TRAVELING AROUND THE WORLD: Our Tales of Delights and Disasters by Shelley Row Page B
Book: TRAVELING AROUND THE WORLD: Our Tales of Delights and Disasters by Shelley Row
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Authors: Shelley Row
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from the plane, I look below as Arizona and New Mexico pass by and Texas looms ahead. I know I’m home. I know I’ll be glad. I know I’ll love being with friends again. It will just take a little time to adjust to this familiar but now foreign country. For now, I look forward to iced tea, TexMex and barbeque. I just hope our passports work in Texas.
Monday, March 21, 2011
Boogie Back to Texas
We walked off the plane in Austin to feelings of surprise and familiarity. There, across from our arrival gate, was Salt Lick Barbecue. A neon sign read, “Asleep at the Wheel” (my favorite Texas music group) and the shop next door sold tee-shirts in UT orange that blared, “Don’t Mess with Texas” (for those who don’t know, this slogan was part of a litter campaign slogan started by the Texas Department of Transportation decades ago). All this made my head spin. Downstairs, waiting for our luggage, I felt like a stranger in my homeland. My yoga top and pants – my standard travel uniform – seemed out of place among the jeans and boots. Outside gigantor pick-up trucks claimed happy travelers.
Our own gigantor pick-up truck claimed us. George was waiting outside in his new Dodge Ram pick-up with the extended cab and full-sized bed. It was huge! We saw him approaching with my mother’s tiny head just visible above the dash. We stowed the luggage in the bed of the truck and scrambled into the cab. Off we went for the familiar drive home to Smithville. But first, I had a very important date.
We stopped for lunch in Bastrop at the Guadalajara restaurant. As we sat, chips and salsa appeared before us. Perfect. Next was a Texas-sized glass of iced tea. Perfect. A long-awaited lunch of TexMex followed. Even more perfect. Over the course of five days, my dear husband humored me. He ate tacos at four different Mexican restaurants, sometimes having Mexican food for both lunch and dinner. (He was lucky to be spared breakfast.) I had enchiladas, tacos, tamales, rice and refried beans (cooked in bacon fat). Yuuuuum ! And, of course, we had barbecue beef and sausage, too, from Zimmerhanzel’s. Also, my mother hadn’t felt well and lost too much weight so I sacrificed myself by accompanying her to Dairy Queen where we split milkshakes or ice cream.
With all this food, I looked forward to running through town. Smithville is small (about 3,500), and it’s laid out in a grid, making it easy to run up and down the tree-shaded streets. I refreshed my memory of the houses, yards and, well, life. The wood-frame houses with big porches and rocking chairs are painted in sherbet colors or deep mossy greens. Many have tin roofs that make comforting sounds in the rain. Pecan trees were budding and red-bud trees were just showing their pink blooms. Bluebonnets were beginning to blanket the roadsides. As I ran, glimpses of life poked out. There were two little boys in their pajamas throwing paper airplanes in the yard. A woman’s voice behind a picket fence called out, “Ready or not, here I come!” Birds chirped and chortled outside our window at my mother’s house. Trying to be helpful, I decided it was time to remove the Christmas wreath from her front porch. Its red bows and festive bird nest seemed a bit out of place in March. But when I reached to grab it, a tiny, brown bird moved! The nest, it seems, was not part of the decoration but had been carefully built inside the wreath as a new home. The wreath will stay on the wall a little longer.
One of the best things about being home in Smithville is seeing friends and bumping into the people I know. It’s like – well – coming home. The day we arrived, I saw Lynn Doty at the grocery store. As usually happens to me, there is an instant recognition but delay while my brain catches up trying to come up with name, context and history. In Smithville, the context is always about where this person was in relation to me in school. In Lynn’s case, she was several years
Monday, March 21, 2011
Boogie Back to Texas
We walked off the plane in Austin to feelings of surprise and familiarity. There, across from our arrival gate, was Salt Lick Barbecue. A neon sign read, “Asleep at the Wheel” (my favorite Texas music group) and the shop next door sold tee-shirts in UT orange that blared, “Don’t Mess with Texas” (for those who don’t know, this slogan was part of a litter campaign slogan started by the Texas Department of Transportation decades ago). All this made my head spin. Downstairs, waiting for our luggage, I felt like a stranger in my homeland. My yoga top and pants – my standard travel uniform – seemed out of place among the jeans and boots. Outside gigantor pick-up trucks claimed happy travelers.
Our own gigantor pick-up truck claimed us. George was waiting outside in his new Dodge Ram pick-up with the extended cab and full-sized bed. It was huge! We saw him approaching with my mother’s tiny head just visible above the dash. We stowed the luggage in the bed of the truck and scrambled into the cab. Off we went for the familiar drive home to Smithville. But first, I had a very important date.
We stopped for lunch in Bastrop at the Guadalajara restaurant. As we sat, chips and salsa appeared before us. Perfect. Next was a Texas-sized glass of iced tea. Perfect. A long-awaited lunch of TexMex followed. Even more perfect. Over the course of five days, my dear husband humored me. He ate tacos at four different Mexican restaurants, sometimes having Mexican food for both lunch and dinner. (He was lucky to be spared breakfast.) I had enchiladas, tacos, tamales, rice and refried beans (cooked in bacon fat). Yuuuuum ! And, of course, we had barbecue beef and sausage, too, from Zimmerhanzel’s. Also, my mother hadn’t felt well and lost too much weight so I sacrificed myself by accompanying her to Dairy Queen where we split milkshakes or ice cream.
With all this food, I looked forward to running through town. Smithville is small (about 3,500), and it’s laid out in a grid, making it easy to run up and down the tree-shaded streets. I refreshed my memory of the houses, yards and, well, life. The wood-frame houses with big porches and rocking chairs are painted in sherbet colors or deep mossy greens. Many have tin roofs that make comforting sounds in the rain. Pecan trees were budding and red-bud trees were just showing their pink blooms. Bluebonnets were beginning to blanket the roadsides. As I ran, glimpses of life poked out. There were two little boys in their pajamas throwing paper airplanes in the yard. A woman’s voice behind a picket fence called out, “Ready or not, here I come!” Birds chirped and chortled outside our window at my mother’s house. Trying to be helpful, I decided it was time to remove the Christmas wreath from her front porch. Its red bows and festive bird nest seemed a bit out of place in March. But when I reached to grab it, a tiny, brown bird moved! The nest, it seems, was not part of the decoration but had been carefully built inside the wreath as a new home. The wreath will stay on the wall a little longer.
One of the best things about being home in Smithville is seeing friends and bumping into the people I know. It’s like – well – coming home. The day we arrived, I saw Lynn Doty at the grocery store. As usually happens to me, there is an instant recognition but delay while my brain catches up trying to come up with name, context and history. In Smithville, the context is always about where this person was in relation to me in school. In Lynn’s case, she was several years
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