The Lonestar State

We have been in and out of Texas, Oklahoma, and Des Moines, and I realized I still need to fill everyone in about Texas! I have fallen behind.  Regardless, backtrack a few weeks...

We had a wonderful stay in the Lonestar State for many reasons and I was pleasantly surprised with how much I enjoyed our time there.  I had been to just about every large metropolitan area in Texas, but had never been to Houston.  I think the city has a bad rep for whatever reason, but I found many reasons why the stay was quite pleasant.

One tangent about why I would never want to permanently live in Texas:
When I was younger, I always loved traveling to Florida because of the smell of the humidity.  While I still enjoy that southern sweet swampy air smell for whatever reason, I have grown up enough to realize how much I desperately dislike humidity.  If Phoenix was our hottest stop, I imagine Houston will win for stickiest. It wasn't too hot (a plus) and it rained (a plus) but I felt gross every time I walked outside (no thanks).

Back to why I enjoyed the stay:

Reunion with Kelsey!
     The number one, greatest, most exciting, and fantastic reason for being in Houston was reuniting with friends!  I was able to see my beautiful friend from elementary school, Kelsey, and had such a wonderful time seeing her.  I was able to finally see where she lives, and I always love seeing where my best friends live.  There is something peaceful and reassuring about knowing and being able to picture where loved ones spend their time.  We swam together in the pool in her neighborhood, played Wii HulaHoop which is hysterical and spent a day together exploring downtown.

Clearly having a good time Hula Hooping

     Our day of exploring may have been the best day in Houston for many reasons!  We started the day off at the Dog Show (see below for more information) which was absolutely amazing and such an exciting way to spend a morning. After the dog show, the three of us had stomach rumbles and were stuck in traffic trying to get to a bar that sounded delicious (since St. Arnolds Brewery was about to close).  We made it to Shepherd Park Draught House which turned out to be one of our best meals while in Houston.  Faced with a too good to be true menu, Lucas, Kelsey and I decided to split a few things:

1. Crispy Goat Cheese Ravioli
2. Sea Salt Pretzels with Honey Butter
3. Shepherd Park Pie
4. Wait for it........A Smoked Gouda and Bacon Burger with caramelized onions and caramelized pears
5. Plentiful samplings of beer

We couldn't have asked for a better meal.

We wasted time the rest of the day visiting an old fashioned bar with quite the urban feel (aka I felt like I needed to have just come from a swanky job to order one of the fancy cocktails).  While we sipped on our tasty drinks, we played Bananagrams (because we just can't get enough of our
bananas).
We finished our day of fun with a walk through a gathering of food trucks (can't get enough of that either) and had ice cream at a local place called The Chocolate Bar.

BEST TIME EVER - mostly because I was spending the whole day with my best friend Kelsey!...and my amazing husband - which I am fortunate enough to get to do every day this summer.

Reunion with W&L Freshman Roommate!
     In addition to spending a few days with Kelsey, I also was able to have dinner with my freshman roommate from Washington and Lee - Alice!  We realized we hadn't seen one another since we had graduated (what!?!?!) and so it was great to have a chance to see her.  How do you catch up on 5 years of not seeing one another?  Very quickly and in a nut shell.

Freshman Roomies!

     We went to a pizza joint in the Galleria where we were staying.  It was called Capones and it had really tasty thin crust pizza with some unique toppings. Ham with Tabasco infused pineapple, cilantro and such; and carmelized onion, prosciutto and truffle oil - it was lip smackin' good!
     Better than the pizza was clearly the company.  Alice told me all about her adventures in law school, working, getting engaged, planning a wedding, and the like.  We explained our summer job to her and she wins for best reaction to what we were doing.  She was so excited about our adventures, and after dinner came by the truck to snap some photos and see what our life was all about!
     It was such a wonderful couple of hours and it made me realize how much I had missed her and how lucky I was to have her as my roommate!  She hadn't changed a bit and it was simply delightful to have a mini-reunion with a friend I had not seen in so long.

Downton Abbey!
In Arizona, my parents brought the first three seasons of Downton Abbey on DVD and we borrowed them for the remainder of the tour.  During our time off in Houston we managed to get through Seasons 1 and 2.  Now we are half way through Season 3.  We are both obsessed.

House Oogleing!

Sometimes finding a hotel willing to host our truck can be tricky, but we did well by picking to stay in the Galleria while in Houston.  It seemed nice enough based on Google Maps and a general understanding of the area; however, we did not realize we would be right down the street from one of the wealthiest neighborhoods in America! 

The River Oaks neighborhood, just down the street from where we stayed included houses ranging in value from a mere $1 to over $20 million dollars.  Yikes!  We knew the area was nice, and I loved gazing out the window as we drove by these ridiculously nice, over the top, but fun to oogle at homes.  It just took us a while to figure out just how nice the area was where we were staying.  We had a pretty good idea the neighborhood was upscale when we parked in a nearby neighborhood to grab some lunch and I thought we would be towed simply for not looking glamorous or mod enough, but we didn't realize the extent of the glamour until Alice told us about the neighborhood and we looked it up on Wikipedia.

I may never live somewhere like those homes (nor would I want to), but it was always a pleasant drive full of house ooohhhing and aaahhhhhing every time we left the hotel.

The Dog Show!

This may go down as one of the best life choices of the summer, and I know it was at the top of the list of fun things we did for both Lucas and myself.  Neither Lucas, Kelsey or I had been to a dog show, yet we are all dog lovers!  We all also want to have our own dogs which made walking around the dog show a bit tough...we wanted to take them all home!  Between the dog shows, the frisbee throwing, agility obstacles, dancing with dogs arena and fly ball competitions...it goes down as one of the best days of the trip so far.  This post is already getting to long or I would go in to more detail, but the photos and video below provide a good taste of what it was all about.  I imagine Lucas will add more about this at some point down the road.

She was beautifying before being shown...hairspray and all.  hehe

AGILITY BALL - MY NEW FAVORITE DOG SHOW COMPETITION

Dives! 

Armadillo Egg - What is Inside??

The BBQ and the local restaurants we tried were all amazing.  The bar mentioned above was a great find that we stumbled upon, and we even just enjoyed some meals from the local HEB (a Texas grocery chain).  We also went by T-bone Tom's - a BBQ join featured on Diner's, Drive-ins and Dives where we ate our largest meal in TX.   Mmmmmm, my mouth is watering just thinking about the smoked sausage we had there!  I also left Texas with a bang when we made our way into a BBQ joint inside of a gas station, in the middle of nowhere Texas, and ordered some bacon wrapped quail for lunch.  We have had plenty of good meals while on the road, and Texas served up some delicious finds!
Lucas ordered an armadillo egg, just to try an armadillo egg - turns out it wasn't an egg at all, but rather a jalapeno stuffed with brisket and deep fried.

Bacon wrapped quail

Days Off!

Last but not least, I can't forget that we had a fair amount of time off in Houston.  It was a welcomed and wonderful break in our schedule as we head in to the last month of our tour.  Who doesn't love a day off, or two, or three every now and then?

More soon...