Road Trip – Day One – Montgomery, TX to Kerrville, TX January 5, 2009

I checked the weather report before I left Montgomery this morning and it predicted super cold (in the low 40s) and cloudy all day – so I opted to stay in bed with the puppies and watch TV until 10AM and not leave the house until 11AM. Total lazy ass start to my halfway-cross-country trip. HOWEVER, before I could really get going I had to go snap a photo of this local business to share, in a strip mall less than five minutes from my house.

Follow my route today.

Yes, entirely serious – that is the best thing in the vicinity of my parents home. Except for the Starbucks I went to next, which is across the street from our neighborhood. There are docks next to it where you can park your boat if you come in off Lake Conroe and need a mocha or whatever before you resume water skiing. Also, when the barista guy was making my Cafe Americano today he asked how my day was going. I said average. He than handed me the coffee and said, “Guess what? Your day just got a whole lot better!” Ummm…impossible to keep a straight face. Impossible.

Anywho, then I drove myself the long way to Austin for lunch. I intended to go to Pok-E-Jo’s for BBQ but in the mass tear down of business in Austin it’s apparently relocated and I don’t know to where! So I settled for Ironworks instead. Still pretty darn good BBQ.

Then I drove south to San Antonio to run by the Alamo real quick. I don’t think I’ve driven this stretch of highway since Russ and I went from Dallas to a polo field outside of San Antonio in 1999 to see R.E.M. and Wilco. I don’t think I’ve been to the Alamo since elementary school. It was much smaller than I remembered. This is the backside of the Alamo.

Across the street are a series of wax museums, hall of mirrors, souvenir shops and other nonsensical crap. Why would I visit a historical site and then want to try and walk through a hall of mirrors?

Then I drove through downtown San Antonio and by the Riverwalk on my way to the freeway. It’s very bizarre – tiny, dirty and an odd assortment of businesses. Here’s a completely out of place sculpture I passed.

So then I headed to my hotel, the charming Days Inn of Kerrville. And by charming I mean gross “hotel” in Texas Hill Country. The thing that is interesting to look at is the country – somewhere around Welfare, TX (yes really – and that is followed by Comfort and Waring) it turns into HILLS and ROCKS and DEAD GRASS and CACTI! Here we have an action shots I unsafely took while driving in between two stone walls that used to be a mountain.

More after the jump, including the day’s playlists!

So then! I turned to the Internet for advice on where to eat dinner in Kerrville. The Internet, in the form of Trip Advsior, pointed me to Mamacitas. Holy crap was the Internet right. I was a bit concerned on the five minute drive there because I passed pretty much every single fast food chain imaginable and they were all dead empty. I was thinking Kerrville is the kind of town that battens down the hatches at 8PM on a Monday night because of a vampire infestation or something – but it turns out everyone was at Mamacitas. Seriously. They had a GIANT parking lot and it was about half full.

The Internet indicated that the food at this joint was sub par TexMex but the atmosphere was worth seeing. Holy crap was the Internet right again. You may not know this about me but I am a nacho connoisseur. When I go to a Mexcian place I order the nachos, with carne (that means “loose nacho meat” for you, gringo). Theirs were Chilis style with each of the six chips (that’s a half-order, suitable for girls and children but if you’re a man you are required to order the full size) precisely and artfully covered with carne, refried beans, cheese, guac and tomatoes. I’ve never before said any Mexican food had too much guacamole but these overly perfected nachos had way, way too much guac per chip. The ratio was entirely wrong and made them impossible to eat. HOWEVER. The Atmosphere. Totally Vegas. Totally Worth It.

Today’s road music came from playlists I got from Sarah T, Scottie Diablo, Lyndsay and (of course) myself.

I started the trip with Sarah T’s girl power, all female playlist. It was perfect but I think the hidden subtext of the plist is that she wants to break up with me. Sarah T, what did I do? She broke up with me from Montgomery until about Brenham.

• Liz Phair “Chopsticks”
• Beyonce “Single Ladies”
• Hole “Doll Parts (accoustic?)
• Ida Maria “Oh My God”
• Au Revoir Simone “Backyards”
• Estelle “More Than Friends”
• Lavender Diamond “You Broke My Heart”
• Bjork “Unravel”
• Lauryn Hill “To Zion”
• Maria Taylor “Clean Getaway”
• Jenny Lewis “Acid Tounge”
• Bat for Lashes “I’m On Fire”
• Santogold “Creator”
• Laura Marling “Ghosts” (this is def my fave song of 2008)
• Portishead “Magic Doors”
• Diana Ross & the Supremes “You Keep Me Hangin’ On”
• Emmy the Great “We Almost Had a Baby”
• Feist “I Feel It All”
• Lykke Li “Dance, Dance, Dance”
• Cat Power “Metal Heart”
• Adele “Best for Last”

Then I went to part one of Scottie Diablo’s Winter Mix. Very garage-y with occasional unexpected moments. In all, extremely well mixed.

• Brass Castle “Angelfights”
• National Skyline “Bloom”
• Cheeseburger “Easy Street”
• Bob Seger System “Innervenus Eyes”
• Chico Magnetic Band “My Sorrow”
• Crocodiles “Neon Jesus”
• Frank Palmeri “California”
• Kim Fowley “Bubblegum”
• Gil Mantera’s Party Dream “Chalklit Pyhe I”
• Eat Forever “I Can’t Change”
• dios “tel mee theen”
• The Soundtrack of Our Lives “Reconnecting the Dots”
• Crazy Squeeze “Lies”
• Kuroma “I Was the Rat”
• Kelley Stoltz “Ever Thought of Coming Back”
• Benjy Ferree “Fear”
• Drug Rug “Tiny People”
• Dead Man “Euphoria”
• Nancy Sinatra and Lee Hazelwood “You’ve Lost that Lovin’ Feelin’” (a major standout track that stopped me from rear ending someone on the freeway)
• Electric Frankenstein “Action High”

Then I diverted for some city driving to a playlist I made with iTunes’ stupid Genius tool based on…

• Kate Bush “Cloudbusting”
• The Waterboys “The Whole of the Moon”
• Roxy Music “Virginia Plain”
• Elbow “One Day Like This”
• The Pretenders “I Go To Sleep”
• Kate Bush “Babooshka”
• Kirsty MacColl “A New England”
• The Buzzcocks “Ever Fallen In Love”
• Human League “Mirror Man”
• Blur “The Universal”
• Siouxsie & the Banshees “Dear Prudence”

Leaving Austin, I switched to Lyndsay’s playlist. It was great! I had to skip Battles “Atlas” tho cos it came on when I was behind a camper and surrounded by 18 wheelers and it made me too jumpy.

• Emiliana Torrini “Jungle Drums”
• Frankmusic “3 Little Words” (loved this)
• Hercules and Love Affair “Blind”
• The Knife “Kino”
• Lupe Fiasco “Dumb it Down”
• Lykke Li “Breaking It Up”
• Atmosphere “You”
• Passion Pit “Sleepyhead” (hands down THE JAM for late 08)
• Sebastien Tellier “Divine”
• MSTRKRFT feat NORE “Bounce (A-Trak remix)” (intense)
• Michael Jackson “Smooth Criminal”
• Bjork “Enjoy”
• The White Stripes “Seven Nation Army”
• Mother Moter “Body of Years”
• Flosstradamus/Caroline Polachek (of Chairlift) “Big Bills”
• Outkast “The Whole World” (I forgot how band Andre’s singing was on this song, was hilarious)
• Stevie Wonder “Part-Time Lover”
• White Williams “New Violence”
• Kid Cudi “Day ‘N’ Nite (Crookers Remix)”
• The Whip “Sister Siam”
• Santogold “I’m A Lady”
• Kylie Minogue “2 Hearts”
• Vampire Weekend “I Stand Corrected”
• Simian Mobile Disco “Hustler”

And for the final leg of 40 miles from San Antonio to Kerrville I switched back to my “Cloudbusting” Genius plist.

• The Style Council “Long Hot Summer”
• Howard Jones “Like to Get to Know You Well”
• Talk Talk “It’s My Life”
• The Teardrop Explodes “Reward”
• XTC “Senses Working Overtime”
• Prince “Money Don’t Matter 2 Night”
• The Cure “A Forest” (came on exactly when the landscape changed to desert-esque, super creepy)
• Joe Jackson “It’s Different for Girls”
• Blancmange “Living on the Ceiling”
• A Flock of Seagulls “Wishing (If I Had a Photograph of You)”
• Bryan Ferry “Don’t Stop the Dance”