This covers our first trip to Texas. We flew into Austin and from there we did quite a bit of driving about to San Antonio, Luckenbach, Laredo and Corpus Christi. We were only there for a week but packed a lot in.
Wednesday Feb 7, '90
We three (our chum Cindy, Kate and Reg) drove from London to Detroit Airport and left for Texas at around noon. At the Detroit Airport they take your luggage at the curb — how sensible! We arrived in Austin about 5pm after a brief stopover and plane change in Dallas.
We take a cab from the airport to the Crest Hotel at the bridge over Town Lake on Congress. The cab driver was a nice woman wearing a rather obvious wig. Cab rides are pretty cheap and convenient.
We checked in to the hotel and then went to the "Happy Hour" — one drink each (total cost $3.00) with free hors d'oeuvres (chicken wings, tortillas, veggies, etc.).
Walked down Congress that night past the Capitol building. The dome is just a few inches higher than the dome at the nation's capitol in Washington D.C. (everything in Texas is a little bigger). We continue on the the University of Texas area, reconnoiter the record stores and had some Tex/Mex food.
Thursday Feb 8, '90
We have a free breakfast at the Crest — a huge buffet with greasy grit gravy, fruit, cereal, bacon, eggs, etc.
We talked with the bell captain (Willie) and rented a car through Alamo at his recommendation. The young woman who came to pick us up drove through a stop sign on the way to the car rental place.
We shopped at the University area and checked out the Cactus Café. It's a great venue to see music and we got to see Sara Hickman there on Saturday night.
We bought some "Double Vodka" at a nearby liquor store (it's actually only 50% alcohol versus the 40% we have back home). Kate and Cindy stayed pretty mellow on it for the rest of the trip.
We got "lost in Austin" on our way to San Antonio. We arrived in San Antonio about 4:00pm and got the last available room at the downtown La Quinta. It was very busy as there was a music teacher's convention and the rodeo was on. Lots happening in San Antonio.
We walked around a bit, toured the Alamo (you remember the Alamo! It's right downtown!), and had some appetizers at the Lone Star Café.
We took a cab out to the rodeo. The cabbie was really crazy, he took the long way and even offered to drive us to Laredo (frightening!).
At the rodeo we saw the barrel race, Mexican dancers and Kathy Mattea. We also made friends with local rodeo fans.
We had a tired, but relatively sane, cabbie on the drive home. However, she had only had 3 hours of sleep and she kept yawning and weaving over the road.
Friday Feb 9, '90
In San Antonio Reg and Kate shopped for records and groceries. Cindy shopped in drug stores. These excursions uncovered some of the seamier side of town. It's not all the "River Walk".
Kate had a "Chicken Fried Steak" at the Lone Star on the River Walk (actually it was hamburger and not the real thing). We shopped a bit more and went on a boat tour around the canals. There was a young Latino tour guide/boat driver who seemed a little sarcastic (e.g. "Here's the best Mexican resaurant in the worrrld ... it's owned by my uncle").
We went up the nearby tower for a few of the city. It was a bit hazy and, while it is a tall tower, it doesn't compare to the CN Tower in Toronto. We smelled the bee sting tree that was blooming (I think it's call Texas Mountain Laurel) and went back to our hotel room to drink more of the Double Vodka and wait out the "Texas Tornado" — a big wind had come up and Kate swears there were white caps in the swimming pool.
That evening we went for dinner at Landry's Seafood House. This was a dinner on Pat's dime. Reg had a huge dish of crawdads.
Saturday Feb 10, '90
In San Antonio we visited the San Antonio Museum of Art which is located on the river north of the River Walk in an old Lone Star Brewery building. There's some pretty interesting folk art, ancient Latin America artifacts and quite a bit of modern art. It's a good spot to visit.
We drove to Luckenbach to the north of San Antonio and west of Austin. We hadn't been before and it's not well signed. We first found a place which advertised itself as "Uptown Luckenbach". This consisted of a farm and a souvenir store run by an older man and his young son ("Play 'em the tape boy!" and the lad obliges with a copy of Waylon Jennings singing "I'm goin' to Luckenbach Texas ...").
Reg and Cindy could not accept that this was all there was to Luckenbach. On the way here, down the road a bit, they had passed a large group of campers by a stream (South Grape Creek). Near the front of the camp was a tattoo parlor tent — there also seemed to be a lot of bikers camped out there. After circling around a bit we finally went back to the camp of the "Tattooed Bikers from Hell". We entered to discover that this was in fact Luckenbach (the sign is regularly stolen as a souvenir) and they were having a "Valentines Day Hug-In" in Luckenbach that weekend. Cindy and Kate had to submit to big bear hugs from the local tattooed biker greeter.
Luckenbach, once we found it, was great. There were groups of people making music and others watching, chatting, chuckin' washers, drinking beer, and joining in when they could. Everybody was drinking beer except for Kate and Cindy who were still on the "Double Vodka". Beside the old dance hall was another old building where "Big Daddy", a huge character of about 70 years and 300 pounds, operated a food stand. You could have sausage, beans, sausage sandwich, sausage and beans, or sausage and nachos. And the beans come with "Wonder Bread"!
There was a wood worker shop and a small craft store as well as the general store and bar (where beer by the tin or bottle was all you might ask for). The wood worker's dog was pretty mournful as he wasn't allowed to run free on Saturdays. An old fellow in a wheel chair told Cindy that his name was "Mr. Luckenbach" — he showed her his check book to provide it. He wore an "Old Fart" gimme hat, drank a lot of beer and must have had a Volkswagen gas tank for a bladder.
On our way back to Austin we saw an "Austin City Limits" sign. We took a cab from the Crest hotel to the Cactus Café after having some "Happy Hour" snacks at the hotel bar. The cabbie was our original cabbie from the airport — the woman with the awful wig.
We saw Jimmy Lafave fronting for Sara Hickman. She was great. We shared a table with a newly married couple who had only known each other for a few weeks when they got married. Kate and Reg assured them that this was okay.
Postscript: We saw Jimmy Lafave several times over the years, was very well respected in the Austin music community and died in 2017.
Sunday Feb 11, '90
After breakfast at the Crest we headed back south down the I35 with a brief stop in Gruene (pronounced as "green") where there's an old time dance hall. We walked around a bit, not much was going on, and then settled in the car for the long drive to Laredo on the Mexican border. On the way we did see a pickup truck with a gun rack but it didn't have any bumper stickers.
We arrived in Laredo late in the afternoon. It was hot, hazy and smokey (families were down by the Rio Grande river barbequing on mesquite).
Laredo was very poor with a lot of run down buildings and metal security bars on the windows. We crossed to Nuevo Laredo, on the Mexican side of the river, where it's even poorer and dirtier. Reg and Kate bought some leather travel bags and Cindy bought some Mezcal for Pat.
Monday Feb 12, '90
Cindy shopped at a local sleazy mall in Laredo while Kate and Reg crossed to Nuevo Laredo where they shopped and walked around a bit. It was cleaner and fresher than the evening before but still depressing and harrassing. Guys were offering drugs, valium, access to a doctor, a tour guide, etc. but nobody offered their sister! It was unreasonably warm — the hottest place in the continental US — and Kate wanted a loose dress to ware. She bought two dresses and Reg bought some silver toe tips for his cowboy boots. He saw cowboy boots for only $18 but didn't buy them. Although not intending to bargain for the silver toe tips, he said "no" to the sales woman because he'd seen them cheaper elsewhere (which he had). She chased him out the door and down the street lowering the price with several offers until Reg felt obliged to buy them. They did bargain over a hammock ($6) and then felt stupid and guilty for doing so. The hammock made it's way to Jack and Doreta's cottage north of Kingston.
Alice TX — we stopped in Alice not too far from Corpus but there was nothing there. We had lunch at a Mexican restaurant on the outskirts. The food was so-so and there was no bar!!
Corpus Christi — we arrived in the later afternoon and spent a long time searching for and deciding on a hotel. We finally ended up at a La Quinta downtown. It was a heck of a deal — 2 free drinks, free breakfast and only $45!
We had a shrimp dinner at "Elmo's Diner" across the road from the hotel. It was a great dinner; afterwards we wandered the docks and checked out the many shrimp boats. You get fresh gulf shrimp from these very boats!
We went to a Texas gift shop — expensive but neat stuff. The nicest buildings in town were the banks.
Tuesday Feb 13, '90
At Corpus it was very windy in the morning. We went to Corpus Christi University and walked in a tidal bay where it was very muddy. We went to Padre Island and walked in the waters of the Gulf Coast, and saw a "Man O'War" jelly fish on the beach.
Back in San Antonio we toured some of the old Spanish Missions on our way into town (on the El Camino Royal). We had to restrain Cindy from being born-again at the very nice painting to Our Lady of Guadalupe. Cactus grows everywhere, even on roofs. We made friends with a couple from California. She was all dressed in red as was Kate.
We stopped in Gruene on the way back to Austin and had a great lunch at the Old Mill. It was high on the bank of the Guadalupe River and it seemed like a lovely spring day. There were even stray cats who came to the restaurant to beg. We shopped at a village gift store and Reg toured a pottery place where they were firing some pots.
Back in Austin we're again at the Crest. We had dinner at a New Orleans type of place with a Jazz band on 6th Street (also known as Pecan). The food was only so-so. We walked up and down 6th, there's lots of bars and entertainment here.
Wednesday Feb 14, '90
We return our car and have an uneventful flight home via Dallas and Detroit. Back home Jack and Doreta have been house sitting and we spend an evening regaling them with our adventures. Maybe someday they'll travel to Texas with us.
Slides scanned and these notes transcribed January of 2022 during the "Omicron Wave". Notes are those recorded at the time by Kate.
