Broken Spoke, Austin TX. An original classic old time western hillbilly watering hole. Get the feeling Willy Nelson or other old time western musicians will come to life and play at this Joint. Also get the feeling Clint Eastwood would saunter in off one of his old spaghetti westerns, order a double, and tip his sombrero cowboy hat and settle in a corner.
Thanks for the suggestions but this trip already happened. Ill edit subject when i get home unless i can figure out how using the phone
@AceCuddlerMike - thanks for posting the map pics! What a journey! Well done! How many total days was it?
@Sideon 17....we left on 29 August and got home on the 14th of this month. Figured I would start writing about it tonight....so here goes....
28 August - With the talking finally over and the planning just about finished, the long awaited road trip across the US was a day away. Having gone back and forth on whether to drive my fuel chugging (15mpg) F-150 or to rent something, I settled on a rental when I found a Nissan Versa for $30 per day, unlimited mileage. The catch was, I had to get a ride to Sterling, VA, near Dulles Airport in order to get this deal, as a Fairfax pickup added $12. Not total, per day! Yeah that's about what I said! As it turned out, the guy I had hired off Craigslist to do some painting in the house I'm selling was heading that way so he took me as soon as he finished at my house.
As I was driving the Versa back home, I noticed that when I hit "seek" on the radio, it was going right past all of the stations I normally listen to. Sports talk, DC 101 (rock/pop), 100.3 (classic rock)......wasn't locking into a single one of them. Not only that, this car had no fine tune! Impossible right? (I later would have hours to read the manual to confirm this). I rolled my eyes. Nissan is Japanese right? They're tech gods, right? I don't think I'd ever even been in a Nissan before so I just figured maybe the Versa is their entry level model, and has a really cheap receiver. The radio did stop on a few stations, so it's not like I would suspect something like maybe I was missing an antenna. More on that later.
While this was going on, my travel partner and best friend Joe was en route from his current home of Smithsburg, Md to my mom's in Catonsville, Md. Days earlier, my mom had asked me if I wanted her pillow top mattress as she had just bought a new one. When I asked her if it was no longer comfortable for her, she said "It's too high! I have to step on a stool to get into bed and I'm getting too old." I then told her that there were plenty of other things we (meaning I) could do to lower her bed, such as swapping frame wheels for pads, getting a lower profile frame, or a lower profile boxspring....or all of the above. "Well I already bought one and it's coming tomorrow". Ah well....."Ok I'll take it". I mean this "used" mattress is a Cadillac(it's an expression, it's not like I'm going to call it a Nissan at this point) compared to the mattresses I obtained off Craigslist for my tenants, so someone is getting a huge upgrade.
Joe lost both of his parents before he was even out of high school, so he's been my mom's second son for quite a while. He rode into our lives on a Big Wheel (actually I imagine his parents brought his Big Wheel in the family vehicle, but when I first saw Joe he was riding that thing) when he was 5 and I was 9. His family moved directly across the street from us, and while we didn't immediately hang in the same circles given our age difference, we were always playing neighborhood sports together. Then he went to Cardinal Gibbons HS and we were there together for 1 year. Then, when it was time for his first job, I got him an interview at the restaurant so he could play on our softball team, which of which I was player, coach and chief recruiter. : )
I asked Joe if he would swing by mom's to get the mattress since he was coming down to spend the night as we planned a super early start to our journey. As bad luck would have it, thunderstorms were in the forecast(note the clouds in the car pic), and rolled in right on schedule. Poor Joe had to tarp and tie the mattress, so he was quite a bit later than planned. I went back to the other rental house and painted some shelving until he was on his way. Mom had made him dinner so they visited for a while as well.
Eventually he made it and we got the mattress inside my house, loaded his bags into the Versa with mine, and got showered and to sleep. The alarm was set for about 5 hours later....
29 August Dark and early as planned, we were off. Joe insists on coffee upon waking up, prioritized right after oxygen. So I made him a cup at the house as the waffle house was more than 30 minutes away and I didn't want to lose him on day one. I was actually the exact same until I recently weaned myself off as part of my pre trip diet. So while this day was the first day off the diet and I did join Joe for Jo every morning, I certainly didn't depend upon it like he did.
I put Waffle House into my gps, more out of habit than anything. I know where it is. I guess I just like that girl's voice. First Waffle House was take out only and we decided to hold out as there was another about an hour away. Great choice as they let us eat inside. With a good breakfast in us, now the journey could begin in earnest....
Since Joe is still a working man, I had planned to do most of the driving so he could stay rested. Having seen him zonk out in my recliner during a movie many times, I had checked to make sure the Versa seats reclined. They went just about flat! But alas, Joe said he doesn't sleep in vehicles very well. Still, I drove the entire first day, around 12 hours total. But the fact that Joe couldn't sleep, combined with him not being very interested in looking for photo ops, made this the last day that I did most of the driving. >: | After my pic of the car after I rented it, I don't have another pic until we had tacos for dinner in Nashville! Sorry!
Anyway, getting ahead of myself. Lunch was the scheduled stop at Souvlaki, near Va Tech in Blackburg. It was basically a diner with Mediterranean style food. We had yummy gyros.
The place I had planned to eat at in Knoxville was closed. We actually found a lot of that the first weekend being Labor Day. So we decided to hold out for the tacos in Nashville. Boy were they worth the wait.
And there were a few people waiting!
I should have gotten pics of the tacos. I had 3 different ones and they were amazing. I think I tried to get a pic but my mouth was faster than my camera shutter.
After Nashville tacos, it was on to Memphis! We arrived after dark, found a place for "hot chicken" since we missed out in Knoxville, and proceeded to burn our mouths quite well. It was a dry rub, I'm guessing it was leftover napalm. My lips still burn! Ow. We checked into our first motel with plans to see where Elvis lived the next day....
That's as close as we got to Elvis! LOL Well, a little closer. We drove up to the guard shack, was told it was $73 per person, and laughed! Yes, well, I laughed. Out loud. I asked the lady if that's where Michael Eisner came after he left Disney. Still, I left it up to Joe. I'd have bitten the bullet if he wanted to see Graceland that badly. He said no thanks. I asked if we could just drive around the grounds, and the lady said that would be $43 (per person, not per vehicle). I asked her if I could make a u turn for free. : | (I was allowed)
Next up was Arkansas! We stopped in the town of Hot Springs and walked around a bit. We had pizza at DeLuca's. It was a good pizza, huge 18" thing! Nothing to go nuts about, but it was good. I mean, pizza generally is.
We stepped into a touristy wild wild west type of place. Apparently a lot of gangsters used to vacation in this town. I didn't know that. We walked "bathhouse row" (like 7-8 famous old bathhouses along the street). We went into one but couldn't go past the door without paying full price. No walking around to see if you wanted to join. : ) I didn't feel like I needed a bath at that moment so we continued on. After we felt that we had walked off our pizza we hopped back into the Versa and set our course for OKC!
I should have known Oklahoma City was going to be one of our favorite stops when we woke up to this
The labor day curse continued as Waffle King was closed. @MelanieL I thought you were taking care of that?
But we would up finding a place in town and had a great breakfast burrito just the same. Think it was called Sidecar. (there was an antique car inside)
Just driving through town we both really liked OKC. In fact, even our motel room was much nicer than what we started out with in Memphis. But the best of OKC for us was yet to come!
I really didn't expect much out of this just from the name, but at $12.50 per person, this was the value of the trip. And it would have been a value at $30. Not only was there plenty of cool info about actual famous cowboys, there was an entire section dedicated to tv and movie cowboys and westerns! And an actual to scale western town main street(which for some reason is in a very dark section of the museum so I didn't get pics of that). On top of all of that, they were in the midst of their annual art exhibit. Each year the museum purchases the winning piece and adds it to the section with winners from previous years, so we got to see those and all of this years pieces!
Amazing oil paintings!
Love this marble sculpture
I'm getting a popup saying "you cannot upload any more files" so IDK if there is a daily limit or if I have to start a new thread or what, but I was about done for tonight anyway.
You can check out the model town I was referring to here......very cool
http://www.martinroznowski.com/western-heritage-museum-oklahoma-city-ok/
Whoa, neat. Reading this thread kinda feels like taking a tour of your road trip. You got to see some sweet stuff! I especially liked the picture of the village. The way those people built on and into the stone is awesome (and really cool-looking). Thanks for sharing, @AceCuddlerMike—I appreciated it.
@AceCuddlerMike "I guess I just like that [ GPS] girl's voice".
Talking SatNavs are vastly under-rated as travelling companions. 😀