Texas grows 'em BIG

The TX work trip was o.k. I had to be there and there was no point in being miserable. Since I didn't have Furry Husband or horses or dogs or cats or dairy goats, I worked out each morning in the hotel's gym or would swim laps in the hotel pool.

I walked each day to Twin Sisters and it was simple and tasty. I really love that little place with it's wonderful breads, soups and salads. It is comfort through and through.

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The first night there, I stopped at a place called Zinc for dinner. It's a wine bar with a great little patio (IF you wanted to sit in the humidity and heat... I'm sure it's wonderful in winter when temps drop into the 90s). Fabulous! I had the special for $18, a small salad garnished with goat cheese... you know they had my heart with the goat cheese... and a petite filet mignon with grilled asparagus and a little potato medley. I like my filets rare enough a good vet might still be able to save 'em and that filet practically melted in my mouth. I ordered a nice pinot from the Carneros region in CA and appreciated a lovely, light meal in the city.

Tuesday I went to a place called DeWeese's Tip Top Cafe. It was featured on the Food Network's Diner's Drive-In's and Dives hosted by Guy Fieri. People from work were skeptical but my high energy suckered 'em into giving it a whirl. Who doesn't like a little adventure when you travel?

I coerced 9 other people into sharing 2 taxi's and heading to the Tip Top for chicken fried steaks the size of your face. The onion rings were incredible... the fried chicken would put the best home grown Southern cook to shame and the chicken fried steak was fabulous. One woman we were with ordered chicken livers. I've never had liver in my entire life.

We passed plates around so everyone could get a sample of just about everything. I had my first liver. It was a lot more tender than I thought it would be. I figured Furry Husband had foie gras in France on a "work trip" at a French winery served by white gloved wait staff... how different could chicken livers in a Texas dive be? grin. I didn't mind them but only had a bite to see what it was all about.

We ordered one slice of each kind of pie - custard, buttermilk and chocolate ice box. Our waitress told us the pie was going fast so we ordered it before dinner. I did NOT share my chocolate ice box pie. Someone almost lost a finger trying to get a bite.

The only thing about TX that freaked me out were the crickets. Evidently there is a massive cricket migration in August? Crickets the size of your big toe or bigger and they were spastic! Jumping and pinging and flying willy nilly all over the place.

The hotel had letters about them and if you had one in your room, someone would come up to remove them. One woman at our conference came back up to her room to find over TWO DOZEN crickets leaping to and fro all over her room, bed, belongings....

If I woke up to crickets in my hair, I would definitely need to be locked away because I may never stop screaming. Every Twilight Zone sort of t.v. show or movie involving masses of insects ran through my mind.

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NONE of those situations ever turned out well.

I was sort of waiting to see some gigantic 50 foot cricket peering in my hotel window at night, mandibles working and antennae waving grotesquely. It probably didn't help I was reading a Peter Straub horror novel... "lost boy, lost girl". (GREAT read by the way if you like a little spine tingle now and again)

I am so happy to be back here in my dry climate with crickets of normal size and the sort that hide in the shadows and don't want to be seen.

I love Colorado. There is no place like home.