Texas Road Trip - 2021
Prior to Covid John purchased a collection of 1500 Telarc CDs from an audiophile in Texas who did not want to ship them. Our friend Duke offered to take delivery, none of us knowing how long it would be until we would pick them up. Once we were double vaccinated John and I scheduled our flight to Houston and our Texas road trip was underway.
Duke has a Barndominium in Livingston, an hour north of Houston. Should you not be familiar with the structure, it's in keeping with the big state of Texas. A Barndominium is a huge metal barn, large enough to hold house-sized living quarters in one corner. At least we did not feel guilty about our CDs taking up too much space.
It was great to spend the weekend with Duke's family, catching up and relaxing on the beautiful grounds.
Leaving the property we passed where a tornado had hit nearby a few days prior, ripping up trees and destroying everything in it's way.
John is a fan of "two lane black top" roads which makes for far more scenic driving than the highways, and really does not take that much longer. Our first overnight stop was Salado.
What I love about the back roads is the local color.
Salado had an excellent brewery, a barbecue joint for dinner and was lovely for an evening stroll.
The next day we explored the town which is renowned for its crafts and was charming to walk around.
After Salado we hit the road enjoying the Texas big skies and scenery.
Our next stop was Pflugerville, a suburb of Austin where my nephew Eric and his family live. It was Ellyana's 7th birthday, so our timing was perfect to celebrate with them.
We really enjoyed spending time with the Ellie and Sawyer, and having adult time with Eric and Carrie. We usually see the family at large gatherings, so having time to become more personally acquainted was very special to us.
Our next stop was Kerville to see John and Julie. It had been four years so we were really excited.
John made gumbo, we listened to music, went for walks and enjoyed the beautiful grounds and nature, and happily chatted enjoying each other's company.
It was raining when we left and John sent us a video of the creek rising 10 feet the next day. Closely missing natural disasters seemed to be a theme this trip.
That was our last stop in Texas and the start of our drive to California. We planned to spend that night in Las Cruces, New Mexico stopping in Van Horn, Texas for lunch. The town has the dubious distinction of a John Madden shrine at Chuy's restaurant, where he had stopped for lunch, so we did the same.
Also gracing the town was a unique sculpture garden.
The drive to New Mexico was beautiful.
In Las Cruces we had a great dinner in La Posta, a converted post office great food and locally themed decorations.
I love the New Mexico aesthetic and would be happy to return.
The next day we visited the Las Cruces craft and farmer's market, had a delicious local breakfast before driving to Arizona. We drove through miles of beautiful desert and were ready for a brewery visit by the time we hit Scottsdale.
From Scottsdale it was a final day of driving, including lots of wind farms as we approached LA.
We totally enjoyed our road trip, with the company of an audio book, great music CDs, and so much stunning scenery. A perfect way to re-enter travel post-covid.
