Wow, I've gotten some positive responses (okay, only 2) about my road trip description. Which is kinda funny since I described the worst of it and not the more interesting parts of it. :) So here's more about our drive to Austin:

When we made our first lunch stop, we were looking around for places near Phoenix, and that's when I realized that not only are the Phoenix freeways weird (similar to Austin's actually), they're elevated, so you can only see the signs that are high up like the famous golden arches, and you can't really get out without some careful planning. Oh, and MickeyD's is dead to Whateley, so there's no way we're eating there. (One day I'll post a list of the things in the world that are dead to Whateley, and a few that are just on notice.)

Anyway, so we stopped off on the edge of Phoenix and while we got gas, there was this Ma and Pa sub sandwich place, so we decided to eat there. I gotta say, that was one of the best sub sandwiches I've ever eaten. It was a big more expensive than a Subway, but it was pretty dang good. So Whateley and I decided to try to eat at only Ma and Pa places while we're driving. It didn't quite end up that way, since that night we just ended up getting take out from Kentucky Fried Chicken.

The next day, on our way through New Mexico, we thought we'd drive straight through and eat in El Paso, but then there was this giant thunderstorm over El Paso, so we stopped off at this truck-stop-y place where they had a 24-hr buffet restaurant/gas station/souvenir shop/fast food court, and so we decided to stop, get gas, eat lunch, and wait out the storm. Well, this place was interesting since it was probably some sort of chain but we've never heard of it before since it's only in truck stops. I ordered the chuck steak cuz I was having an odd Alton-Brown-moment where I remember his show on how to make chuck steak taste good, and I got curious about how chuck steak tasted. Well, there's a reason why it's cheap. And also I could think was, didn't I have this before in those elementary school lunches? Anyway, that was my last time ever consuming chuck steak, and I'm not sure if I ever want to again.

I wasn't sure how long we could wait out the storm before we'd lose too much time. I even called Bleusky just thinking I needed to wait out the time. That and Whateley and I were having a debate about what time zone we're in. Turns out I'm right... of course. :) (Hey, Whateley can post his own rebuttal if he so chooses.)

Well, most of the storm had passed so we decided to head out. Now El Paso is an interesting city. If you don't know, it's close to the border of New Mexico, but it's also on the border to Mexico. And if you look over the train tracks, you can see a fence and beyond it was Mexico. And y'know those "Save the Children" type infomercials where they show shanty towns of starving kids? They were right there on the hill facing El Paso! Weird!

Border security is tight there, and pasty-white Whateley and model-minority-Asian me got waved through. But when I talked to my co-workers who made the drive, some of them were pulled over and their stuff was searched. The main difference? They were either darker-featured white, or lighter-featured black. In other words, they looked Mexican. Wow, racial profiling in action.

So yeah, that night, I got icky food from a T&A cuz that was the only place that was open, although the lady who worked there said there was a Subway that was also open, but by that time I had already gotten my food.

So once we left Sonora, we soon left the Interstate and we were either getting spotty reception or we were roaming, so we didn't call each other much. We were driving through "country" so there were just fields of grass with the occasional ranch here and there. And trees were starting to pop up... a lot. We stopped off at this one location in the middle of nowhere to take a bathroom break, and it was weird cuz we were literally driving through a run down street with old, broken down buildings with an old "For Sale" sign and a few scrabbly people walking on the streets, and we stopped at a gas station that looked like it was the only business left in town. Kinda creepy.

So yeah, here's what we figured out as we're driving this highway: there are tons of trees in Texas! As we've discovered when we experienced the 4th or 5th thunderstorm in 3 weeks. So it was weird just driving down this four-lane road (speed limit 70 day, 60 night), and we pass mostly empty grasslands followed by clumps of ranches. Real live Texas ranches. So the stories are true. Oh, and whenever you had those westerns that took place in desert-like areas... well, that's probably because they filmed in the friggin' desert and not in Texas.

So when we arrived in Austin, the freeways were a bit weird (still is... but we're getting used to them), and then we arrived at our apartment complex, parked, and I opened the door... and was promptly met with a wall of humidity. Erg.

Yadda yadda, I'll just describe our first meal here. The lady who went through everything with us and gave us our keys, then told us of this Thai restaurant nearby, so we went over there. It was pretty good as Thai places go, though it wasn't by far the best. But we noticed there were some pictures on the wall of the owner with Keanu Reeves. (Which, of course, made Whateley crack, hey, see, there's at least one Asian person in this city.) Anyway, by chance we happened to rent A Scanner Darkly a few days later, which coincidentally was shot and produced all in Austin, and we think while they were filming it, Keanu Reeves ate at that restaurant a lot. Or at least once.

Anyway, if anyone wants to visit us, we are compiling a list of cool places to visit and eat (mostly eat), so c'mon, dust off that old planner and plan a trip to good ol' Texas!