Today was tons of fun. We woke up and headed to downtown San Antonio to visit the Alamo. Locals there take that place seriously...by this I mean that there were signs that said, "This is hallowed ground. Quiet please. Gentlemen, remove your hats." In general, folks from Texas take a lot of patriotic stuff seriously...more on that when we get to the rodeo.
After leaving the Alamo, we did something that we've not done since we left Spartanburg: We actually traveled north on an interstate! We're excited for this because the heat wave is supposedly ending soonish and Texas has searing heat.
We went to the hill country outside of Austin and ate at the Salt Lick. No kidding, this may have been the best meal we've ever eaten. All of the meat is cooked over these huge stone pits like the this one:
It was so good, I felt compelled to buy a t-shirt there...and I never buy t-shirts at full price!
Next, we went to downtown Austin to stop for a rest break and eat some rocket tots.
That's Austin...
Anyway, drove a little further north and went to a rodeo. Most folks we saw were dressed in typical cowboy attire; boots, fancy leather belt, fancy cowboy shirt, and big ol' hat. We stuck out. Everyone there looked dressed well enough to be going to church. I guess rodeos are fancy events??
The whole things started with a 10 minute salute to the troops. Then we moved on to some indoor fireworks and big American flags being waved around by red, white, and blue cow girls. Then it came time for the singing of the National Anthem. The announcer introduced the singer by saying, "It's been called the greatest song on earth!" I'm not sure who is supposed to have said that, but I can guarantee that that person was an American who had never traveled abroad.
Then came the pre-rodeo prayer. Here is a fairly accurate quote of what was said, "Dear Lord Jesus Christ, sitting upstairs, smiling down on us here in the Lone Star State, in the greatest nation on earth, America..." Hannah and I were laughing pretty hard but got kind of scared because everyone else around us was in hearty agreement with everything that was said. Those folks LOVE America.
The events were fairly fun to watch. The first was mutton bustin', which I believe anyone on earth could enjoy. Who wouldn't love seeing kids under the age of 6 holding on to a bucking sheep for dear life? We also saw calf and cow wrangling, bucking broncos, and then bull riding.
Here's a video of one of the events. It was funny how he just man-handled that poor little guy.
Overall, we didn't travel too far and made lots of stops along the way. We plan on heading out tomorrow to drive through Dallas, then head north and east toward Memphis. If we make it all the way to Memphis tomorrow, that will be a 9 hour drive...if we just aren't feeling like it, we'll either stop in Little Rock, Arkansas, or Atlanta, Texas.
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