Day 32, Nov. 18th: With a good high carb La Quinta breakfast in our bellies, we continued along I10 toward El Paso, with a planned side trip. Kelly had mentioned Silver City as the “next Santa Fe”, so we headed about an hour north to check it out.
We grabbed an early lunch at the Little Toad Creek Brewery and Pub – which had the 3rd best veggie burger on the trip – lots of avocado, sautéed onions on a good quinoa patty. As we walked along there was a gentleman putting up Christmas decorations that told us about the Lighting Ceremony that evening. Unfortunately, we had to get back to San Antonio for doctors visits so could not stay. The town is very friendly, with the “big ditch” Riverwalk along the creek.
After a nice walk, we headed back down to I10 and on to El Paso. We stopped in at the Sunland Casino – no live racing right now, so back to slots. I put $5 in at the first machine and never put in another dollar, cashing out with $25. We found a nearby Sleep Inn for a reasonable rate, so that’s where we laid our heads for the night after dinner at the Twin Peaks. Yes, it’s a breastaurant, but we used to really like the Tilted Kilt near us in San Antonio. The service wasn’t quite as good here, and the food was OK. They did have a pinot grigio I liked for $6/ glass.
Day 33, Nov. 19th: Our goal today was not as far afield, so we didn’t need to get as early a start, so we puttered around a bit. The workout room at the Quality Inn next door was small, but there was an indoor pool which John took advantage of and I did a leg and yoga routine in the room. I could not hold plank as long as before the trip – gotta work on that! We drove to Ft. Stockton for the hotel, with reservations that night at the 12 Gauge restaurant at the Gage Hotel in Marathon, TX (and on the way – there was a sign “Marathon, 26 miles”). We’d seen the Gage on “Daytripper” – a 30-minute NPR show that does 2-3 day trips to small towns around Texas, and saw that it was rated one of the best restaurants in the state. Even though it was a Tuesday night they recommend reservations, which we’d made a couple of days before. We arrived, had a glass of wine in the White Buffalo Saloon (there’s the head of a white buffalo on the wall)
and at 6 went into dinner. Unfortunately, they were out of the Wagyu brisket that John wanted (“the truck didn’t come in today”) so John had steak tacos and I had two appetizers – shrimp and grits – which was a triangle patty of cheese grits deep fried with barbequed shrimp and oyster nachos. There is a restaurant near us in San Antonio called Fish City that makes amazing oyster nachos, and the Gage ones were good, but Fish City’s are better. As we were waiting for dinner, we saw them setting up for a band on stage, and for a party in the middle area. John asked who was playing, the waitress hemmed and hawed, and then John saw Robert Earl Keen walk in, giving us the answer. For those not acquainted with REK, he is a 60 something year old Texas singer/songwriter, very popular in Texas and Oklahoma, but not as much outside of this area. (website: https://www.robertearlkeen.com/ ) One of my first dates with John was to a Robert Earl Keen concert. The 4th song I memorized for the guitar is his “Merry Christmas from the Family”. He would not be going on until 8:30, it was now 6:20. We asked the waitress if we could hold the table, ten minutes later she came back and said “it’s not a busy night, yes.” We ordered a bottle of wine, and then coffee, and then dessert- slowly. He finally started playing at 9:20 since the private party that had hired him was running behind on their meal.
It was worth the wait, he played until almost 11, and on the way out he walked right by our table. We did tip the waitress well. We drove back along the two-lane rural road between Marathon and Ft. Stockton listening to one of our other favorite artists – Rachel Laven.
Day 34, Nov. 20th: We slept in until about 8AM – late for us, and then went for a jog along the roads near the hotel which were straight, clear and almost no traffic. A young woman even cheered us on from her car. We gassed up and headed to San Antonio! When got to the house, everything was fine, except for a small leak in the kitchen sink, which explained the weirdly high water bill with us not there.
Day 35-42, Nov. 21-28th: A week of rest in our own home – John replaced the kitchen faucet, had a couple of doctor’s visits, I had a dentist appointment (hi Dr. Kuhl!), we did lots of laundry and reconfigured our packing (we had packed too much of some stuff and not enough of others). We got to meet with friends, I received a Bexar County “Women in Medicine Leadership” award (really nice awards dinner at the Witte Museum). We went downtown one night and saw the Christmas tree by the Alamo.
Luckily, Book Club was the Sunday I was in town so I got to see my lady friends (I hadn’t had a chance to read the book – “The Testaments” by Margaret Attwood, but I was forgiven). We managed to eat at all of our favorite restaurants – Julian’s for their pizza, Fish City with neighbors, Brenda’s with running friends, Hot Joy, Charlie Brown’s (twice), and Yummi Sushi and grill with friends. Thanksgiving I did the 4-mile Turkey Trot (they had a great race shirt this year)
and chatted with friends Mike and Jenna who had brought two of their dogs. Jenna is recovering from an elbow fracture but has made a wonderful recovery with great range of motion! John and I ate smoked turkey wings and garlic mashed potatoes with asparagus and biscuits for dinner, complemented by a California sauvignon blanc we bought for $4 at the 99c store. We used the nice glasses, and that helps any wine taste better. It wasn’t as good as the New Zealand sauvignon blancs (it lacked the very strong citrus flavor that region is known for), but overall pleasant and well worth the $4. The rest of Thanksgiving Day was spent alternating watching football, cleaning the house, and double checking the packing for the next eight or so months!