Emily is currently on a road trip across the country with her pals from Twin Sister and she asked a few of us girls to write guest posts while she's away. Naturally I said yes.
Emily is in Texas today, so I thought I would share some of the last photos from me and Greg's Texas road trip that I never ended up posting on here. You can see them and the full post over on Emily's blog It Girl, Rag Doll.
Sunglasses: Ray Ban
Top: Beacon's Closet
Jeans: thrifted
Bag: vintage
Shoes: Asos
After a crazy lightning and thunder storm that kept me and Greg up all night in Austin, we headed to San Antonio. We made a very important pit stop on the way: Lockhart, TX. Lockhart is the BBQ capitol of Texas and for good reason. There are probably ten different places to have BBQ for lunch (as well as a bunch of cute antique shops!) but the winner, hands down, was Kruez. They're famous for not having or allowing any kind of BBQ sauce and I can tell you that it doesn't matter because you wont need it. Best brisket ever.
Lockhart is a pretty cute town and their town hall is gorgeous. We sat on a bench on the town hall lawn and scarfed down our various piles of meat before checking out a few antique shops. It really looks like an old western town with the flat store fronts and raised side walks to keep away from the road. I'd like to go back sometime and explore a little more.
Next up was San Antonio and The Alamo! We did the general tour and history related things while we there, but overall The Alamo kind of bummed me out. A huge part of it is missing and it's smack in the middle of down town so it almost feels... too touristy? I guess I'm just used to these kinds of historical sites being in the middle of nowhere, surrounded by fields and giants trees. I felt the same way about Gettysburg too. There were just so many people and ugly monuments everywhere that it was hard to actually picture what the place used to look like, which I've discovered ruins the romance of it for me.
I was really happy to experience The Alamo regardless and I'm positive that I won't ever forget it.
Top: stolen from my mom
Skirt: Steven Alan
Bag: vintage
Shoes: Asos
Well, here they are - the first round (of many) of pictures from our Texas trip from the end of March.
These are from our very first day when we drove from Houston to Austin. We stopped at Mikeska's BBQ, which is where I'm sitting in the first picture, mostly because Greg was hungry but also because it's where he and his dad always stopped on the way to Austin when Greg was little. The food wasn't anything special (especially compared to Kreuz) but it did the trick. Plus the decor was amazing, as you can see.
We went straight to the state capitol when we arrived in Austin and we were lucky enough to get into the building before it closed for the day. The Texas legislature only meets once every two years so the building was a ghost town. It really is a beautiful place and I highly recommend visiting it if you ever have the chance. Here's an interesting fact: you can find a painted portrait of every single Texas governor ever within the walls of the capitol. Also, Texans love Sam Houston.
Greg also suggested that I mention that the Texas Capitol is taller than the US Capitol building and that there are four monuments to the Confederacy on the grounds (even though Sam Houston opposed secession).
More Texas history and trivia is on the way so hold tight!
P.S. I was really happy to add to my growing collection of photos of myself with cannons during this trip and Greg enjoyed adding to his pictures-of-liz-being-annoyed-as-I-take-an-extreme-close-up-of-her-face collection.
Well, I'm back from Texas and in NYC safe and sound. The wedding was lovely, the food was delicious, the rodeo was ridiculous, the terrain was dry and the sky was big.
If you follow me on Twitter or Instagram, you may have caught on that the end of our trip was nothing less than a disaster. Here is a list of terrible things that happened:
- Some kind of bug bit my arm in Big Bend which caused it to swell up to the size of grapefruit. It only got worse after our first full day there, so we decided to head back on Friday instead of Saturday. It was a real bummer because we ended up only having onefull day in the park and there is just so much to see and do.
- Greg's flight had not been properly booked online and not only did he not have a ticket home, but the flight was sold out.
- I booked my flight home for April 1 not March 25. Changing my flight was going to cost $400 and buying a new ticket was going to be $800. On top of all this was the fact that Greg was supposed to start his new job in NH on Monday morning.
- Booked new flights only to find out that we could drive Greg's mom's car to NH instead of having it shipped.
- Drove 130 miles in said car when it started to shake and then the tire tread flew off ripping the plastic siding, tire cover and bumper off with it.
- Stayed in Lake Charles, LA overnight, woke up early to go to the Honda dealership only to learn that all the tires have dry rot and need to be replaced.
- Go to Firestone and wait 2 hours for the tires to get changed.
After two wasted travel days we made it to Birmingham, Alabama and then on Tuesday drove 18 hours to New York. Needless to say, it was an incredibly shitty way to end our vacation.
The only good thing about all of this was being together. Greg and I are a great team and despite all the madness and stress, we figured it all out and pushed through. Not many people can say they drove for 18 hours straight with one other person and didn't want to kill each other at the end.
And so begins Greg's 7 month stint in NH and my 7 month experiment with living alone. Here's hoping it goes better than our trip home from Texas.
As you read this I will be on my way to Newark Airport to hop on a plane to Houston for Greg's mom's wedding. Afterwards, we're going on on a week long road trip across the Lonestar Star State.
The plan is to get delicious BBQ in Lockhart, hang out in Austin, visit the Alamo, see some art in Marfa and end the trip with three nights of camping, hiking, canoeing, rafting and s'more eating in Big Bend.
This feels like an extra special trip because it was almost two years ago that Greg and I took our very first big road trip from Pennsylvania to Corinth, Mississippi. It's also the last time we're going to get to spend a chunk of quality time together from now until the end of the presidential election in November (If you missed this in my last post, Greg is moving to New Hampshire to work on the Obama reelection campaign). It's for those reasons, and the fact that I really haven't had a vacation since St. Croix last August, that I am super excited to get out of New York.
I'm going to try my damnedest to keep up with this thing while I'm on the road, and at the very least keep up my "What I'm wearing today" posts on Instagram, but I apologize in advance if things are quiet over here.
See y'all in 10 days!
