As promised in the last issue we will mention the good restaurants that we have visited, even though we don't frequent them as often as some other people do. We also like buffets as opposed to ordering off the menu, but we have done both in recent months.
Furr's Family Dining
Tucson, AZ
Furr's has an excellent buffet with an unusual serving style. You pick up your food in regular buffet style, but it is served to you in portions. Then you must reorder through a kitchen window. It's different.
Golden Corral
Tucson, AZ
We had eaten at Golden Corral before in San Antonio, and it was very good. Here we went to them and had they're Breakfast Buffet. It was excellent and required a 3 hour nap afterwards.
El Greco
Nogales, Mexico
We ordered off the menu at El Greco, and the food was delicious. They also gave each of us a free Margarita with our lunch. What's not to like about that.
C&C Wings
Brownsville, TX
The proprietor's mother invented Buffalo Wings in Buffalo, New York. Needless to say we ate wings, 140 of them, between the 6 of us, and they were spicy and out of this world good. They had Karaoke also.
Flash floods!
Being folks from Upper Michigan, when we saw signs for Flash Floods we took them seriously.
When we turned southwest to go to Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument from Tucson, the sun was shining and we didn't have a care in the world. About 10 miles out of Tucson the sign read, "Flash Floods next 10 miles." We didn't see a problem until it started raining. Now even U.P. people know that floods are always caused by water. I pondered turning back and waiting for the rain to subside, before continuing on to our distination. We drove on cause it wasn't raining that hard yet, and we had gone almost 10 miles anyway. The rain continued harder, we drove further, but we had lees than a couple of miles left to go..........until we came upon the next 10 mile sign. The harder it rained, the harder I drove. Another sign, another 10 miles. Water was now starting to cross the road in low areas. Another sign, 10 more miles. After 4 signs and 40 miles we were home free.
I think they could have told me that the flood area was the next 40 miles and not 10 miles at a time. Not til we got to Organ Pipe did we find out that the winter rains are usually not what the signs are talking about. They refer mostly to the summer rains which fall all at once and do not soak into the ground, and run off dangerously.
Sometimes when you're in a strange area, things that the locals take for granted can scare the hell out of tourists like us. For the most part, there was no reason for us not to believe that the severity of the rain that was coming down, was certainly enought to produce flooding in an area that was prone to flooding. If I ignore the signs that say AVALANCHE AREA will I still be able to write about it later?
Langtry, Texas
A couple of unique stops were made when we left San Antonio and before we got to Big Bend National Park. One of those stops was Langtry.
There was a movie made several years ago depicting the "Life and Times of Judge Roy Bean," starring Paul Newman. It recorded the trials and tribulations of the man who was, "The law west of the Pecos." The Visitor's Center is a relatively new building which houses the tourist information and the exhibits which tells the story of the man himself. Langtry is about a mile off the main highway but it's well worth the stop if you like historical stuff.
Out back of the Visitor's Center is the original "Jersey Lilly" saloon and the opera house which were built to hold a performance of the renown Lilly Langtry in case she ever accepted Judge Roy's invitation. Along with those two buildings is a cactus garden with the native Texas plants. We got most of our "cactus" education from the visitor center garden. We also visited the gift shop in Langtry and made a couple of purchases. Actually the Visitor's Center and the gift shop are almost the only buildings in Langtry.
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Alamo Village
The second stop along the way was a place called Alamo Village located just north of Brackettville. We drove north on a narrow 2 lane road for about 6 miles, but what a pleasant surprise when we got there. Instead of just a replica of the Alamo, there was an entire village. The "Alamo building" was an exact replica of the original in San Antonio, and was built specifically for the movie, "The Alamo", starring John Wayne. Since that time, the village has been added to and changed according to the need of the Director's and Producers who have been here filming movies and commercials. The movie set was built in 1958-59 and since that time dozens of movies and commercials have been filmed here. At the time, it was the most complete movie set ever built and the first one that had been constructed in Texas.
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Diggin' For Diamonds
While staying at Hot Springs, Arkansas in January, we took a side trip to the Crater of Diamonds State Park. There you can dig for real diamonds, and if you find any, you can keep your booty. When we arrived we immediately went to the Visitor's Center to watch the "how to" movie, and to see if they had any extra buckets to carry the diamonds home in. After the movie, in which every other slide was out of focus, we headed into the fields. They till the soil every month so fresh dirt is always at the surface. You are supposed to sift the soil and then look for small particles in the dirt. So we sifted and looked and looked and sifted. And then sifted some more but no diamonds. We did, however, get sore backs and butts for our trouble. We didn't find anything, but as we were leaving the park, a young couple was in the Visitor's Center with a 1/20th carat diamond they found. RATS!
