End of Texas, Start of a Year

Feb. 1- 5

Friday we took a stroll through the Dallas historic district near the hotel.

Founders Plaza has a tiny log cabin, about the same size as the one mistaken as Lincoln’s birth cabin in the Monument in Kentucky.

It was moved from several miles away to the site because all the original log cabins in Dallas burned sometime in the 19th century.

It’s behind the Old Red Courthouse, now a museum, which is on the site of an older courthouse that also burned down.

Across the street is a cenotaph dedicated to John F. Kennedy. It’s a block-like structure of concrete lifted on small pillars to give it an airy feel. 

The food has been only OK at best for days, so we went back to Bullion for happy hour and stayed to have the Friday special, Dover sole. The waiter said it is caught off the coast of Calais and flown to Dallas weekly.

I can’t confirm any of that, but can confirm first-hand that it was a superb dish. 

It is cooked whole except for the head. The usual practice is to serve it complete and then take it aside to filet it. 

Joanna likes to eat the meat off the bone, so we asked them not to filet it for us.

Saturday we headed west to Sweetwater.

There’s nothing much to do in Sweetwater. The rattlesnake roundup is in mid-February; the big gun show isn’t till March.

Not much looks promising to eat, either. 

We walked next door from the hotel to Skeet’s Texas Grill.

Texas so far is the only place I know where people have to keep reminding themselves of where they live. They also have to affirm that everything is big (or sometimes grand) and that they should be proud of it. Gun stores, auto lots, restaurants, pawn shops, you name it, have names like Grand Texas this, Big Lone Star that, Texas Pride something else.

Skeet's steak fajitas tasted all right, but they were some of the toughest steak I’ve eaten. I liked the refried beans and guacamole sides better.

Joanna had grilled tilapia. It was all right, but no better than most bar food. And Skeet’s wasn’t a bar, so there were none of the drinks that make bar food taste better. 

Sunday we had a six-hour drive to El Paso.

The sights along the way were mostly windmills and oil pumps spread over some of the flattest ground in the world.

We took a break at a rest stop near Rattlesnake Training Camp, a World War II Air Corps training center. During construction, machinery kept unearthing rattlesnake dens. 

There were rattlesnake warnings at the edge of the parking lot. Every time I see a sign like that, I look around. But I still haven’t seen any rattlesnakes in the wild.

Farther west we came to hills. We took a turnoff to sample the view from a scenic overlook. We climbed the hill on concrete steps. Joanna looking like Sacagawea is at the top of the stairs is the photo of the day.

We obeyed the sign and were careful about rattlesnakes. I still haven’t seen any.

It was Sunday in the Bible Belt, so most of the state of Texas was closed. We found that the Rib Hut was open. So it was back to red meat. For me, with a fatty but inoffensive ribeye. Joanna opted for grilled fish.

They had two craft brews: Happy Camper IPA from Santa Fe Brewing Co., and Texas Red, an American amber from Rahr & Sons Brewing in Forth Worth.

Happy camper had a light fragrance and a good mouth-filling flavor. The red was lighter, more watery than the IPA. It was drinkable, though. There was some bitterness, but it wasn’t in the class of ESB.

I had brought a six-pack with me to the hotel and had a couple of beers when I got home. It was an IPA from Deep Ellum, a brewer named for an entertainment district in Dallas. It wasn’t bad at all, but not flavorful enough to be a favorite.

Monday we drove to downtown El Paso. Most of the historical sights in Texas were lost decades ago for commercial development or post-war sprawl. 

Sometime in the 1930s, developers actually tried to tear down the Alamo, of all things in Texas. Then a group of rich San Antonio ladies—maybe the Junior League, I don’t know—said, “No, you’re not.” They formed a private organization to take it over, and that’s the only reason it’s still there.

So there hasn’t been much to see in Texas, and much to my disappointment, El Paso is no exception. Its historic districts are mostly imposing houses from the late 19th century, of a sort that I’ve seen in hundreds of towns. 

Although, in El Paso's favor I have to add that a sign says Pancho Villa lived in one of them for a while.

Downtown has some tall buildings, and then as you get nearer the border wall, a stretch of decrepit Mexican businesses.

The border fence is the type that you’ve seen in the news lately, the tall structure of metal slats and gaps.

We came across something called the Chamizal National Memorial. This is a park commemorating a treaty reached in the 1960s by the U.S. and Mexico to settle a long-simmering border dispute.

The border in this area had been defined by the deepest channel of the Rio Grande. Only the river kept shifting course, as meandering rivers do.

The solution was to create a channel lined with concrete to make it permanent. Apparently several established neighborhoods were disrupted by the arrangement, and people had to move to stay on their respective sides of the border. 

We had one pleasant surprise in El Paso. It was another pricy but very good restaurant called Cafe Central.

It was like being back in Dallas. 

We started with a plate of escargot, which was delightfully light on garlic and delicious.

Joanna had grilled Chilean sea bass, browned just enough to look like salmon. I tried a bite and it was succulent.

I had to have something weirder than that, just to say that I did. It was duck belly, medium rare. The skin was like bacon. 

It came with grilled vegetables and a risotto made with a blue cheese, maybe Gorgonzola. Joanna had jasmine rice with ginger.

Tuesday was another long drive, several hours to Tucson.

When we set out, it was only 25 miles to New Mexico. I was so glad to be out of Texas.

We stopped at the New Mexico welcome center for a road map, but the office was closed. There was some informative stuff in a case on the wall outside, including a rattlesnake skin with a story. 

A soldier walking home to Colorado from New Mexico—yes, that’s what it said—slept in a shelter at the rest stop and saw a rattlesnake. He killed it and ate it.

At some time, maybe the next morning, he donated the skin to the state.

Signs around the parking lot warn about rattlesnakes. I still haven’t seen any. 

Then we started to see billboards for a place called Old West—maybe a dozen in a row advertising kachina dolls, fireworks, Indian jewelry. It was like Wall Drug. We had to stop there. 

It wasn’t as big as Wall Drug, but it was crammed with stuff. Lots of turquoise, as you’d expect, including a white variety that looked like jasper, cowboy hats, moccasins, lamps in the shape of pistols, a foot-tall effigy of a cowgirl holding a calf, things made out of rattlesnake heads. 

One of the billboards promised “guy stuff”—that is, knives and replica guns. We saw dozens of switchblades, various firearms, and an $800 Bowie knife.

The signs hadn’t said anything specifically about girls’ stuff, but we did find a selection of “concealed carry purses.”

I still haven’t seen any live rattlesnakes.

Farther along we drove past more billboards, identical except for the name of the store. One I remember was called Butterfield Trail. The Butterfield Stage line came through the area where we are traveling Interstate 10 now.

When we saw a sign for tourist information, we decided to follow it and maybe pick up a road map, and also to stretch a bit. That’s how we landed in Deming, N.M. 

It’s a small town named for the wife of a partner in the Southern Pacific Railroad. Deming was the union point of the second Transcontinental Railroad. Its ceremony, in 1880, merited a silver spike.

A map outside the information office shows sights of interest in the area, including Pancho Villa State Park to the south, near the Mexican border. 

That got me to thinking about a great-uncle, Maximilian Stern, who helped invade Mexico.

Pancho Villa, one of the top rebels during the Mexican Revolution, led a raid on Columbus, N.M., in March 1916. 

Uncle Max at the time was a U.S. Cavalry trooper. He was in the contingent under Black Jack Pershing that invaded Mexico to track down Villa.

But Villa got away with the stunt. He avoided the Americans, who were recalled from Mexico when the United States entered World War I.

Uncle Max went on to become a celebrated member of the community in Sacramento, Calif., and also published sheet music written for the zither.

Villa eventually made a deal with the government , which made him a big landowner. But he made the mistake of getting back into politics. In 1923, a half dozen riflemen unloaded their weapons into Villa’s Dodge, killing him instantly.

Even with all that history beckoning, we had to bypass Columbus and the Pancho Villa State Park. They were more than 30 miles south of Deming, and we still had a long haul to Tucson.

At the first Arizona rest stop there was no welcome center. But we saw signs to tell us that “venomous insects and snakes inhabit this area.” OK. I saw scorpions in Phoenix once. I looked around here, too, but still haven’t seen any wild rattlesnakes.

Somewhere on the route we passed what seemed an endless stretch to the horizon of cattle feed pens. They were small pens cordoned off by metal fences. Two or three animals were lying or standing in each pen. 

I’ve heard that limiting the exercise of the animals keeps the beef fatty and therefore tender. Besides limiting the movement of animals, feeding pens are also a way to use some of the country's surplus of grain. 

Either there was a cattle drive blocking traffic or it was rush hour when we got to Tucson.

We had been barreling along for hours, and it felt strange to go bumper to bumper for a while. We made it to the hotel at five.

Feb. 5 was the Chinese New Year. According to tradition, we had to eat chicken and pork. Where better to go for that combination than to a Mexican restaurant? We had a chicken mole enchilada, a chile relleno pork enchilada, and a pork fajita—in addition, of course, to beans and rice.

I had a Margarita, the first in I don’t know how long.

The mariachis serenaded.

All was delightful and perhaps auspicious. All, that is, save the heartburn in the middle of the night. 

So here’s to a happy new year, everyone.

And to all a good night.

Harry