“Oh, you have to go to Bikinis! We went the other night and had the best meal!!!”
“Really? Ok. I guess I thought that Bikinis was a strip club.”
“Oh no, it's not a strip club!.....The girls do wear bikinis, but the food is amazing!”
Yielding to social pressure, Ward assured her that they would not only go, but that he, a vegetarian, would try the hot wings. The promise lasted almost to the front door.
Meanwhile, Stephanie talked to a friend who had moved from Norfolk to Austin years ago, and he invited us to a Superbowl Chili Cookoff, so we unhooked ourselves and headed north. We arrived in Austin with enough time to set up camp at a Walmart. The store was nice enough (when we say this, we are judging based entirely on the quality and cleanliness of the bathrooms), but the parking lot was built on a hill, leaving our RV at a tilt and very difficult to sleep in. But that problem was hours away, and we had chili to deal with.
Turbo picked us up and drove us to Nomad, the bar hosting the Chili Bowl. Leaving the Walmart parking lot, we noticed a bell tower set in a marshy valley between the megastore and the highway. We were struck by how lonely, sad, and useless this abandoned tower looked, and Ward jokingly asked Turbo if it was a life-sized replica of the tragic bell tower on the University of Texas campus. He had never noticed it before, as we're sure is true with most people who pass it. But it turns out that it is a memorial site, most likely built within the past 10 years and placed in the worst spot. There are plenty of tower memorials around town, and scores of ways to pay tribute to the sniper tragedy, but this remembrance housed in the shadow of a Walmart stripmall definitely numbers among the poorest of all commemorations. If you were to tell us that George W. Bush had unveiled this monument as part of his re-election as governor campaign, we might be able to understand it better.
The Nomad Chili Bowl was the perfect Superbowl party that we were hoping to find, and we got to talk with “locals” that we knew when they called themselves Virginians. That night, we had our weekly check in with WRIR, and Ward saw a shooting star when he was signing off. Meanwhile, Stephanie saw a taco cart in a mini-school bus, and we topped off our chili with great tacos. Our future was looking great. And it was. Turbo and Sarah drove us home to Walmart, and we showed them around. Ward wandered off to look for boxes to ship books in, leaving Stephanie confused about where he was. She called him, and he said “I'm in the Pampers isle!” He got a stack of empty boxes, and then another call from Stephanie: “It's freezing! Where are you?!?” “I'm leaving the Pampers isle now.” “What? I thought you said you were in the camper! We're waiting for you to unlock it. Hurry!!!”
No comments:
Post a Comment