2-7-2011: Migas Monday

We woke up to what would become a somewhat familiar scene: two people somehow finding enough privacy in a Walmart parking lot and next to the largest vehicle in that lot to carry out an illicit affair. Ward took the dogs out at 8:30, and noticed that despite the almost empty parking lot, a middle age woman had decided to park right next to the RV. She was still in the car, putting on make-up and adjusting her hair. Ward didn't think much of it until he walked back to the RV and saw a second vehicle, a truck that now housed the woman and a man canoodling in the front seat. They didn't pay much mind to Ward or the dogs. When we pulled away at 8:55, both cars were gone, presumably off to work. So it appears that Walmart now rolls-back prices and wedding vows. But the sad thing isn't how public this tryst was, but how short; 20 minutes in the morning in the front seat of a Ford 350 just isn't enough, but what do we know about modern romance? We are just proud that they chose to park by us, and like to think that they saw the RV as a symbol for Love on the Run.

As hot as that might have been, the weather had again turned against us, dropping into the 30s and threatening not to get much warmer. The next thing on our calendar was another library booksale in San Antonio the following Friday, so we decided to head back to Pecan Park in San Marcos so that we could at least freeze in comfort. But first, we had to hit up The Tamale House, a famed Mexican breakfast/lunch spot with cheap eats. Under the astute and remote guidance of Joel and Andrew, we made sure to order Migas, a breakfast favorite of scrambled eggs, onions, and stale tortilla chips served with rice, beans, and flour tortillas. Amazing. Stephanie ordered a few 85 cent tacos, and it was clear why Migas was the famed dish. Not that the tacos were necessarily bad, but the Migas was perfect.

Later in the day, back in San Marcos, we mailed 6 boxes of books back to Richmond. At the time we're writing this, 1 month later, one box still hasn't arrived. It most likely is with the box that is still en route from New Orleans, mailed on February 1st. Hmmmm. The USPS has been a good friend to Chop Suey over the years, so we're hoping that they are just taking our books on a nice tour of the United States before carefully and kindly delivering them to Cary Street.

As the Texas light faded and gave way to bright stars and freezing winds, we made great use of the recreation room at Pecan Park. During our first visit we noticed that the 800 square foot room was heated and equipped with a full kitchen, a huge flat screen, and 6 large tables that were apparently only used for puzzles. We had just bought a 1000 piece puzzle that morning at a thrift store and were anxious to start it, so we basically set up camp there for the night. The best thing about this room is that nobody used it after 5 pm, and we were given the keys so we could stay as late as we wanted. This is one thing that we have noticed about RV parks: despite the amenities (heated pool, hot tub, clean bathrooms, rec room with a full kitchen, beautiful river walks, etc.), the residents don't really seem to care enough to use them. Maybe it's the cold weather that is keeping people inside, but even when it is warm, we have noticed that people just like to hang out in or around their RVs. Granted, they are living in mobile homes that cost well over $100,000 and are full of plenty of modern comforts, but this tendency to stay put runs contrary to the very idea of RVs: movement, travel, and adventure. Rather than exploring, most of the people we have met just travel enough to get to the park, and then they don't leave until they are on to the next one. It reminds us of the people who buy SUVs because of the adventurous commercials, but then hate to get them dirty on city streets. In any case, their inertia was to our benefit, giving us the full run of this large room. We cooked a red Thai curry, started our puzzle, and watched Rocky on AMC.

2-6-2011: Chili-bowl Sunday!

We really liked San Marcos, a smaller town with a thriving downtown area and two beautiful rivers cutting through it, so we thought it would be nice to find a sports bar to watch the Superbowl and meet locals. Ward asked the older woman working the desk at Pecan Park if she had any suggestions.

“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!!!”

2-4-2011 Through 2-5-2011: Booksales and Waterfalls

The main premise for our cross country travel is to restock Richmond with quality used books from around the country, and no place is better for mass quantity and low prices than library booksales. These are hosted across America in nearly every town's library system, a way for them to weed out old books from their collection, ease themselves of unwanted book donations from well meaning patrons, and to raise money for new books and library updates. Ward's dream trip was to bounce from town to town, hitting a sale like this every weekend. In reality, there is no way to do this without traveling thousands of miles between each sale. So we had to bide our time and wait until our schedule synched up with a convenient sale. That happened to be in San Antonio. The sale was small, but their sellection was great, and we bought 6 boxes to send home. The people working the sale had never seen one person buy so many books from their sale, and were hesitant to take our out of state check, but we smiled and offered up everything but our DNA as proof that we were not flying kites across America, and they seemed to be satisfied. The volunteers were extremely nice and gave us a list of other places to purchase books before wishing us luck and prosperity on the road.

Talking about the weather has a very limited shelf life, so we left out the fact that we woke up to the sound of tires spinning on ice left from San Antonio's first snowfall in 20 years. That was the topic of discussion all morning, and was also the deciding factor in us heading north to San Marcos to camp for a couple of nights at Pecan Park, an RV site that boasted of heated pools, clean bathrooms, and electric hookups. The actual campsite didn't disappoint. In fact, despite the freezing weather, we felt like we were spoiled in paradise. Getting into the 90 degree salt water pool with a waterfall, we realized that this was the first time that our bodies had actually been warm in days. The hot tub was even better. Burst pipes had left two of the three bathroom/showers out of service, so the camp hosts had equipped our bathroom with a large space heater. We stayed for two nights.

2-3-2011- The Stars on Ice

So far in our trip, we have held the same false hope each time we leave a state after freezing for nights on end to drive west: The sun is only a zip code away. Driving into Texas from Louisiana did nothing to satisfy our hopes. We not only froze in Beaumont, Texas that night, but during the day as well. While filling up our tank, Ward tried to wash the windows, but found the squeegee frozen in a block of water. Isn't that blue stuff they put in there supposed to keep the water from freezing? Well, it was that cold.

It turns out that Beaumont is a beautiful town, or was at one point. Unlike Florence, SC, this town perfectly matched our expectations of small town America: a downtown area filled with beautiful architecture, amazing storefronts with cool signage, and not a person in sight. We did find a great thrift store that had thousands of books for us to pick through, but that was the only thriving business for blocks. Meanwhile, the highways in and out of town were littered with a rash of strip malls and fast food chains, repeated over and over like the background from an old animation. We drove through this charming downtown with a nostalgia for a city we never knew and ideas for renovating a town we would never see again.

2-2-2011

Our first library booksale was taking place in San Antonio on the 4th, so we left New Orleans with enough time to make some thrift pit stops and to stay the night in Beaumont, TX. One of the first thrift stops we made was outside of Baton Rouge, but our GPS kept pointing us to a peculiar part of the street that housed a few trees and a drainage ditch. We called the store for directions: “Hello, we can't seem to find your store. We're on Branford, but we're not sure where you are.” “Y'all know where Gautier is?” “No, we're not from here. How far are you from Louisiana State University?” “I don't know about that.” Well, it turns out that the store is within 2 miles of LSU, on the same road in fact. This is a problem we have encountered any time we ask for directions; the person we're asking has very little comprehension of where they are in relation to anything around them. Even if said landmark is the one of the most notable locations in their city. The best most have been able to do is give us fast food restaurants and bearing points. Sonic has been used 3 or 4 times, each time in a different city. We've come to realize that if our final destination isn't within 400 feet of a Taco Bell, Sonic, or Jack in the Box, we're on our own.

Speaking of getting lost near great restaurants, we are reminded that we forgot to mention one of the best things about Mobile, AL, a city that was adept in hiding the rest of it's better things from us. After visiting a Salvation Army thrift store on the west side of the city, we were told of a great downtown thrift store that was behind the Department of Health. The directions turned out to be somewhat accurate, but we ended up circling the Health Department twice. The first time, Stephanie noticed a pretty gnarly food cart on the sidewalk behind the state building. We took a closer look on the second pass, and caught more details: a package of Wonder Bread, dirty and peeling menu, a lit cigarette within reach of the owner, and a line of 4 people who were dressed like they worked at the Health Department. All in the backyard of an agency entrusted with protecting the health of the city. We found the thrift store after two more turns, and enjoyed a great lunch in our RV about 60 miles west of Mobile.

1-29-2011 through 2-1-2011, New Orleans

Our week in New Orleans was full of the normal things: Po' Boys, morning drinks on Bourbon Street, a ferry ride to Algiers, biking along the Mississippi, leaving bars at 4 am because they won't close, etc. The highlight of our stay there was biking to Tipitina's to see Yo La Tengo play with our friend Elise's brother William Tyler. The show was great, and the bike ride to and from was almost as good. That was Saturday night, and was also the end of the good weather. It rained all Sunday, and the temperature dropped as low as the upper 20s at night.

On Sunday, we used the rainy day as an excuse to see The King's Speech, and then to start working on our plumbing system. When we bought the RV, the previous owner told us that he hadn't winterized the year before (clearing all the water out of the tanks and pipes), and had to replace a bunch of burst pipes. We're assuming the repair shop overlooked the drain pipe running from the kitchen sink as it was completely split. We found this out on our first camping trip to VA Beach, and weren't too worried as the pipe seemed to just leak out of the wheel well. However, in Gainesville we noticed that the leak was coming from just under the shower unit, and was soaking the floorboards and the wood around the wheel well. Assessing the situation, we weighed our options: pay Camping World $120/hour, or just remove the shower, the shower pan, repair the pipe, and then put them all back together. It couldn't be that hard, right?

Well, it actually wasn't so hard, and we finished the job within 4 hours. The only thing, those 4 hours spanned two days; we didn't take into account that Lowe's closed at 7 on Sundays, and the most essential piece for the whole project was needed at 7:15. So we stayed at the neighboring Walmart on the Westbank of New Orleans. That night, with our shower taking up most of the living space and the smell of plumbing cement giving us a headache/high, we had our first WRIR Road Trip Update on Can't Stop the Music with P. Swann, the first of what should be a regular appearance.

The next day, we finished up the plumbing and put the shower back together. We're pretty proud of ourselves, and we left NOLA with more plumbing skills than we ever hoped for.

Before leaving New Orleans we trekked back to Mosca's for what by now seemed like it would be the best thing we would eat all trip, if not our entire life. Most people hadn't heard of it, and nobody we talked to had actually been. The one person who knew about it told us that it was the old hangout for the Marcello Family, New Orleans' famed mafia organization that may or may not have had a hand in JFK's assassination. We were sure we were heading toward one of the most authentic of all Italian restaurants in this country. Perhaps it was this build up, or the 5 day wait, or just our timing, but, while the food was very good, we couldn't help but be a little homesick for the Italian restaurants we left behind in Richmond. You know which ones we are talking about, and if you don't, it's not Pizza Hut Bistro or Olive Garden.

1-27-2011, Our Role in a hit HBO Series

We left Pensacola to drive to New Orleans, or more accurately to drive 40 minutes west of New Orleans. Stephanie had read a New Yorker article about Mosca's, a great Italian restaurant that stood alone on a small road heading out to the bayou. Small menu, cash only, and a 50 minute wait on food due to the fact that everything was made to order. They are closed on Sundays and Mondays, so we decided that even though it meant overshooting our final destination of New Orleans, Thursday night was probably our best bet. Ward's iPhone GPS routed us through Jefferson Parrish and then over the Huey P. Long Bridge, perhaps the scariest piece of road know to man. Later we would find out that most locals refuse to cross this bridge, but that night, with a warm Italian meal only minutes away, we braved the tall, skinny bridge with white knuckles and thoughts of immediate demise. The wind kept pushing us toward the outer-wall, a small concrete barrier reinforced by wobbly scaffolding. Still, we made it across, and, finally, to Mosca's front door.

We initially thought that the trailers parked in the lot were a good thing, that we would be welcomed in our unwieldy home. But those trailers turned out to be for a film crew, and the restaurant was closed that night for the filming of the hit HBO series Treme. At 8:30, after a full day of driving and visions of Italian food I our head, this wasn't the best news for us, but we persevered and headed for a Pho spot that one of the grips recommended. Signs were in our favor as the directions brought us to New Orleans by not using the Huey P. Long Bridge. Only, they brought us there too late; Pho Tau Bay closed at 9 pm, right when we pulled in. Tired and hungry, we somehow kept a great attitude. There are worse things then having to give up and drive into New Orleans for dinner.

We ended up meeting our friend Becka and going to Juan's Flying Burrito for dinner. As we walked in Becka asked us if Erin, who is two weeks ahead of us on our cross country trip, had told us of all the Richmond people she had run into in NOLA. As she listed them off, Ward spotted Steve Earle at a table and, thinking he was someone he knew, loudly said “There's Steve Earle!” Loud enough for him to hear. Ward sunk into his seat with embarrassment. Still, it was funny to be turned away from one restaurant because of Treme, and then to end up having dinner next to an actor from the same show.

That night we slept at the new Walmart set between the Mississippi River and the Garden District. It was only blocks away from Becka's house and Magazine Street, had a police station right next door, and was close enough to the river that we could hear barge horns and train whistles all night. We found out later that this Walmart was under construction when Katrina hit, and the city used it as a morgue since their refrigeration had already been installed. It is a common accusation that Walmart masks an oppressive work environment, poverty wages, and aggressive capitalist take-overs with a bright, clean store, seemingly cheap products, and a really happy smiley face, but it was a real mind bender for us to attempt to visualize the death and destruction that was intertwined with this particular store.