Awesome Inc. Messes with Texas!

Another month and another trip. This time I flew to Texas for a weeklong roadie with my friend JH Naners, who flew from Lincoln. We went on a roadie last summer to Detroit, Cleveland, Cincinnati, and other college towns, so decided to do it again across Texas. Last summer we had record heat during the trip, so was only fitting that we would be welcomed to San Antonio by 100 degree heat.
Sunday 16th - I got into San Antonio before Naners and took advantage of the sweet motel room. I sat by the pool and got a decent tan working while reading On the Road (a blog on that book will probably come later). It was a solid afternoon. Naners finally got in and we headed for the Riverwalk right away. It was as cool as I remembered from a previous trip years back for the Alamo Bowl. Walked around for a while, grabbed some so-so BBQ at County Line (not recommended FYI) and then saw the Alamo at night. Good start to the trip.

Monday 17th - More riverwalk and Alamo time with a good Mexican meal at Casa Rio (recommended). A timekiller trip to see the USTA campus was pretty uneventful. Next up was the first game of the trip: Spurs vs. Jazz.
The AT&T Center is questionably placed far away from the Riverwalk and is somewhat ugly on the outside with it's metal circular exits and metal accents around the outside. The inside is better, but looks like almost every other new arena. The game itself was pretty fun b/c the Spurs were on top of their game and when a team that good is running on all cylinders it's amazing to watch. It was also a good time when I kicked Naners' ass at the free throw shooting game! Due to a priceline mistake I made, we had to get on the road to College Station after the game. I was worried about having to take what appeared to be small highways to get there, but Texas does it up right! 4 lanes with 65 mph speed limit was fantastic. Still took us until 1 am to get there, but it was a sweet ride indeed.

Tuesday 18th - Next up Houston, a city JH and I both expected to be pretty crappy from everything we read. Turns out it's a pretty sweet downtown and I'm not sure why Bill Simmons "The Sports Guy" among others hates it so much. After failing to get inside Reliant Stadium, which is freaking huge, we headed downtown. After picking up our sweet tickets (thanks Stats!), we headed to the highly recommended Erma's Southwest Grill. While the food was terrific, it was more expensive than we expected due to their lack of menus. The rest of the afternoon we just walked around downtown seeing the Toyota Center, former Enron building, cool parks, and entertainment centers. One crazy thing was when we ended up walking by the courthouse and tons of media people were there. It finally hit me that the Enron trial was going on and Jeff Skilling was testifying that day, so we were right in the middle of a big current event.
The game that night had the Brewers in town to play the Astros and was a great time. Minute Maid Park is really nice even with all the ridiculous quirks and the game itself turned out to be really fun. Saw Roy Oswalt pitch and a lot of home runs (surprise, surprise) with the Brew Crew almost coming all the way back, but falling just short. Some side notes: Rafer Alston of the Rockets ended up sitting a row in front of us, the "Real Men of Genius" guys made a commerical on the field, and the kiss cam was on top of its game with former President Bush laying one on Barbara and then giving the double thumbs up. Great time! Made it back to College Station that night.

Wednesday 19th - Headed to the Texas A&M campus to start the day and man is it boring. Just a lot of drab buildings that don't make it very fun to be on campus. Kyle Field is overrated it appears, although probably is awesome during a game b/c of the atmosphere. One thing that was interesting on campus, but not in a good way, was the fact that you have to remove your hat when you enter the student union. It's posted on every door and is pretty wild. Must really want students to respect the union!
After A&M, we headed to Dallas with a stop for lunch at the infamous Whataburger. For those who don't know, during our spring break trip to South Padre many years ago, we had to sustain ourselves on Whataburger. Not a good situation at all, but this trip actually was pretty good. The burgers actually had taste this time around.
On to Big D to see the Mavs play Naner's fav team, the Clippers. Unfortunately, both teams had already sealed their playoff seeds, so all the big stars sat out the game. It wasn't good, but at least we weren't like the guy behind us who had flown from Germany to see, among other things, Dirk Nowitzki play. Dirk was there, but in a suit. Before the game, we went down courtside to watch shootaround and ended up just a few rows away from the great Bill Walton, who was calling the game. I love Walton, so seeing him was pretty cool. American Airlines Center is pretty awesome I think. Spacious arena with really nice concourses. Hopefully I can get back there sometime soon. The highlight of the generally boring game, was the announcement after the 1st quarter that every fan would receive a free plane ticket on American Airlines. This sounded really awesome, but afterwards we realized it was restricted to 4 cities out of Love Field and had to be booked by the end of April. A nice gesture, but really had little value for most and no value for JH and me, who didn't live in Dallas. One final note about the Mavs: Mark Cuban kicks ass!!

Thursday 20th - Didn't have much planned for this day and not doing much is what we did. We did go to the TCU campus, which was ok, but nothing amazing. How they did not have a shirt with just the Horned Frog on it is beyond me and cost them a customer at the bookstore! After TCU, we hit up Mellow Mushroom for some pizza. If you read my blog for my roadie in January, you will remember that I ate at a MM in Charlottesville, VA and loved it. So when I found out there was one in Fort Worth, it was on the list of things to do. While not as good as I remembered, it was still very tasty. If there's a Mellow Mushroom near you, get your butt there and enjoy some solid pizza.
After MM, we decided to pass some more time at the Fort Worth Stockyards. Now Naners and I are about as far from being cowboys as anybody could be, so this sidetrip wasn't supposed to be any big deal. Turned out that the area was pretty cool actually. Brick streets, old timey buildings, and we ended up seeing the small cattle drive they do twice a day. We both agreed that it was a fun place even though we both had no interest in the cowboy lifestyle at all. The rest of the night we just watched tv in the hotel b/c it was raining and the minor league game we had thought about attending was rained out.

Friday 21st - Took in the 6th Floor Museum in Dallas, which was again very interesting and somewhat eerie, although not as much as when I went the first time when I was much younger. Walked around the grassy knoll afterwards and it's pretty amazing that very little has changed in that area in the over 40 years since JFK was assasinated. Ate in the West End for lunch (great area to eat and hang out!) and then drove around for much of the afternoon. Went up to Plano to see the huge headquarters on Legacy Dr. including Ross Perot's EDS building. Still can't believe how big that place is and that he raises cattle on the land around it.
We headed to Arlington for the Rangers and Devil Rays game and once again had great seats thanks to STATS. With the pitching matchup being Seth McClung and Kameron Loe, we knew it'd be very high scoring and it turned out to be exactly that.with the final being 13-7. It was pretty funny to watch and also exciting to be so close to so many foul balls due to our great seats. I recommend the footlong chili cheese dog for those going to games at Ameriquest Field!

Saturday 22nd - After staying in Waco, we got up and headed to Austin. After a horocious traffic jam delayed us for about a half an hour, we finally arrived at Disch-Falk field for the final game on our trip: Huskers vs. Longhorns in a great baseball matchup. The game turned out to be great with the Huskers coming from behind to win 7-5, but the 'Horns should be embarrassed by the stadium they play in. A rusting overhang, peeling and faded outfield walls, an ugly entrance to the park, and the fact that they still use astroturf are just some of the things very wrong with Disch-Falk. It's pretty amazing that a team with that kind of success still plays in a dump like that.
After checking out the great campus that we'd both seen before, we decided to go check into our hotel. This turned out to be one of the craziests check-ins ever. The hotel's computers had gone down I guess, so they weren't completely sure which rooms had been cleaned and which were still occupied. The first room we were given had an unmade bed with open suitcases in it and clothes hanging in the closet. Obviously occupied. The next room we knocked first, but did not get a response, so thought it was clear. Wrong! The room was super dark when I opened the door and then a bearded, shirtless fat guy got up from the bed wondering what was going on. Very freaky indeed. The third time was the charm and we finally got an empty room, but it was a wild adventure. That night we hit up Sixth Street for a while, which is always fun.

We flew out the next day and concluded a long, but very enjoyable trek through Texas. I can now check off Minute Maid Park from my ballparks needed to visit list (19 down and 11 to go). The campuses were pretty disappointing, but overall a very fun time. Next year: West Coast??

BBL