Vacation/Sickness Blogging Part 2

Sunday morning, before leaving that horrible place, Houston served me one final indignity with a twenty-minute futile hunt for a cup of coffee in the middle of downtown. It wasn’t that places were closed, it’s that one cannot buy food or drink from empty parking lots. Finally able to secure a free cup from the now-serving hotel cafe, I could save my family from a lot of bitterness as we checked out and moved on to Galveston. I was expecting more of a tourist hell than it was, but I also elected to stay out of the shops. Instead, while the folks shopped, we walked around. For the first time, I saw the monstrous size of a Carnival cruise ship. While I’m not sure it’s quite the size of Kathy Lee’s ego, the ship is similar to its spokeswoman at least insofar as I don’t want to be around either one. I marveled at the size of the pelicans and watched a kid pull a snake out of the ocean while walking the pier, which was a lot of fun. We were surprised not to find a hurricane museum there, however. There is one dedicated to the trains, which I can see in plenty of places. There’s even a museum on an old oil platform, where you can pay $8 to find out what made the water so murky. Nothing, though, on the reason why the place is a tourist trap and not the metropolis it was meant to be. It is also strange that, aside from a street named after him, Galveston doesn’t make a bigger deal out of Jack Johnson having come from there. In his time, he was the biggest thing to even come to boxing, and that there’s nearly no mention of it in town is weird, if not intentional.

We briefly said goodbye to Texas as we went through Port Arthur and into southern Louisiana. It had been years since I’d been to the Sportsman’s Paradise, long before the hurricanes ravaged the area. It was sad to see the stagnant devastation there, especially since it’s so far out of the public’s consciousness now that little will be done in the future for them. After some gator sightings we walked on a beach with a sign that specifically indicated “No swimming. Bacterial hazard,” though this clearly did not stop a multitude of locals from frolicking away, and went to find some dinner, which proved more difficult to find than expected. Finally we made it, starving, to Lake Charles and this little crawfish place that reminded me exactly why I love Louisiana so much. I wish I could remember the name of the place, but I can’t find anything about it online, so I’m out of luck. Anyway, the place was separated into by-the-pound boiled crawfish side and the fried stuff/stuff with roux side, which was where we went. Erik and I both had the crawfish etouffee, which was the absolute best I’ve ever had, light in color and perfectly spiced. It was a fantastic eating experience, one that I could return to if only I had written the name of the damn place down. From here was the long road back to Austin. It was late, but I was glad to learn that Don Williams is the single greatest performer in country music history. I had no idea, but this is what I was told.

A long night turned to a weary morning as we pressed on to San Antonio to see the missions around the city. This was the first real historical stuff we’d seen but impatience had developed in the ranks and we were hurried along more than I’d have liked. Still, it’s very cool that the sites are in town and the churches are still active, but it is kind of weird to have a Whataburger across the street from a seventeenth century mission. I don’t regret not stopping for the Alamo, but I do wish I could see the plaque commemorating where Ozzy peed. Speaking of this Whataburger, it was a really hot day when we were out there. We were thirsty and, without the dehydration and family time, I’d never have made this decision, I got a milkshake from a burger place I tend to like, for what it’s worth. I don’t drink a lot of milk, but my stomach started hurting…badly…about thirty minutes later as we left San Antonio and ventured into the hill country. It just started to become searing as we rolled into Fredricksburg for a nice big heavy German meal. I had a couple of beers and a rouladen, which was pretty good and covered in brown gravy. Not surprisingly, all this food and drink didn’t help my stomach much. I didn’t think I was going to die until we got outside the LBJ ranch. Stabbing pains came in waves as we got back to Georgetown, just in time to drive back to Austin for the Dale Watson show. He was in his natural habitat, the Continental Club, and no amount of pain would make me miss that. Milk was trying to kill me, but I’m stronger than milk and would not let it spoil the icing on my cake. He was great, as always, and the club is significantly more crowded than when I see him, so it was a great time. In the end, it was a good two thousand mile trip over four days and there were no huge blowup, so it was a total success.

Unfortunately, when I awoke from my six hour nap upon returning to Denton, I had been stricken with a fever that came in waves along with the slowly diminishing pains in my sides over the next five days. Finally, yesterday, there was no fever, no delirium, no pain. I have no idea what happened to me. Either it was milk or it was the Germans, and both have good reason to want me down.