Sunday, August 19th
The three of us basked in the air conditioning for as long as we could before rolling out of bed in search of breakfast. I had been in Austin a few months earlier for my friend Pat’s bachelor party. About 12 of us had ventured out and found the best Mexican breakfast I had ever had. So this time I was determined to find it again for Robin and Peter.
We wandered and wandered and wandered, and I knew that we were not getting any closer. When Robin and Peter were ready to kill me, I looked up and we were about a block from the hotel where we had stayed for Pat’s party. At that moment I remembered that the breakfast place had been a recommendation of the concierge at the Omni.
I marched up the hill and into the lobby and there was Robert – pronounced RoBEAR – the same guy who was so helpful for our bachelor party trip. He had the same suit, the same slicked hair, and the same earpiece to stay in touch with whatever army of staff he was radioed in with.
“I’m looking for a breakfast recommendation,” I announced, over the throngs of tourists in the busy lobby.
“We like Las Manitas on Congress Street between 2nd and 3rd,” responded RoBEAR, quickly.
I didn’t let him finish – I knew I had the place. We paced quickly down Congress Street and walked in, very ready to eat.
Las Manitas has a cool setup. The front is a very plain, booth style breakfast joint. The kitchen is in the middle of the restaurant, and patrons seated in the back section walk through it, ducking Spanish language shouts for orders and whatever else. Kitchen staff made huevos rancheros and fresh tortillas right there for everyone to see.
We were escorted out to the back patio, a tightly packed mix of picnic tables and backyard furniture. Like many spots in Austin, the roof was mostly constructed of blue tarps. We sat and enjoyed good coffee and a traditional Mexican breakfast. This was a far cry from the free breakfast served at the roadside hotels of the first several days of our trip. Belgian waffles were not on the menu.
After a short post-breakfast siesta at the Sheraton, we were back out on foot to see the city. We walked toward the Texas State House and did a quick lap there – inside and out – masking the scoff we all let out as we walked by the portrait of W on the wall of Governors.
We were pleased to hear the official tour guide say that Lyndon Johnson has a giant portrait and other honors at the building because he was a president actually born in Texas, Dubbs being born in Connecticut, despite the phony public brush-clearing image.
From the State House, we headed back out into the heat and walked toward the University of Texas Tower, where the August 1, 1966 shooting occurred. We circled and finally found our way into the building, making our way as far as the elevator to the top of the tower. But that was as far as we made it. The tower is restricted to staff who work there.
The walk back to the Sheraton felt like forever. The heat had become even more oppressive. We stopped for an emergency TCBY yogurt stop, a drink of water, and another 20 minutes in the air conditioning.
We took an afternoon pool break, sitting on lounge chairs and marveling at the amount of leaves in the pool. It looked like no one had cleaned it in months.
We cleaned up and made our way out for a little bit of mini golf. I had been staring at my clubs in the back seat of the car for more than a week so I needed to do some sort of golf-related activity. We arrived at a place that backed up to some railroad tracks and had liquor bottles along the outer fences. We paid the fee and ‘teed off’ so to speak.
The fun game quickly turned into ‘let’s see how fast we can finish this.’ We were all sweating so profusely that we almost walked off the course just to get back into the air-conditioned car. When I would bow my head to look down towards the ball, sweat would literally drip down off of my face onto the green. Robin got the only hole-in-one of the day. Only it was in the wrong hole. By this time we were totally amused at the hilarity of the situation. We had a very awkward 16/17 year-old couple behind us who were clearly on a date that wasn’t going very well. Robin’s hole-in-one was in the hole they were playing. They were not amused.
When the course mercifully ended, we were on our way to a place that has lived in my memory since my freshman year of college when I was a rower on the Colorado Crew Team. We spent our spring break training in Waco, Texas, rowing on the Brazos River and living in Baylor University’s dorms. I learned quickly that people in Waco don’t like to talk about the Branch Davidians.
Sorry for the digression. At the end of our week of training, we went out to a BBQ spot called The Salt Lick, about 30 minutes from Austin in the middle of nowhere. I remembered it being so good and so much fun that I was determined to take Robin and Peter.
The three of us followed the directions from their Web site and pulled in, just in time for early dinner. Sure enough, a large ranch gate and a security guard armed with a 10-gallon cowboy hat and a pistol on his belt welcomed us into the large parking lot. We put our names on the list and sat and listened to country music and sipped freshly squeezed lemonade. When it was time to sit, we all ordered ‘family style’ and in about a nanosecond, a mountain of food arrived. All kinds of BBQ meat surrounded by potato salad, beans, pickles, etc. arrived in one wave after another. The waitress was on the ball – never letting anything on the table get lower than the halfway mark.
Restaurant staff wore shirts that read, “I didn’t get this high on the food chain to become a vegetarian.”
I apologized again to Peter and Robin for not noticing on the Web site that the Salt Lick is BYOB. We drank Cokes and watched party after party arrive with an average of no fewer than 12 beers per person in (sometimes rolling) coolers.
After eating to the point of sitting awkwardly, we strolled out past our armed guard, had a picture taken in the parking lot, and headed back into Austin. The road out to the Salt Lick became much more difficult to navigate after dark so I was secretly glad that alcohol was not available.
Because we just wanted to say we did, we headed out to Austin’s 6th Street for a quick drink before turning in for bed. Robin and I had over 900 miles to go the next day and Peter had an early flight. The walk from the hotel up to 6th street was marked by several interesting sights including some low-grade gang activity any many homeless people in poorly lit roadside spots. It was enough to opt for a cab back to the hotel.
We found a relatively quiet bar with a rooftop deck and a band. The band never really played, they just warmed up for about 45 minutes. We didn’t care. We sat and sipped cans of beer and talked about the day.
Exhausted, we sat in the back of the minivan while the cab driver told us stories about the lunatics he had driven, casually blending racial slurs into the diatribe.
After a very restful 18 hours at the Hilton in Tucson, we had a short day ahead of us so there was no real hurry. We stopped at Rubio’s for burritos and crossed our fingers one last time that the Subaru would survive another day of desert driving with the RPMs pegged and the A/C on full blast.
