Florida Everglades

I got a chance to do something I've always wanted to do; an air boat ride in the Everglades.

The boat I was on is on the far right, I forget the name. It had two motors and two massive props. Unfortunately the captain neve got it going very fast. We never went faster than 25-30 MPH, I'm sure it can do much better than that, but I guess when you have a boat full of tourists you have to scale it back a bit.

The ride was pretty interesting we saw about a half dozen alligators, some turtles and a few birds. The captian also talked a lot about how the eco-system in the everglades works, and hwo humans affect it. The craziest part for me is that they estimate there are over 100,000 Burmese Pythons in the everglades, and in the next 10 years they expect the numbers to reach over 500,000. This is all just from people having them as pets and then releasing them into the wild, eventually they find each other and breed.

The first gator we saw, he was about 10 feet long.

They feed them dog biscuits, so they get pretty close to the boat.

Right here I could have reached out and touched this guy. A little part of me really wanted to. I'm pretty sure on dry land I could take a gator, but in the water, he may just get the best of me, so I kept my hands to myself.

A bit smaller guy, this one, I could take for sure, but we didn't get close enough for me to try.

A buzzard. Gross. The second creepiest of all birds.

We saw some turtles as well, but my pictures didn't turn out very good.

Once we got back to land they have some exhibits of some animals, so I wandered around that for a bit and snapped some photos.

Some Burmese Pythons, just for Jonas.

A big ass turtle, I don't have much patience for reading signs, so I can't really tell you what most of this stuff actually is.

Some medium ass turtles.

This guy was about 12 feet long, I think he'd give me a run for my money, even on land.

An American Crocodile. They're not native to the part where I was, but further south, near Miami they have them in the wild.

A panther, I thought they were all black, I guess not? There are still some Panthers in the wild down here, but they think there are only about 100 or so, so seeing them in the wild is almost unheard of.

All in all it was pretty cool, my only real big disappointment was that they advertised you could hold an alligator, when I got to that area, the gator was about 18" long, and they had the mouth taped shut. If there's no possibility I'm getting bitten, I don't want anything to do with it.

I wish that I was......

Austin and San Antonio

Not too much to talk about lately, I've had a lot of work, and A LOT of driving the last while. I was in Austin for three days, but only really had time to get out one evening. I went to a BBQ place down town called Green Mesquite BBQ. The food was excellent.

I had Brisket, pulled pork, sausage, fried okra, and cole slaw.  Everything was really good, and I liked that they served it without BBQ sauce so you can put as much or as little on as you like I've always thought that's the way BBQ should be served.

When I saw this Coffee mug, I had to have one, I love to collect coffee mugs, and I thought it was pretty funny. The other side says "Smokin' the good stuff since 1988"

After Austin I headed down to San Antonio for a job. I got my work done fairly early, so I went downtown for a little bit before I headed out of town.

I took a little stroll down the river walk. A lot of different shops and restaurants, pretty neat place to get out of the blazing Texas sun.

I also went to the Alamo.

The Alamo was pretty interesting, it was cool to learn about this piece of Texas, and American History.

I left San Antonio and headed over to Houston for a couple days. I've always believed Houston sucked, and this trip did nothing to prove anything different.  I was working pretty much non-stop. The last job I was on, I took a bit of a fall. I was walking across a steel beam and my foot slipped. Luckily, I caught myself on the same beam, because I was working about 70 feet up. The entire right side of my body is basically one big bruise, but a few days later, I've stopped peeing blood, so we'll call this one a win.

I left Houston thankful just to get the hell out of Texas. I was in Louisianan for a day, but didn't really have time to do or see anything. Now I'm in Florida, and if everything goes as planned, hopefully I'll have a bit of free time in the next few days to go see some sights. If so, I'll post.

Dallas Days & Fort Worth Nights

I left Albuquerque and headed back east to Dallas. No short trip for sure. Once there, I checked in to my hotel and settled in to get a good nights rest, or so I thought. About 2 in the morning I woke up to really loud voices dircetly outside my door, I laid there listenting for a bit trying to decide if I was going to go out and yell or not, but then I started paying attention to what they were saying. Turns out, someone checked in to the room next to mine and killed themselves. I'm not really sure how or anything, I just know that I didn't hear a gunshot, but there was a mess to clean up. I laid there the rest of the night mostly just glad that for once I wasn't the one cleaning it up. Though it would be nice to get away from suicide all together. Needless to say, I didn't get much sleep the rest of my time in Dallas.

I had a lot of jobs to do, so I didn't get a whole lot of free time. I did manage to get out one day between jobs and headed over to the Sixth Floor Museum. This is a museum in the building that JFK was shot from. If you're ever in Dallas, I highly recommend taking the time to check it out. It's pretty interesting and incredibly sobering. My only real complaint was that they didn't allow photos inside the museum.

After I walked out I decided to walk around and take some photos of the area. While doing so, I ran into Don. Don is a "freelance" tour guide who hangs out outside the museum and offers the "real tour" after which he gives you a sob story about his starving family and asks for $6 of your money. I gave him a buck. Don tends to lean more towards the conspiracy story side of the JFK assassination. Don also was not interested in being photographed. I don't really know what to believe, I don't now that we'll ever know the entire truth, thanks to Jack Ruby.

The Texas School Book Depository. The third window down on the far right is the window Oswald (allegedly) fired from.

This X is painted in the road where the first shot hit Kennedy and then Governor Connally. 

The second X is hard to see, but this is where the second, and fatal bullet struck Kennedy.

The "Grassy Knoll" conspiracy theorists  believe a second gunman fired from.

 

A view up the street from near where the fatal bullet struck JFK.

After I left Dealey Plaza, I wandered around downtown Dallas for a bit. I had every intention of going to a burger joint from DDD but I ended up spotting a Hear Attack Grill.  I saw a show on this a few years ago on the Food Network, and decided I'd go there if I ever got the chance. I wish I hadn't. The food was good, especially the fries (they're fried in pure lard.) But the whole thing was more depressing than anything. They have a deal where, if you weigh over 350 pounds, you get a free Single Bypass Burger (their single burger) there was guy there that was taking advantage of this, and was just plain proud of himself. I found the whole thing tacky.

This is on the front door as you walk in. It's supposed to be funny, I didn't laugh.

I went with the Double Bypass and an order of fries, everything tasted good, but I didn't even come close to finishing.

The whole experience was far from good, but I'd have to say the highlight was my conversation with my "Nurse" (waitress).

Her : So how's your day so far?

Me: Not too bad, yours?

Her: OK, how come you're so lonely?

Me: .................................?

Me: I don't know I'm just in town on business alone.......................

Her: Oh, so you're not from Dallas?

Me: No, I'm from Utah.

Her: Oh, OK. walks away

Interesting to say the least. Anyway, that's all for now, next time I'll be comin' at you from Austin.  Until then.

West Texas and Albuquerque

I left Oklahoma City and headed over to the Texas panhandle. Stayed a night in Amarillo, did a job just north of there, and then Headed down to Midland. Midland is the next town over from Odessa where the movie "Friday Night Lights" takes place. As far as I can tell, there are three things that matter in west Texas; Jesus, Oil, and Football.  And not necessarily in that order. All in all, the people I met were all really nice and super hospitable, unfortunately, everything in west Texas is a long way from anything, so I had a lot of driving and a lot of work, so I didn't have any time to hunt down any off the map tasty food spots.  I did find a Tex-Mex burrito chain Freebird World Burrito  . They're new to me, but if you get a chance check 'em out for sure, lot's of options and super tasty.


As soon as I finished up in Midland, I had to make a "quick trip" over to Albuquerque for a job that got thrown in at the last minute.

A view of the sunset somewhere between Midland, TX and Albuquerque, NM

I only had one night in Albuquerque, but I headed downtown to a place called "Standard Diner" this place was awesome, I sat at the bar and chatted with the bartender, Gil, all evening. Standard Diner is not a standard diner at all, they take somewhat normal diner food, and make add just a little gourmet.

I had the Bourbon Butter Burger, with a side of Wasabi Slaw, the burger was amazing, cooked to medium rare perfection. The Wasabi Slaw was awesome, the slight kick of wasabi really added to it.

After dinner I headed back to my hotel as I had to make the drive to Dallas the next morning.

Wyoming, Colorado, Kansas, and Oklahoma

I set out for the Denver area Sunday afternoon, and frankly, I did not want to leave. It seemed like a lot more fun to stay and hang with friends and family, but, duty calls.

The drive across southern Wyoming is a killer, but I've found, if I concentrate on the journey rather than the destination, the drive's aren't nearly as bad.

Most people, (myself included) view Wyoming as a barren wasteland, and, to an extent, it is.  But if you look hard enough, there's a distinct kind of beauty. If I look at it from the perspective of  the little boy that loved going out on the desert to check on the cows with his Grandpa, it's truly scenic.

I rolled in to Denver fairly late, so I checked in to my hotel, hit a waffle house and called it a night.

Monday, I had a quick job to do northeast of Denver, and once that was done, I was Topeka bound.The drive through eastern CO, and pretty much all the way across KS was tiresome. I swear, there are more "museums" along I-70 in Kansas than the rest of the US combined!

I had a hard time finding somewhere to eat for the first couple hundred miles of the trek. I might have died from starvation had Devin not hooked me up with a bag of tasty oatmeal banana cookies

The further east I got in Kansas, the more I liked it. Well, the view. Little rolling hills with trees and rivers all over. The scenery was nice, but I don't know that I could handle the Overzealous "Christians" Lots of billboards telling you all about what God does and doesn't want you to do. Also, one with a picture of Obama that simply said "MARXIST COMMUNIST DICTATOR" our current president is a lot of things, but that one was a little bit much for me. More on Kansas' "Christians" later.

When I got to Topeka I immediately found a DDD place I wanted to try, but when I got there it was closed.  Too exhausted to search for anything else, I hit the Buffalo Wild Wings.

Tuesday morning I had some walls to service for the Kansas Army National Guard. The took a little more time than I would have liked, but some of the National Guard guys there were really cool. Another perk to this job is connections with cool people all over the country,

Once work was done I decided I needed to swing by the Westboro Baptist Church and see if there was anyone outside I could throw a rock at. No such luck. The church is in the middle of an otherwise modest neighborhood, small, well kept homes with green lawns and big trees.

It's hard to describe the feeling just being in front of this place, but let me assure you. This is no Church of any God I will recognize. I could literally feel evil and hate emanating from this little building.

Once my "sightseeing" was done, it was time to head south to Oklahoma City. 
Another long drive and I didn't realize at first that my GPS was set to avoid toll roads. Once I got that fixed the drive was much better, and it was worth the $6 for the 1.5 hours it cut off the drive.

Rolled in to OKC and got busy with checking in to the hotel and getting cleaned up. Hopped on the interwebs and found another DDD spot to try out. Headed on over, and sure enough, it's closed for the night. Noticing a pattern? I decided to go to plan B which involved driving around til I saw something that looked tasty. I discovered this little gem.

This is Van's Pig, I have a theory that any eatery with this much neon either has to be really good, or really bad. I gambled and won. Van's is amazing. The wall of smokey meat smell that hit me when I walked in the door told me I was right where I needed to be.

I hooked myself up with some "chopped pig", brisket, cole slaw, fried okra, texas toast, and  a nice glass of sweet tea. Everything was awesome, this was some of the best brisket I've ever had, and if it wouldn't kill me in about a week, I'd probably eat fried okra for every meal.

Before I hit the hay, I stopped by a bookstore to and picked up this guy

1000 Things to See Before You Die. I'm going to try and check some of theese out as I roam the country, add another element to my travels.

Well after some work first thing tomorrow, I'm off to Texas. More on my adventures later.