A great and filling visit!

As I hinted before we left, we knew our visit with Larry and Mary Ellen was going to involve food, vast quantities of excellent food, and it surely did!  We were reminded right away that Texas is a big ass state, it looked like just a hop, skip, and a jump from Longview to Georgetown, but it was 5+ hours and over 250 miles, we even got so far out there that we saw the Starship Pegasus had landed.

Beam me up Scotty

We were welcomed into their beautiful home, and enjoyed a catch up visit before we headed out for amazing burgers at Hardtails Bar and Grill.  When I say amazing, I say that with the utmost respect, as these are right up there with Bobcat Bite's incredible green chili cheeseburgers, the absolute best we have ever had.  So we, of course, stuffed ourselves with deliciousness amid the rain showers and headed back.  Yeah, forgot to take a picture:-(

The rain persisted all night, and they really need it so a good thing.  Then off the next day for lunch at what is considered one of the best BBQ's period, not just in Texas, Louie Meuller Barbecue.  It has been in operation since 1949 and at this site in Taylor, TX since 1959.

The grand entrance

Inside, and what an aroma!

Chowing down!

It was fantastic, we all shared brisket, sausage, and beef ribs that were the size of dinosaur ribs!  You can see one of them in the left foreground in the picture.  It was juicy, peppery, and awesome, especially dipped in their "special" dipping sauce.  It's not like barbecue sauce, more like a broth with drippings, hint of tomato and onions, and very peppery.  What a treat!  Then we took a nice ride around, and went back for a supercilious dinner of pork ribs, a la Mary Ellen, who should get her own James Beard award for them.  Then later we were treated to a fantastic bottle of wine they brought back with them from France, way, way higher on the wine tree than we normally or should I say have ever had.  Wow!

Oh yeah, I definitely want some!

It was a short visit with our time constraints, but the weather cleared up, so with a crispness in the air and blue skies, we headed into downtown Austin for a stroll around the Zilker Botanical Garden, and happened upon the Faerie Trail display which was pretty cool and inventive, although we did get the impression that some of the faerie's homes may have taken a blow from mother nature's rainstorms.

It was a peaceful beautiful place only marred by a bit of traffic noise.  Well worth a visit. But then as it was lunchtime, off we went to another bit of culinary delight.  Man vs Food did a review and a contest here at the 30 year old Juan in a Million.  It was busy, busy with the lunch crowd.

Busy!

Yum, yum!

We all had a great lunch, very hot salsa, and boy was it bustling and noisy inside.  A neat Austin institution.  So after a short visit back at the hacienda, we headed, or better yet rolled back up to Longview.  What a great time, thanks, Larry and Mary Ellen, and Mitch!

Then...........we got back and all looked fine, until morning when Jan went out in her bare feet and noticed the rug was wet?????????  Seems with the torrential rain they had, our new AC unit needed a bit more tightening.  The only seal with the roof for the AC units is just the compression of the foam pads to keep the water out.  After installing them you snug it down, then you are supposed to go back in a few weeks and snug it again, whoops, forgot that.  So we tore down the soaked ceiling panel, took it apart to let it dry, snugged the AC's, all of them, cleaned the filters which we needed to do anyway, and now we are all set.  Didn't have anything else to do right?

Ceiling panel dropped.

And, no, we still haven't paid for the tires!