Conley Update

Yesterday we all drove down to San Antonio. I used some points to book two rooms in a hyatt place. The actually messed up our reservation, so I got my points back, so Sara and I have two more nights available. Titus LOVED the room and jumping around on the couches.

In addition, we ate at a local favorite, Henry’s Puffy Tacos. It was delicious. We ended the night playing two games of Apples to Apples. I won both. Woo hoo. Now Sara and I are waiting to get on the flight. On to Mexico!

We just finished round two of the Texas BBQ Challenge. The top five BBQ joints in Texas are within a hour of our Austin home. About a month ago we visited Smitty’s Market in Lockhart and today we ate at Louie Mueller’s Barbeque in Talyor, TX. My parents are in town visiting and we figured we’d take them out for some real Texas BBQ. I can easily see why this place is in the top five. It was awesome.

According to the Texas Monthly magazine, I knew we had to try the briscuit, the jalapeno sausage and the beef ribs. We ended up ordering all of those including pork ribs and pork loin.

The environment was perfect. It was hot! The place doesn’t have air conditioning, but the large screen windows and the high powered fans keep it pretty cool, even for the 103 high we experienced today. All the walls of this high ceilinged restaurant was covered in 60 years of BBQ soot. One wall is covered with thousands of business cards form the years, all browned with age and smoke.

Unlike Smitty’s Market or Cooper’s in Llando, the BBQ pits are in the back where you can’t really see them as much. However, of the BBQ Big Wigs I’ve been too lately, the staff at Smitty’s were the friendliest. Sara spent five or six minutes talking to the owner about peaches and when they are in season. It helped that they weren’t too busy, but they were genuinely nice people.

I do feel like we’re getting better at knowing how to order at these places. Our first experience cost us more than $50 and we had more left over than we ate. This time the five of us ate well, only had a little left over and spent just over $50.

Let me say, all of it was INCREDIBLE! My favorite was the briscuit and the jalapeno sausage. However, I’m going to have to say that between Louie Mueller and Smitty’s, I’m going to go with Smittys. We’ll see what happens as we continue to sample Texas’ Top Five.

Next week Sara and I will celebrate our 10th wedding anniversary! Woo Hoo! My parents are coming to Austin to watch Mr. T. while Sara and I shoot off to Playa De Carmen for five days. From the beginning I had planned to actually take several days off before we left for Playa to really get into the vacation mode before leaving. As a result, Sara and I have been working really hard at getting everything done that we needed to accomplish to leave for vacation a week before we left for Playa. Then, last week our good friends JD and Shelby invited us to go to their family’s lake house on Possum Kingdom lake.

As a result, I only slept four hours a night for the last three nights and last night Sara only slept two. We’re about 95% done with everything, but we opted to go to the lake with our friends even though we didn’t get everything done. So, we’re officially on vacation mode right now. We’ll come home on Sunday for another day of work/errands, but then we’ll be back in vacation mode by Monday evening when my parents arrive.

So, here are some pics from the day on the lake. It was pure awesomeness!