I Warned You, More Food

After an overnight along the way we ended up in Llano, TX, why, for food obviously.  Llano is home to Cooper's BBQ, a place we have been to quite a few times over the years.  It is real Texas bbq, briskets done in wood fired pits for 14 plus hours, along with many other things, such as beef ribs, pork ribs, prime rib, huge pork chops, sausage, cabrito, etc.  Now the way it works is you line up, usually, but this visit there was no real line, but still busy.  You walk up to a pit that has all the offerings in it, and tell the man what you want and how much of it you want.  This is a racket, because no matter how careful you think you are being, you buy way, way, way too much.  But that's okay cause it makes for at least 3 meals for us.  We decided this time it was going to be mostly brisket, with a small piece of prime rib for me, and a beef rib for Jan.  He puts in on a plastic tray and then you enter the building where it is cut and weighed, you pick out your delicious cobbler, you have to:-)  Then move on and pay by the pound, then you find a seat and go get the amazing pinto beans in huge cauldrons on the side, eat yourself silly, then wrap up everything extra and take it with you.  A great experience, we highly recommend.

This picture really doesn't do this justice,
there is about 4 pounds of brisket here, juicy moist, terrific brisket

Not fancy, in the rough, but great!

Texas is in bloom right now, wild flowers everywhere, we took several rides around after replacing our truck battery:-(  When we pulled into Llano and went to unhook we found out we couldn't unlock the doors, so we actually had to use a key!!!  Then it was dead as a doornail, we asked our neighbor if he would jump us, he came right over, and we got it started, but we couldn't get the electronic transfer case to operate, fiddled and fiddled until we were able to move it enough to get it disconnected.  Since it moved, I tried to drive it a bit to see if it would fix itself, but it was actually stuck in 4 wheel low, not good, because now we can't drive it anywhere, nor tow it.  Also none of the ridiculous amount of electronic gobbly-gook worked either, caution messages all over.  After we let it idle for about an hour, I crossed my fingers and shut it off, let it sit for a bit, and restarted it, and thankfully that must have reset the transfer case so we were able to get it in 2 wheel drive, but still nothing else worked, no cameras, no climate control, caution messages, etc.  I drove over to a parts store and they had to order a battery that would come in the next day, it did and thankfully it started up and they installed it.  I started it back up and still no electronics, camera, climate, etc.  We took a several hour 100 mile ride and it still didn't come back!?!?!?  When we got back we shut it off and let it sit for a couple hours, and when we started it back up, all was well, everything restored.  Sure tells me I don't understand much about these new fangled vehicles.  Anyway, we're all set now.

We were close to Fredericksburg, so we wanted to head that way for a ride and to get some German food.  It is a town and area with German heritage, and lots of German restaurants, plus Jan wanted to go to a large grocery store there.  As we made our way through town looking for the restaurant we picked, we saw a Stetson hat store.  I have looking for a new fishing hat for some time, my original Stetson straw hat has a bunch of holes in it.  But first to lunch, we went to a place called The Auslander, and were very pleased.

Jan's bratwurst, sauerkraut, and potato salad

My Jaeger Schnitzle, pork with mushroom gravy, red cabbage, and potato salad

After lunch we walked around a bit and headed for the hat store.  I want to mention one other thing, our experience here in Texas, in fact not only here, but everywhere we have been so far this year is a return to normality, very few masks, lots and lots of people, I know for us the vaccine has given us a feeling of freedom and comfort in these situations that had always been normal until last year.  It is nice to see it.

I was even able to find a hat!

We took a roundabout way back, enjoying the views and all the flowers.  But our time here is over and westward bound we go.

The view from our campground

Jan even found time to make an awesome apple fritter coffee cake!

On The Move

We left Townsend with a specific destination in mind, the Gulf Shores area for food, can you imagine?  We had a hankering for oysters and shrimp and also intended to buy a bunch of fresh off the boat shrimp for the freezer.  Our first stop was a quick overnight outside of Montgomery and then to Summerdale, AL to the Rainbow Plantation Escapee park.  Escapee's is a club we have been members of for a long, long time, Jan's parents were members and we joined maybe back in 1996 or so.  They are advocates for full timing, work camping, boon docking info, domicile issues, mail forwarders, and have several parks around the country that are very affordable.  But our lifestyle has moved us away from their parks, but we decided to stay there while in the Gulf Shores area and try them again.  It was fine, it certainly was affordable but parking on mostly sand and other considerations, we'll probably not visit there again.

Making the best of it:-)

But the food we found!  First off we went to Acme Oyster House, a small chain that we have frequented many times in the NOLA area and have always been pleased with their consistently good food.  We saw they had opened one in Gulf Shores so we went and ordered oysters, when they came out they looked perfect, great size, plump, clean, even a baker's dozen.

Smiling at each other we picked one up and popped it into our mouths and wowser, they were the saltiest oysters we ever put in our mouths, maybe the saltiest thing we had ever put in our mouths!  We figured since the Appalachia beds had been closed this was the new normal in the area, but on to the poboy and onion rings.

And they were good, but not great

We hoped we weren't going to strike out for our visit.  Off to scope out fish for dinner, and check out the fresh shrimp.  Billy's is the place to go.  We go in, look around, get some red snapper for dinner and the lady asks if we'd be interested in soft shell crabs, they just came in and they are wonderful she said.  We had never cooked them before, and had rarely even eaten them but our memory was they were good, so we opted to try 2 of them and had them clean them.  They were wonderful!  You eat the entire crab.  They are only available in certain times of the year and are considered a delicacy.

Very soft and completely edible

I dredged them lightly in seasoned flour and topped them in a pan

Served up, crispy outside, crabby inside, delish!

So the next day we planned to go into Fairhope and go to another great restaurant we had been to, and was still getting rave reviews, Panini Pete's, but when we got to town, streets were blocked, cars were parked absolutely everywhere, people were everywhere, huh?  Turned out we hit the 69th Annual Arts and Craft Festival, so we punted and went to yet another restaurant we liked, Fish River Grill, now when we had been there before there was only one of them and now there are several with one handy on the outskirts of Fairhope.  We had a delicious lunch there, we split a shrimp poboy with OMG sauce on it.  OMG sauce is this delicious crawfish like gravy that would even make a flip flop taste good, hence OMG:-)

We drove around a bit, and planned out our last day there.  We had to do a little grocery shopping, have lunch and then go back to Billy's to get 6-7 pounds of shrimp.  We opted to go to the Shrimp Basket for lunch.  And man were we glad we picked this place, we had one of those lunches that are truly memorable, excellent even down to the service.  They had raw oysters of course and we debated and finally decided to try a dozen between us to see if the salty thing was unique or not.  They were wonderful oysters, so we don't know if Acme got their's somewhere different, but these were excellent, we scarfed them down so fast we forgot to take a picture until we were done:-)

Then Jan had a bowl of gumbo and I had a fried shrimp basket with some of the best onion rings we have had anywhere.  Lunch was an absolute hit.

That finished off our time in Gulf Shores and now we are making our way to Arizona by way of Texas, and yes with a few more food destinations I'll share later.  We spent last night in Vidalia, LA, just across the Mighty Mississippi River from Natchez, MS right on the water at Riverview RV Park.

Westward ho.