Tuesday, May 08, 2007

Center of the Universe indeed

We were supposed to crash at a friend's house in San Antonio on Friday, but because plans with them fell through we stayed in Dallas and left for the Texas Hill Country on Saturday after Yoga class. The drive was bumpy; I-35 is the worst interstate highway by far, worse than I-45 only due to it's condition because there's plenty to look at from the road.

When we arrived at our friend's digs, we unloaded and headed out for a beer or two (or three) at a wonderful, mystical joint emblazoned with a bold sign toutint "HILLS & DALE'S -- CENTER OF THE UNIVERSE!"

We walked in from the overcast afternoon to a sparsely lit ice house with a concrete floor. The spartan main room was decorated with plank picnic tables and a billiards area in back. But the main attraction was covering the side of a main wall: AN ENORMOUS BEER REFRIGERATOR!

The wallside cooler was stocked to the gills with any and every kind of imported beer and malt you could crave. They even had St. Peters and our favorite Oatmeal Stout!

I started off with my pint of Guiness and then had a couple of bottles of St. Peters and one of Sam Smith. I was so full of fuzzies that I barely ate dinner! From there we went to Floore's Country Store, Dave's favorite music hall. We listened to Jay Farrar and Son Volt play, had a frozen margarita (or two) and headed back, where I crashed and burned!

The next morning we washed off the previous night, had biscuits and country muffins and washed it down with copious carafes of coffee, black. Well, I washed it down with black coffee, but Dave has to have frou-frou in his cuppa joe, you know what I'm saying, sugar cream and all that! We swapped cds to upload to iPods, gushed about our vacation and then we were a gonner!

Hours later we were back in Dallas again, with laundry to do and loose ends to tie up. I love weekend trips but the reality of the work week is a bummer, especially before an all too short vacation in the American Caribbean!

3 comments:

Olivia said...

My God, that was a proper Texas night out...! As in, not the sort of thing I miss about being there. Reality check, thanks :)

Have you ever had Flat Tire beer? Texan brew I believe.

Hey, I like how you don't blog for a while, but you do always come back in the end.

I also like your glam new profile pic. Is that from one of the sophisticated evenings out you had late last year? Notice you like looking at the sky a lot!!!

Miss Dallas said...

You know, the evening wasn't so bad because I had my vintage 35mm slr on me and I was shooting some pretty fascinating subjects. I'm trying to get used to my camera again b/c for the past several months I have been diddling around with my little point-and-shoot digital.

Fat tire is a good beer, but it's brewed by the same people that make Budwieser (yuck!). I have to say, if there's one thing that the British do right, it's booze! Yummy English ale!

Oh, and that photo is a crop from a picture of my sister Sara and I. It's on my flickr site. My ident. on flickr is jojemison

Olivia said...

Added. You and your sis look nothing alike!