After Carlsbad Caverns we dined at the Velvet Garter Saloon, where a long-expired sheriff oversaw our meal from his frame on the wall above our table. On the table some thoughtful person had placed a small white sign with the sheriff's biography. It listed the names of all the people he had killed with their expiration dates, and noting that he had himself been killed under suspicious circumstances (though everyone thinks Jim Miller did it). Kai has been teaching himself to read, since his parents keep falling asleep when they read to him, and asked me why the sign said "The Kid" (expired approx. 1859). Parental dilemma: disclose that the uniformed police officer on the wall shot The Kid, or create a distraction by inserting a ketchuped french fry in your kid's mouth and asking whether he'd like another? Truth or cholesterol?
We spent the night at a La Quinta, which Liam insists on calling La Cuenta perhaps because you get what you pay for, and then shot down Route 10 to San Antonio to Chong and Myunjia's house. Our kids instantly got down to business playing with their kids, Yeawon and Taejun. Greg drove down from Austin with his daughter and Lauren drove in with Im and their 4 year old daughter. We kept losing Chong under large piles of small children.
Lauren and Im brought Texas barbeque and Chong's mom had made a fried rice dish and cheesecake. As the adults sat down to eat, our exquisitely-trained and well-mannered dog sidled over to the kids' table, stole a pork rib, and dropped it on the carpet so he could get a better grip. Fortunately the kids thought that was hilarious -- our clue that we'd best waddle over and rescue the pork rib was the screaming about the doggie throwing up on the floor.
Despite Yeawon's generous invitation to stay another week or at least leave her the dog, we headed east through Houston, home of my favorite employment discrimination case from my stint at the Justice Department (the employer allegedly called his Iranian employees "camels"), to Baytown where the GPS promised us mouth-watering ribs at Granny's BBQ. I don't know what happened to Granny. Where the GPS insisted her spirit remained, our grosser senses detected only a muffler shop. Maybe you really can see some things better from the heavens. We departed in respectful silence and consoled ourselves with creamed corn and ribs at King's Barbeque.
It's a half hour from Baytown to Winnie's Lodge and RV Park in Winnie, TX, where I am making a sorry attempt to complete the edits to my now untimely law review article.
-Juliet
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