees this she'll freak!

Avalanche is Better!

I just figured out how to post videos from my youtube account to our blog site. This is a compilation video of Jay's soccer team from this past season. Enjoy!

Starting the trip

The day that we had to say our good-byes was a really hard day. Saying good-bye to some of my best friends from school, and my best friend that I knew since I was little was really hard. But we survied that day and took the four hour trip to grandmas. Our dad has to go down to Texas for the first month of summer and live in a house down there, so he can work and find us a house to live in, while the rest of the family is at grandmas. Our grandma and grandpa live in Wyoming. We are living here untill our dad finds a house, or untill the end of the month. Our dog Hank went with our dad and he is staying at some friends of ours down in Texas. They also have a dog, so Hank will have a friend. So far everything has been going great. I just can't wait untill we can get together as a family in our own house down in Texas.

The Heat of West Texas

The tempurature went up to 107 before the day was done. Poor Hank, he just wants to go back to Utah.

Here's the video I promised of the windmills

The First Trip pt. 2

This was a looooooong day. Left Albuquerque in the morning and arrived in College Station, our new home, at 1:00 am. Glad to leave New Mexico. Not sure that I could live there. The drive took me into west Texas where I saw some new things. The wind was blowing and the tempurature reading was 107. Good thing I put Hank in the cab with me. To capture all the wind in west Texas, they've built thousands of giant windmills. Not the old kind you see in farm pictures but the new white ones with 3 bladed propellers that stand 100 feet in the air. Oil wells were pumping everywhere. No wonder they don't have state income tax in Texas. The other thing I saw were dust devils. Now these are common in the plains area of the country but the frequency of these were amazing. About every 1/2 mile a new dust devil would form from the red clay of the west Texas farmland and come whipping accross the highway. I would have to hold on as the truck would vibrate for one to two seconds and then it would pass. It was like being in a mini-tornado.

The First Trip

Well today was the first day on the road. I got off to a late start due to all the wonderful friends and neighbors that came to say goodbye. It was very heartwrenching to see your kids cry as they left friends.

Eventually I got off with our dog Hank. My wife and kids went to grandma's while I live in Texas and look for a house. My drive took me through southern Utah, western Colorado, and into New Mexico where I stopped at Albuquerque for the night.

My drive took me through several Indian reservations but the town of Shiprock caught my attention. It is in the Navajo reservation and is the sight of several books by Tony Hillerman. What struck me was the utter poverty and lack of oversight of their resources. Roads were in terrible condition, almost every sign had graffiti, and the general lack of hope was evident everywhere. I've been in poor, depressed areas before but I've never seen anything on the scale I saw today. One other item that stood out was the amount of roadside memmorials to accident victoms. Drunk Driving alert signs were everywhere and apparantly the bottle has claimed a significant number of lives in this small community. I saw more roadside flowers and crosses in this small town than I had seen in my entire life combined. It was very sad and depressing.

One fun note, Hank and I stopped at Sonic for dinner in Farmington, NM. We ate at the park benches and I found out that Hank loves onion rings. He had almost the entire batch.

Well it's off to bed and then on to College Station tomorrow.