A Devil Dog and a BBQ Pit (Throwback post)

When Emily, our Antarctica friend returned, we moved on to her place.  She is a pilot, training to take her commercial pilot's license, so is working at the airstrip in Georgetown.  She had been away at an airshow with their WWII B-25 Devil Dog bomber plane.

It is great to make new friends during our travels, but as they tend to live a long way off, getting to see them is a problem, so if we have the chance to include their home town in our travels, or if we find that we are visiting the same place at the same time as someone else, then we like to take the opportunity.  It was good to catch up with Emily this way.

After just catching up on news and having a few drinks on the first evening, Emily had planned a trip out to lunch for our full day with her.  But not just to a local place.  She was flying us to lunch at a BBQ pit fifty miles away in Llano.

At the Georgetown airstrip, we stopped to look at the Devil Dog.  This is one of the few remaining Patrol Bomber J (PBJ) B-25 bombers from WWII.  The PPJs were surplus to the US Navy requirements, so the US Marines took them instead.

The most famous bombing raid for these B-25s was the Doolittle Raid on Tokyo on 1 April 1942.  Led by Lt Col James Doolittle, this was a retaliation against Japan following the attack on Pearl Harbour. The raid was completed, but the cost was most of the bombers being crash landed in China.

We climbed up inside, trying to imagine being in the plane with a full crew and trying to survive in enemy skies.  We couldn't see it being a pleasant experience.

While in the hangar, we noticed a wall covered in old t-shirts and shirts, all with messages written on them.  Emily explained that traditionally when you complete your pilot license, they take the shirt you are wearing and add it to the wall.  So if you are learning to fly here, remember not to wear your favourite shirt that day!

It didn't take long to fly to Llano.  It wasn't exactly a scenic flight, as there wasn't much to look at on the ground, but it gave us a good idea of just how much open space there is in Texas.

We picked up one of the courtesy cars that the BBQ leaves at the airport specifically for people like us flying in to go and eat there for the short drive into town.  And driving through Llano, you could feel the difference from the other places we had been to.  We were in cowboy country now, with the saddle shops and other such businesses in full evidence.

At the Coopers Old Time Pit Bar-B-Que, we couldn't resist trying a number of the meats on offer as they all looked amazing.

Of course even a little bit of them amounted to quite a large meal, so we were somewhat full by the end of it, but it was very tasty indeed.  The brisket beef in particular was excellent.  This would certainly be a place worth making a detour to if you are anywhere near the area.

Keeping Austin wierd (Throwback post)

From Houston it was another bus trip to Austin, Texas, where we happened to arrive during South-by-SouthWest, a huge festival that encompasses technology, film and music elements.  Unfortunately we were there during the technology bit rather than the music bit, and to be quite honest we really couldn't be bothered to queue up to go into the events that were open to the public, so we gave it a miss.  We did discover a few sites where you can get free or reduced tickets to events though, so if you do plan to go at any time, do a bit of internet research before you spend your money.

So why were we in Austin if not for SXSW?  Well, in the main, it was (a) on the bus route and (b) where we could meet up with one of our travel buddies from our first Antarctica trip.  We'll come back to our catch up with Emily later, as she was away for the first few days, so we had a few days to look around Austin ourselves first.

We stayed in an Airbnb place that was actually a tent in a back garden.  It was a good size tent with the very civilised addition of an air bed, and was fine the first night.  However on the second night there was an almighty storm and the tent started leaking.  Thankfully the woman whose place it was quickly ushered us inside and we set up our bed in her dining room, much to the interest and excitement of her friendly dogs.

We had no particular tourist activities on the agenda for Austin, so we simply enjoyed wandering around the town. The motto for the city is 'Keep Austin Wierd', and whilst we wouldn't call it weird exactly, we could kind of see why, as by comparison to most places we had been in the States, it is far more laid back and unconventional. And where else has a recreation of the Bates motel from Psycho?

We especially like South Congress.  We were a bit unsure to start with because as we started walking up the road it seemed that there was nothing there at all.  But just as we were about to give up, we reached the good bit.

As well as lots of interesting shops to poke about in, and in my case buy a few bits of jewellery, we found a few places to sit and have a drink while listening to live music.  In the spirit of weirdness, one of these was outdoors and there was a couple who had brought their pet parrot out with them, and had it sitting on their shoulders.

There was a great cafe called Woodland, where we had our first US cream pies.  Very tasty.  We also ate at Snack Bar, which had a great patio, nice food and some good drinks on the list.

Outside of South Congress we found a few other places to eat and drink including the Le Cafe Crepe and Cru Wine Bar, which had a great selection of wines with champagne half price on Thursdays - how could we say no to that?