Here’s a few pics from our Christmas journey. We went to Fort Worth (194 miles) for one night to see my first college roommate Danny Torres, then to Shreveport (232 miles) for one night including dinner with my second college roommate Robert Willis (and we were hoping to have breakfast with Ashley, but she got sick) , then we drove to Bald Knob, AR (280 miles) for a two night stay with my parent’s families, then to Siloam Springs (251 miles) for an evening with my parents and sister, then we left the next afternoon and made a motel stop in Gainesville, TX (275 miles) so we could break up the long drive back home to Austin (another 250 miles). That’s a total of 1483 miles not counting side trips to drug stores for forgotten toothpaste, Olive St Bistro, Murrell’s, or Wal-Mart for last minute Christmas gifts.

      
We stayed at the Fairfield Inn in Shreveport. It’s a really comfy B&B that allows small pets and has this awesome elephant topiary in the front yard. The Fairfield Inn is just down the street from one of Shreveport’s two circular buildings, the Fairfield Towers. In the shadows of this strangely abandon cool building you will find the Edgemont Tea Room and the elegant Olive St. Bistro.

    
Murrell’s is a classic diner at the intersection of two keys roads in Shreveport. It was serving up the “best pies ever” to the Caddo Indians way back before they got wiped out by smallpox. We stopped in for dessert the night before, and then for breakfast on our way out of town. Becky went with scrambled eggs and grits — I gotta start making those at home — while I went for an old-fashioned burger with jalapeño and onion hashbrowns (and I took Becky’s bacon). I don’t miss a lot about Shreveport but Murrell’s is a real draw for me.

  
We had to stop in Fouke, AR to get a picture of The Boggy Creek Monster. Why are there two pictures? C’mon! Look at that dog! I swear she had to be a show dog. As soon as I raised the camera(phone), she posed — she actually posed.

My aunt and uncle live 2.5 miles past the pavement on Liberty Valley Road outside Bald Knob, AR. (Yes, the town infamously referenced in Beavis and Butthead.) It’s near the banks of the Little Red River, just a stone’s throw from where it meets the White River. It’s a fine example of America’s quickly disappearing delta wetlands and even features a nearby protected fowl life sanctuary. While we were there we probably saw thousands of geese overhead and in the rice fields.

It may be just me, but this tchotchke in my aunt’s bathroom just didn’t seem right. Here is this poor snowman who has slipped through the ice and his buddy is smiling beatifically at the heavens, leisurely reaching over to pull his friend out…and the guy in the icy water is also smiling beatifically at the heavens. Shouldn’t someone in this scene feel a little sense of urgency? Maybe not, though. Maybe icy pond water is just like a sauna for snowmen.

One of my Dad’s newfound retirement distractions is feeding a flock of Goldfinches. That’s them on the spiral feeder on the right. At times there are 15-20 of them fluttering around it, and he swears that in the summer they are the color of canaries.

Bonus Pic:

The night before we left Austin our dinner was from our favorite to-go joint, El Chilito, which offered this holiday beverage treat.