Just About a Mile from Texarkana

I’m in Texarkana, Tex. tonight. Texarkana is one of those towns that gets sung about a lot because it makes for a nice rhyme, as Creedence Clearwater Revival's "Cotton Fields," Crazy Elephant's "Gimme Gimme Good Lovin'" and Jerry Reed's "Eastbound and Down" can attest.

One thing that doesn't rhyme with Texarkana is syphilis. The Ark-La-Tex region has some of the higher syphilis rates in the country, so I'm here for a meeting with public health folks from the tri-state area to discuss coordination of prevention and messaging efforts across state lines.

I would’ve preferred to meet in Hot Springs, Ark. for the spring-fed baths or Shreveport, La. for the casino buffets, but our leash ends where Texas does. As far as I can tell, the primary extracurricular activity in Texarkana would be to have a photo taken on State Line Ave. with half my girth in Texas and the other in Arkansas. Having already done that in several obnoxious iterations over the years, I’m content to hit the hotel treadmill and watch the Cowboys try to soak up some Texas Rangers mojo on Monday Night Football.

Yup, just another crazy night of road-hogging in the name of public health.

Rolling out to Reimers Ranch

Kate's Aunt P.K. is in town this weekend, so we decided to take advantage of the perfect weather by going out to Milton Reimers Ranch Park.

Located on the Pedernales River in the far western reaches of Travis County, Reimers Ranch is well-known to rock-climbers and mountain bikers, but it has only been in the Travis County Parks system since 2006. This was the first time I'd been out there.

With the recent rains bringing the Hill Country back to life, our quick day trip was well worth the $8 admission. I think we'll bring a picnic next time. Here are a few amateur snapshots to give you a better idea of how bucolic things are right now.

The flowers are blooming...


...and the water is flowing.


The mission-style "village" on the bluff was actually the movie set of the 2004 version of The Alamo.


Not quite the Playboy Mansion grotto, but close.


The Pedernales heads toward Lake Travis under clear blue skies.

Changes ahead for Rapid Rewards

Southwest Airlines plans to unveil its retooled Rapid Rewards program late next year. While there’s no word yet on if you’ll be still able to get a free roundtrip ticket for 16 flights, the revamping of frequent flyer programs often means getting less than what you got before. Southwest is trying to make itself more attractive to highfalutin’ business travelers, so I imagine some sort of tiered awards system is inevitable.

One potential upside is that Southwest is looking into codesharing agreements with other airlines under the revised program. If you could earn credit toward international flights on Southwest, many business travelers would happily ditch American for Southwest once they cashed in their OneWorld miles.

Personally, I’d like to see a Southwest/JetBlue codeshare since most of my air travel these days involves intra-Texas hops on Southwest and Austin/Boston runs on JetBlue. I don’t think this will happen because Southwest and JetBlue are direct low-fare competitors, but with a baby on the way and a coterie of relatives in New England, I’m all about mileage maximization.

Marshall, Marshall, Marshall!

Greetings from behind the Pine Curtain. I'm in Bill Moyers' hometown of Marshall, Texas getting ready for a tri-state summit tomorrow to discuss ways of addressing syphilis in the Ark-La-Tex region.

There's no easy way to get to Marshall from Austin. We didn't get on the road until 3pm and the drive took about five and a half hours. We had middling Tex-Mex at a place called The Jalapeño Tree and had to join a "club" to drink beer. I'll have to add "Jalapeño Tree Club" to my résumé when I get home tomorrow night.

The thrill of the chase

I've always wanted to shadow a tornado chaser, but as the Travel Channel's Tornado Alley U.S.A. demonstrates, it ain't all funnel clouds and grapefruit-sized hail.

There are no guarantees with weather, so you could fork over $2,000 to minivan your way around America's big wide middle and never witness a single wall cloud. Imagine hauling your ass all the way from London to Nebraska and coming up vortex-less. What a damn shame that would be.

Clearly there is a market need for a tornado chase outfit that balances the uncertainty of finding the business end of Mother Nature's wrath with the restorative powers of being on the business end of a table dance. If I were Warren Buffett, I'd double down on the first company that breaks up the monotony of fruitless chase days with a sampling of Midwestern men's clubs, particularly those with steak-and-shrimp lunch specials.

And what would this weather-porn dream factory on wheels be called? Titty Twisters!

A brief jaunt to Blanco - continued

Picking up where we left off, Kate and I woke up Sunday morning and availed ourselves of in-room coffee, croissants, mixed fruit and the Blanco Settlement's homemade breakfast quiches. The quiches, prepared in ramekins and left for us in the fridge, survived a brief nuking and were surprisingly tasty.

Then we drove out to Texas Specialty Cut Flowers. Located at the junction of Ranch Roads 165 and 2325, this working farm is a great place to buy flowers, herbs and seasonal veggies. They usually operate on the honor system, so you just select what you want and drop your cash (or check) in a red strongbox.


After a failed attempt at finding a lavender farm took us almost all the way to Wimberley, we turned around and returned to Blanco for lunch. Our destination was Riley's BBQ.

Riley's may not have the best barbecue in Texas, but their brisket and sausage are consistently above average. I think Riley's would stack up well against most anyplace in the last half of Texas Monthly's vaunted Top 50, though I wouldn't extend that assessment to their Dripping Springs location.

Moreover, Riley's serves all-you-can-eat pinto beans for $1.95, which is a great deal for penny-pinchers (if not the people who have to ride home with them). For atmosphere, it's hard to beat Blanco's town square. The brisket was a little dry on the day we were there, but that was a small quibble for an otherwise excellent barbecue repast.


Kate and I finally made it to a lavender farm north of Blanco on U.S. 281. After purchasing enough lavender-laden product to make a trip to the recognized "Lavender Capital of Texas" worth our while, we headed back home via Marble Falls. All in all, it was a perfect close-in overnight vacation.

A brief jaunt to Blanco

Last Christmas, my parents gave Kate and I a gift certificate for Blanco Settlement, a small cabin-and-RV park on the banks of the Blanco River. We finally got around to using it two weekends ago. Below is our dog-trot cabin, which came equipped with a TV, Jacuzzi tub, mini-fridge, microwave and drip coffee maker. Needless to say, "roughing it" like that for a night took some getting used to.


After buying some Real Ale Fireman's #4 and Julio's chips at the Super S Market in town, we sat on the porch and read until the sun started setting.
Driving west from Austin, we'd run into a brief but heavy downpour near Dripping Springs that forced us to pull over to the side of the road. They didn't get much rain at all in Blanco, though. As you can see, the river is barely flowing right now.


Even so, the nearby thunderstorms cooled things off and made for a sweet sunset.




We had dinner at the Blanco Bowling Club, a nine-pin bowling alley by night and cafe by day that serves above-average renditions of greasy fare like cheeseburgers and chicken fried steak. I hear the pies and cinnamon buns are good, but dessert was out of the question. By 10pm, we were ready to retire to uncommon silence broken only by the whirr of the fan.

Burritos and roller coasters

The NASCAR Cafe at the decidedly downmarket Sahara Hotel and Casino in Las Vegas has a sporting proposition the younger man in me finds more than a little enticing (cue up Rocky theme).

Earlier this week, the cafe started selling a 2-foot, 6-pound burrito called "The Bomb." If you manage to finish this $19.95 behemoth, they'll comp it and give you two free unlimited ride passes for the Sahara's roller coaster, which goes frontwards, backwards and upside-down. They also give you a keepsake T-shirt that says you "Conquered the Bomb." The AP story doesn't say if there's a limit on how long you get to finish the burrito or how long you get unlimited roller coaster rides.

However, if you fail to finish "The Bomb" burrito, they make you take a photo wearing an extra small pink T-shirt that says "Weenie," which is still kind of honorable in its own special way.

Greetings from the Golden Triangle

I took a day trip to Beaumont yesterday to meet with local public health stakeholders and discuss ways of responding to an increase in the number of syphilis cases there.

There's no easy way to get to the "Golden Triangle" from Austin. You can't fly direct and driving straight through often means being delayed by Houston traffic. I split the difference by flying Southwest to Hobby Airport and driving the rest of the way with staff from our regional office in Houston.

On final approach into Hobby, I noticed every fourth or fifth house still had a blue tarp covering roof damage from Hurricane Ike. Beaumont was still recovering from Hurricane Rita when Ike showed up, so blue tarps are pretty ubiquitous there, too. Aside from insurance delays and fly-by-night contractors, I imagine a lot of families in Southeast Texas have more pressing needs than a hole in the roof right now.

The other thing I noticed was the piss-poor condition of IH-10 between Houston and Beaumont. Between road construction and the claustrophobic four-lane Trinity River bridge, it may be the single scariest stretch of highway in the state right now.

Weekend to weekend

I haven’t had much time to post this week. The ol’ state job has been busier than normal with an HIV prevention social marketing campaign set to launch in Dallas on December 1.

On the writing front, I’ve been working on some pre-Fun Fun Fun Fest coverage, including an invigorating conversation with Dead Milkmen vocalist Rodney Anonymous last weekend. We discussed virtually everything under the sun except for his band’s much-anticipated one-off reunion gig at the Fest. Despite their limited practicality, my favorite interviews tend to be the ones that meander down a winding road of free-flowing tangents.

Kate and I took advantage of last weekend’s perfect weather by doing some long-overdue yard maintenance and taking a drive out to Pedernales Falls State Park. You can view photographic evidence of the latter here.

We’re off to the Long Center tonight because Kate scored some free tickets to Ballet Austin's season opener. I think this will be the first ballet performance I’ve ever attended that is not “The Nutcracker.” Maybe that's something I should be ashamed of, but I'm sure I'm not the only non-"Nutcracker" ballet virgin out there.

"The Shining" goes home for Halloween

Alamo Drafthouse’s Fantastic Fest has outdone itself yet again by setting up a Hallow’s Eve recreation of the Twenties era Overlook Hotel ball Jack Nicholson hallucinates about in 1980’s The Shining. The gala event takes place at Oregon’s Timberline Lodge, the ski resort where Stanley Kubrick turned Stephen King’s novel into one of the horroriest horror classics of all time.

V.I.P. tickets are a reasonable $100 per person (or $200 per couple), which gets you and yours dinner, cocktails and a room for the night where you can watch The Shining privately and give yourself bad dreams about that cackling old naked woman and poor ol' Scatman Crothers getting an axe in the chest. Come morning, they feed you Continental breakfast and send you on your scary way.

If not for the cost of a plane ride to Portland, I’d buy two tickets when they go on sale at 2pm tomorrow. Which is when you should buy tickets if you’re interested, because this is sure to sell out quickly.

Not so hot Lanta

Greetings from Atlanta. I'm here for the 2nd Annual National Conference on Health Communication, Marketing and Media. It's been a pretty good conference so far. The sessions are engaging and I've actually managed to do some worthwhile networking without feeling phony about it.

The conference is taking place at the Omni Hotel at CNN Center in downtown Atlanta. It's a big improvement over last year's conference at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's global communications center named for Sen. Tom Harkin, who I assume brought home quite a bit of pork if they named it for him while he's still alive and eating solid food. The Harkin facility itself was one of the nicest, most well-appointed government buildings I've ever set foot in, but they housed us at a Marriott next to IH-85 in the middle of suburban nowheresville. There were no sidewalks to walk on and no place to walk to.

By contrast, CNN Center is right next to the world's largest aquarium and a museum dedicated to Coca-Cola. CNN Center is a tourist attraction in and of itself, but I wish I'd been around back in 1976 when it housed the short-lived World of Sid & Marty Krofft indoor amusement park. I was always fascinated with the building when they showed Kaptain Kool and the Kongs perform in the atrium on The Krofft Supershow, which aired Saturday mornings on ABC. Now the whole thing is a mall food court where Nancy Grace's voice and likeness nauseates from multiple giant screen TVs.

This area of town was hammered by a tornado in March and a lot of damage is still visible. There's duct tape on my hotel room window and many windows at the adjacent Georgia World Congress Center remain boarded up. I think this is the first time I've ever slept in a building with semi-fresh twister damage, which is very exciting.

Perhaps the nicest thing about being in Atlanta is the fact that it only got up to 82 degrees here today. Even with a steady rain falling, I happily strolled about the surprisingly depopulated city earlier this evening without even breaking a sweat.

Running to Marathon

Sunset in Marathon, May 24, 2008

Kate and I made good use of our three-day weekend with a really nice trip out to Marathon. We began our stab westward around 7:30am on Saturday morning. Upon our arrival in Fredericksburg, I noticed our passenger-side front tire was almost completely flat. Because I'd been having unexplained air loss in my driver-side rear tire that mysteriously rectified itself, I naturally assumed the two problems were related.

I anxiously told Kate I had bad feelings about going further west. I've known several people with aspirations of going west from Austin who've been waylaid in Fredericksburg by breakdowns, pot busts and other bouts of misfortune. I doubted the fix would be simple or inexpensive, but Kate wisely counseled me to withhold judgment until we had the flat tire examined. The mechanic on duty at 7-Day Tire said we had a stem leak and fixed it for $8. As it turned out, that was all we needed.

The trip continued without incident until we left I-10 on the last remaining stretch of the former U.S. 290 west of Ozona. Now decommissioned, SH 290 offers a dramatic panorama as you descend from the I-10 exit toward Fort Lancaster State Historical Park and Sheffield. If you're headed toward the Big Bend region, this is a nice - though slightly slower - alternative to taking I-10 to U.S. 385 in Fort Stockton.

At Sheffield, ramshackle site of a recently-closed Texas Youth Commission boot camp, we headed south on SH 349. A few miles outside of town, I was pulled over for speeding by a state trooper. I thought the speed limit was 70, but it was only 60 on this two-lane state highway in the middle of nowhere. Fortunately, the trooper let me off with a written warning. I made sure to mention that I was a fellow state employee when he asked what I did in Austin and that probably didn't hurt.

A few miles later, we turned west on FM 2400. This was the most isolated part of the trip, with no towns and very little traffic. I would've normally taken this road going 80 or 85, but I kept my speed down just in case. About five or 10 miles before we hit U.S. 285, we came upon a broken down truck carrying three men I assume were working on one of the area's many oil and gas wells. We pulled over and one of the men asked if we could drive to his house in Sanderson and tell his wife to come pick them up. We found the wife in Sanderson and relayed the message before pressing on toward Marathon on U.S. 90.

We had reservations at the Gage Hotel, a nicely-refurbished hotel built for ranching magnate Alfred Gage in 1927 and designed by celebrated El Paso architect Henry Trost. Upon our arrival at the Gage around 4:30pm, we celebrated with a refreshing dip in the hotel's oasis-like cement pond. Then we ate dinner at Café Cenizo, the hotel's pricey-but-excellent dining room. Despite the blaring of train whistles from the old Southern Pacific line at 4:30am, we slept pretty well.

On Sunday morning, we grabbed some breakfast burritos from the surprisingly well-apportioned French Co. Grocer and headed toward Big Bend National Park. Although Marathon is the closest incorporated town to Big Bend, it still takes over an hour to get to park headquarters. Our goal was to hike the Lost Mine Trail, which is a five-mile round trip.

Kate applauds the beauty of the Lost Mine Trail

The first half of the trail featured a 1,250-foot elevation gain, but the view from 6,850 feet was well worth it. After having lunch at the top, we stayed preoccupied on the hike back down by naming words that begin with "in."

Aside from Café Cenizo, there were no restaurants open for dinner in Marathon, so we decided to drive into Alpine - a relative metropolis of 5,000-plus inhabitants 30 miles to the west. Unfortunately, a lightning-rich thunderstorm stood in our way. I'm not sure I've ever felt that close to getting struck by lightning before. While I've always heard your car is the safest place to be in the event of a lightning strike, neither Kate nor I wanted to find out if this was true.

After eating a mediocre-but-passable hamburger meal at a 24-hour diner next to a motel in Alpine, we headed back to Marathon. As we drove, we were rewarded with a wonderful view of two rainbows on the backside of the thunderstorm we'd just driven through. Meanwhile, the sun was setting in the rearview mirror. There's nothing quite like being able to see that much sky all at once.

Barely visible rainbow along U.S. 90 between Alpine and Marathon

Back at the Gage, the air was almost cool enough to warrant a long-sleeve shirt. As the sun finally receded around 8:45pm, we stepped into the hotel's White Buffalo Bar to watch the Spurs-Lakers playoff game. We sat next to a couple from San Antonio whose daughter works for the Spurs, which made the game more interesting. Kate said her margarita may have been the best she's ever had and I'm still kicking myself for sticking to beer. After a couple of drinks, we retired to our room and fell fast asleep.

Yesterday's trip back to Austin was much smoother than our outbound leg. We had a really tasty Tex-Mex lunch in Ozona at a place called Pepe's Café. I'm certain it's the only restaurant along the I-10 corridor between San Antonio and El Paso with Frank Kozik posters on the walls.

For more on our Marathon expedition, read Kate's blog entry here.

Buenos Fotos

This is a house down the street from our hotel in the Palermo Viejo area. I like the way the yellow contrasts with the blooming red flowers. It's spring down there, ya know?


Here's me trying to look cosmopolitan in the condo-crazy enclave of Puerto Madero on the swampy banks of the Rio de la Plata.


Kate wanted me to take a photo of her kissing this statue of a famous Argentinian Grand Prix driver whose name escapes me. In my attempt to frame Buenos Aires' Microcentro behind her, I totally lost the accompanying race car.


The beautiful green slopes of Plaza San Martin in the Retiro neighborhood were a prime necking spot on this sunny afternoon.


Kate took this cool shot of the art deco Kavanaugh Building (which was the tallest in South America for many years) through the barely budding trees in Plaza San Martin.


Here's Kate on the giant Buquebus ferry that took us from Buenos Aires to Colonia de Sacramento, Uruguay in about an hour.


Overlooking the Rio de la Plata in Colonia. We were only there for a couple of hours, but it was a nice, quiet respite from the city.


Me striking a hipster pose on the legitimately hip balcony patio next to our room at Casa Alfaro.


Upon our arrival back home, I had no choice but to strip off my clothes and wrap myself in the green cellophane wrap you get at the Buenos Aires airport to foil would-be luggage thieves. Kate had no choice but to take this photo.

Ciao, Argentina

Well, Kate and I made it back to the good ol’ U.S.A. on Saturday morning with minimal fuss. After having an oversized tube of sunscreen lotion in my carry-on bag through several security checkpoints, the Department of Homeland Security finally confiscated it in Houston right before our final flight to Austin. I actually noticed I still had it in my bag when I was in Buenos Aires, but I figured I’d take my chances on getting it back home.

Despite having to be at the Buenos Aires airport four hours prior to our 9:50pm departure (not a bad idea, as the pre-board security measures there were a bit non-intuitive), we made the most of a mild Friday afternoon by languidly poking about the Palermo Viejo one last time. As I turned the key to our front door, it was a bit hard to rectify that I’d been happily immersed in a bowl of dulce de leche on a South American street corner not 24 hours earlier.

Our grand total of beef-based meals at parillas turned out to be three. How I wish we had such reasonably-priced and perfectly-juiced cuts of steak here in the States! Nevertheless, one cannot live on steak alone. The massive wave of Italian immigrants into Argentina at the turn of the 20th century means you can get some of the world’s best pizza and gelato in Buenos Aires. We wound up having an excellent Moroccan dinner on Thursday night, too.

I’m not sure when I’ll ever make it back to Argentina, but I wholeheartedly recommend B.A. as a warm, friendly alternative to the dollar-crushing Old Country. If I do make it back, I’d like to get out of the city to explore Patagonia, Izagu Falls and the wine-growing region around Mendoza.

Click here and here to read Kate's musings on B.A.

Greetings from Buenos Aires

Welcome to the very first Beetsolonely blog entry from the Southern hemisphere.

I'm writing you from the communal computer in the lobby of the Casa Alfaro B+B in Buenos Aires, Argentina. Kate and I came down here last Saturday via Continental's 10-hour flight out of Houston. Despite the length of the flight, the jet lag wasn´t so bad because we were only two hours ahead.

We spent Sunday strolling through San Telmo, where tango orchestras set up in the streets and antique stores brimmed with wares. That evening, we dined at our first parilla (La Casera) and ordered way too much bife de chorizo. Although the menus at each of the parillas we've gone to have been pretty much the same, each savory cut of Argentinean beef has had its own unique high points. Morton´s and Ruth´s Chris have nothing on the everyday neighborhood parilla in Buenos Aires.

We hit the Recoleta on Monday and walked through the rich folks´city of the dead, which was a fine contrast with the nearby Biblioteca Nacional - a brutalist-futurist monstrosity that was built on the site of Juan and Eva Peron´s former residence after an oppositional regime razed it.

Tuesday was a smog-choked subway ride into the Microcentro (B.A.´s central business district) and Puerto Madero, the city´s refurbished wharf district where expensive condo projects now reign supreme. The hustle-and-bustle of downtown B.A. is similar to what you might find in any huge metropolis, but the neighborhoods just outside the Microcentro all have their own charms. I´m very partial to Palermo Viejo, the barrio we´re staying in. The tree-lined streets and corner stores evoke a real sense of place, though there are plenty of boutiques and fancy restaurants, too.

Today we took a ferry boat across the Rio de La Plata to Colonia de Sacramento, Uruguay. Colonia is an old Portuguese military settlement turned resort town. It was nice to get away from the big city for a few hours.

I´m not sure what we´re doing tomorrow because our flight leaves at 9pm and we have to be at the airport four (!) hours early. I imagine we´ll take it a little easy because both of us are fighting cold symptoms. Nevertheless, it has been quite a fun trip thus far.

So Long, Sherman

When I was a kid in the back seat of my parents’ 1966 Mustang, I remember going north on the Central Expressway in Dallas and seeing the highway signs directing travelers north to Sherman. I asked my dad where Sherman was and he said it was a town near the Oklahoma border. I don’t think I’ve ever actually been to Sherman, but seeing the town’s name on those big green signs always triggered fond childhood memories when I returned to Dallas years later.

Now I hear TxDOT has altered directional signs for the Central Expressway by replacing Sherman with McKinney. There wasn’t much going on in McKinney when U.S. 75 became an expressway in the Fifties, but now the Collin County seat has a population of about 110,000. As such, it is a much more suitable “principle city” than Sherman.

It’s a sensible enough change, but I’m going to miss Sherman.

Photo by Louis DeLuca/Dallas Morning News

West Texas in the Rear-View Mirror

Shortly before having to trek to Alpine to buy underwear on Sunday, Kate and I drove up to McDonald Observatory for a daytime program. I found it somewhat long and ponderous, but it was still cool to watch a giant telescope move with the touch of a button. Our tour guide even let some little kids move the telescope. I was jealous of them.

Even more impressive was the vista from Mount Locke at the terminus of the highest roadway in the Texas highway system. This summer's above-average rainfall made the normally desert-leaning landscape uncommonly verdant. I half-expected Julie Andrews to emerge from behind a boulder singing "The Sound of Music."

After Alpine, we pressed onward to Marfa, where the annual Marfa Lights festival was wrapping up in front of the Presidio County Courthouse. We browsed through the Marfa Book Company and checked out the Hotel Paisano, where the cast of Giant stayed during location filming. Unfortunately, there were no decent restaurants open, so we wound up at Dairy Queen. I live about three blocks from a Dairy Queen I never go to because the food is always disappointing, but somehow Dairy Queens are better when they’re in small towns. Lack of choice will do that to you.

The foodstuffs weren't much better back in Fort Davis. We wound up having fajitas at Pop's Place, which was better than Dairy Queen, but not by much. My temporary 3-day membership at the Hotel Limpia Sutler's Club was still in effect (you need to belong to a "club" to drink in Jeff Davis County), so Kate and I decided to put away a couple of brews.

The Sutler's Club overlooks the Hotel Limpia's dining room from a balcony. A plexiglass window separates the two spaces so people in the bar can smoke. As we drank, Kate noticed a rather angry professional-looking woman reading the riot act to our waitress from the night before. Apparently something was wrong with her meal and nothing the waitress said could placate her. As this was going on, the angry woman's two male companions just buried their faces in their plates. They ultimately left a $2 tip after having their meals comped. Kate and I never did figure out exactly what was going on, but it was amusing to surreptitiously watch the scene unfold from above. After one last look at the stars, we retired for the evening.

We drove back to Austin Monday, stopping briefly in Fort Stockton for a Tex-Mex lunch in a dreary, windowless restaurant with no natural light. It looked like something out of The Last Picture Show. Even though the food was pretty good, Fort Stockton is best seen receding in the rear-view mirror.

In the Clearing Stood the Boxers

I haven't had time to compose a full recounting of our last full day in Fort Davis, but I didn't want to leave faithful readers hanging like I was regarding the underwear situation.

For the record, I did find new underpants on Sunday. There was a place called ALCO in Alpine that is sort of like a low-rent Wal-Mart. You typically see them in towns that are too small to support a Wal-Mart, but the proprietor of our hotel said Alpine wanted nothing to do with Wal-Mart in any case.

The underwear in question were cut too large and cost nine bucks for a pack of three, but it was either that or Beall's. Although the latter might have served me better, I've been loath to shop at Beall's since the infamous Farting Salesman Incident of 2006.

I'll write about less significant trip-related ephemera later.

Underneath It All

Despite my seemingly meticulous packing, it came to my attention early this morning that I forgot to pack underwear. This is not the first time I've left home with no clean drawers. Obtaining replacement britches is not a problem in Houston, but out here, it typically involves an hour-long round trip.

I meekly asked the hotel proprietor where I might find "clothing items like T-shirts and jeans" on a Sunday and she directed me to the nearby humane society thrift store. I'm pretty cheap, folks, but not cheap enough to buy used underwear. If that is my only option, I will be free balling it for the remainder of this here vacation.