Road Trip

Robbie and I wanted to go to Corpus this weekend, just to get away from the city where our job and the nonsense surrounding it reside, but it didn't work out. Actually, we really wanted to go to San Francisco with Tony, but that really didn't work out.

Hell, if we're dreaming anyway, I think I'd have enjoyed a nice weekend in the south of France. Or maybe the Bahamas. I'm not picky.

But, you know, there's always Lockhart, which is only about 25 minutes away, has an adorable downtown, a magnificent county courthouse, and what most reasonable people will agree is the best barbecue in the world. We had lunch at Smitty's Market, where you can eat Meat! Meat! Meat! Also, Meat! (apologies to James Lileks):

The pork ribs are delectable, but remind me never to order them on a first date. They are very messy and unladylike. There's nothing like chowing down on a long, meaty, sauce-covered bone to leave your dining partners with very little doubt as to what you are able and willing to do with your mouth.

On second thought, maybe ribs are an excellent choice for a date. But if you're dining with a coworker, he gets to work from home for at least a week. And you might get in enough trouble that they won't even consider you for the permanent opening for your own job that you've applied for. Gosh - that'd be awful.

Then we had ice cream and walked around the square taking pictures - of the courthouse:


Robbie wants this car:


Then we got back on US 183 headed south, to Luling. Let me tell you, you have not lived until you've smelled Luling. You may not want to live afterwards. To be perfectly frank, I believe the smell of crude oil being extracted from the ground is probably the most final argument for alternative fuels there could possibly be, because nothing that smells that profoundly, hideously, vilely nasty can possibly be right.

Luling residents try to put the best face on it by putting whimsical decorations on their pumpjacks:

















But head back north, and take a quick jaunt up FM 671, and you'll head through Stairtown, which smells even worse. Stairtown appears, as far as I can tell, to consist entirely of a few sad, run-down mobile homes in the middle of a short brushy wood peppered thickly with pumpjacks. The smell will bring tears to your eyes. God knows how anybody manages to live there. Of course, the owners of the wells don't - they're safely ensconced in big, air-freshened houses in The Woodlands or somewhere.

Robbie and I were grateful to turn back to Austin, away from the stench, and said goodbye (till Monday, unless he's working from home) at my driveway. But for some reason he insisted on making me a present of the remains of his barbecue sausage:


I'm sorry, but I just don't see how that isn't very, very suggestive. I think I'm going to have to work from home. Robbie's going to get in so much trou - D'OH!!!!