Man Bike Wild - Zig Zag Zoo

Second in a series of my adventure of trying to bike from the hills of southwest Austin to the just south area of downtown, known as Zilker Park. Today you'll find mostly words with just a dash of video. If you didn't catch the you-tubes of the first adventure, I recommend them =)

To eliminate thoughts that I am this out-of-shape, tricycle-needing, kind of guy, I'll use this post as a background to this adventure series, because I won't lie, attempt 3 did not get me to Zilker. Below is a clip from the website I found and have been using as a tool to get me from the hills to the park. If it is blurry to you, the info is found towards the bottom of this page: http://bicycleaustin.info/getaround/routes.html

So as you may read this is not easy bike in the park. My first attempt was #4. Their description for the Mountain Bike Route paints a far easier trail then actual. #2 will not be attempted because I don't want to play chicken with crazy drivers. #3 will be the next and "final" attempt. But most recently was a pseudo #1. #1 here has you going up long hills and such. I wanted to sneak through some woods and find the bridge that gets me to the other side which is located on Lost Creek. The bridge/road across the creek was just above the circle 2 on the map below. As you can see I did a lot of run-abounds and came across a bunch of private roads or no trespassing posted sign paths. Being in Texas, I obeyed all posts. Travis cook road to Barton Creek Blvd to Bee Cave would have been some serious lance armstrong hill biking and I'm not there yet, so finding a way to get across the creek and check to see if there is a better path on the other side was my goal.

The first part of the journey had me biking on side streets looking for a hidden path. No success, just huge houses. First, I found a long barbed wire fence, then I found another path but it was just to a place behind pine trees and thick forest, the third was a path part of a school which has a nice little nature-science themed path but it led to a farm like area where little kids were gathered so I decided not to go sneaking around during a class in session. Back to the main road, I then decided to go up Southwest Parkway a bit and see what those roads were like on my iphone map apps. I wasn't ready to give up as this time I was prepared. 20 bucks, a wal-mart camelbak full of delicious water, granola bars, left over pizza, an apple, wet naps, and my phone. My money clip had a knife, I went daredevil this time because I couldn't find the matches and since bringing them was mainly a joke, I went on without them.

After biking on the side of traffic, I found an off-shoot. To my dismay it was a private drive way and the gate looked like very important lottery winners lived there. However, there was a small dirt path to the side so I followed it. It followed the highway for a bit and then crossed right. Hopes were high. The path went downhill and then into deep woods, I hit another snag and the path ended, dead trees were all that I could see and once I realized this brush was too thick and wouldn't end, I sadly turned around. The sound of a howling coyote scared the granola bar out of me and I peddled swiftly back up to the origianl path along the freeway. After a quick snack of some left over tasty pizza from my snack pack and re-hydration time, I cruised down the hill back home. Below is a pic of the path on the left and on the right is a way bigger than necessary house on a hill.

So there you have it. This journey is seen to me as more of an exploratory bike ride. Therefore failure doesn't come to mind. For those of you not at work or class and would like to see how retarded I look in a helmet, I did do one short 1.5 min video of me stopping wondering if I should continue down the original path or check out this off-shoot. Minutes later I will discover the off-shoot path was just a half-moon shape and led right back to the original path. 5 mintues later I will deem to go no further.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fonHEGj-x9I

That's all for now folks. Perhaps next week I will do the road adventure which will be successful but long.

Sunday Funday

For some reason many apts in Austin do not come with washers and dryers, only hook-ups. I am not a fan of this, but it is what it is so anyways, the first couple weeks our living room was our central dirty laundry deposit.

Since it makes little cents to rent a unit for $35 a month when you can purchase a used set online for under $300, we decided to give craigslist a try. Thankfully we bought from a guy that guaranteed his units would work. Long story short, we had problems, after sitting around Friday waiting and then getting it finally fixed *washer at least on Saturday night, we were ready to make up for sitting around for those 48 hours waiting. 

The day was a day of opponents. The first rivalry was Sam's Club vs. Costco. Sam's was first, beer selection was good, everything else was like going to the corner convenience store for giants. The selection sucked but the quantities were huge. Since you don't pay for a membership until you complete your first transaction we put our paper toiletry products back on the shelf and when to see what Costco had to challenge with. A lot more, better stuff. Long story short, we delayed signing up so we could use the referral program.  So yeah, a lot of running around, not much to show for, except for the glimpse of Snoopy at Sam's.

After a stop for a sandwich at schlotzsky's (guess who's idea that was...lol) we headed to the bar. No, not just to drink but to watch the Vikings play! Since they sucked the first two times and the fact two Texas teams were playing each other during the same time slot, the game wasn't available via standard network TV in our area. Fear not, we googled Vikings and Austin and discovered there is an Austin, Tx Minnesota Vikings fan club. So we headed out to the Warehouse Saloon to catch the game. It was a great time, We won! and we cheered each touchdown and scorned each Farve-thrown interception with about 40 other jersey'd up fans. We were all seated in front of a quite large screen, a blown up Viking, fan brought trinkets and Vikings signs adorned our corner of the bar. When the Vikings arn't on standard cable, you'll find us there! Plus $3 drafts of Shiner Bock and $9.5 pitchers made the place quite the deal. Hungry? There was a church/garage sale like setup near the door with Nachos and Tacos. (haha-should have took a photo).

 Next was a trip to the Pecan St. Festival in downtown Austin. Kind of like an Art Fair, we roamed the streets while drinking large beers sold via the convenience stores.

We finished the day with a trip to Wal-Mart to get some random things such as bike accessories and grocery items. After cooking up some dinner and jumping in the pool, we completed our Sunday with MadMan. Quite the packed Sunday Funday, I must say....

Only in a Southern Walmart, can you buy a Palm Tree ;)

Hot Dish in Hot Austin

Some call it a casserole, but I prefer Hot-Dish and so does http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hot_dish

Now what could be better than some hamburger, tator tots  and green beans all in one dish. Summer did not agree while we were in MN, but down here in Texas, adventure is the name of the game. So I loaded up on the ingredients, tied on an apron and got to work. These next 5 candid photos perfectly tell the story of the hot-dish success!

MMM Baking in the Oven....

Loading up

First big -eager- bite

MMM she says with her satisfied smile

Clean plate.

And that concludes my candid, non-photoshop'ed non-faked, documentation of the tator-tot-casserole(hotdish)-massacre

Seconds?

Man Bike Wild - Premiere Blogisode

It's Thursday! The day when the weekend began in college and right now I am enjoying a Shiner
Blonde Ale. It's been a long yet exciting day. The other great thing about Thursday's is NBC's primetime lineup. Office, Community, etc [NBC- what happened to Parks n Rec?]. Always Sunny is also on tonight so in the spirit of all these new shows on tonight I bring to you the premiere blogisode (new word coined by yours truly) of Man Bike Wild. Now if you don't watch the great show Man Woman Wild on Discovery. You should. Its an ex-military guy, typical survivor show but the company of his wife makes the show different and quite entertaining. Anyways, that is where the name comes from and the inspiration for how I will present this content. I'll be using YouTube, along with pictures for this series, the videos are short :30-1:30 but there are eight of them so feel free to read/view when you have 15 minutes to kill ;) This is interactivity at its finest.

The survivor mission is to reach Zilker Park from where we live which is right off Southwest Parkway. A map is below, however, I didn't come here to get killed biking on highways where crazies are going faster than the 65mph speed limit, plus I'm here for nature so I decided to do some research.

I discovered there was a path through the Barton Creek Wilderness Park that cuts through to the path that appears to run alongside the stream/river/creek. So I borrowed a "mountain bike" from the front desk and set for the journey at 10:15am. My thought was to leave early to avoid getting too hot. My plan was to find this "off-the-grid" path and then get on the greenway (green line above on map) and happily arrive at Zilker Park. Did I reach my destination? Read on.

Now from watching Man Woman Wild, Survivor-man and some of the fake Man vs Wild show, I knew I need to be prepared. Who knows what could happen in the crazy wilderness. To my horror, the bike didn't have a water-bottle holder. (Come on Preserve, spend the 10bucks and "Upgrade"). Luckily I have a juice-box size coconut water (gotta have those electrolytes). I also brought with me 2 granola bars, an iphone, a camera, $6 dollars in cash (in case someone was selling hotdogs in the park or something, 2 smarties candies, 3 tissues, 1 apple, and last but far from least in survival a pocket knife and book of matches. I've seen too many episodes where fire was needed but could not be made and with an iphone, who knows how long it will take to get a call through without dropping for rescue.

The Journey then proceeded. I found the path and took it. The terrain was no Lance Armstrong Bike Through the Park. Smartly, I wore a helmet, but even more smart, I walked the bike through the rock parts.

 This path was no commuter express to downtown, knocked over trees blocked my path and later the path would go directly into the stream, however, many spare paths were all over and it was easy to avoid the stream.

The other side of the tree was no dirt path either...

At this stage, the path below was a blessing...

But when your faced with a fork in the road, what do you do. First one I went left, because I checked out the right and it didn't look like a good choice. Second time I went right because that was the general direction I wanted to be heading (smart thinking indeed).

However, the path got worse.

It was at this point or a half hour earlier my daydream bubble of Summer and I biking to Zilker to play in the Springs Pool via this "route" I discovered popped. But I proceeded. Somewhere around here I took my first iphone video because a still shot could not capture the quiet, wooded solitaire I was experiencing. It was quite nice. I could have did without the spider webs all over though. Pardon the bad quality, bad lighting and non-edited videos but that's how this blogisode will roll.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nkBAkS2rKZw

Next I came upon the river! I made it to the river/stream whatever. Thing is according to the map, the real "nice" path was on the other side. New goal, find a way to cross the river. I hear the serene sound of water washing upon rocks. I check it out, perhaps I can walk across some rocks, maybe there is a bridge...Nope, but it was picturesque. But as you can see the cameras I had didn't really catch the beauty, so I decided to do video from there on.  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iQuevJn71SM
 
However it was here that I saw my first glimpse of another human. A dog came running into the water along with a women of the woods. She told me, nope, there ain't a bridge across. Might be able to find a low spot or some rocks. I said thanks, did some more videoing (of which she came back so that's why this upcomming video is cut short and said if I went to the right I may find a rock bridge ahead of a waterfall....)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IZQNhDrXcPI

I walked ahead a ways and here's the video...http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9Kz24EPtAU8

Here I biked a bit further and stopped to take a break.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FfY1fmpSdJ0

So before this next video, the "path" went into the stream, luckily there was a separate path that led to a dried up river bed which I walked/jumped across. The cliffs were pretty cool looking so I stopped to take a video.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y9BFwizwe4o

After this video, I interrupted some couple who was sitting on the path. I was friendly, told them I was lost, they gave me bad info and said "i dont think your supposed to bike after it rains in these parks" I said umm, I'm not from here, how would I know, and biked past them. Well not too fast because there I came upon a thin path. The cliff was on my right, the river on my left. Should have took a video or photo but one hand was on my bike the other holding onto a chain in the rock. I didn't fall it and I biked on. It was now around 12:15, Summer had some sandwiches and was all ready to meet me. Mean people had told me I was one hour and a half from zilker and would have to swim across the river twice. I didn't want to believe them but also didn't know if they were truthful. A kind man playing with his dog in the river, gave me some instructions. Here was the result:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lQp_3qWRgMU

Here are the details of my excursion.
I biked/walked the bike - 4 miles. The time I was it took me was about 2 hours.

My path was the orange. Now you may say, hey you made it half way - why not keep going, well in the mexico episode, the woman of man women wild has signs of heat stroke and man decides to call in the Calvary aka the medic at the base camp 1 mile away. In a sense, that's total different from my situation, sure, but I had little water, my shirt was soaked in sweat, I was told I would have to cross water either by taking my shoes off or by some other means and was drained of energy. Plus if I kept going Summer would have to eat two sandwiches. Next time I will try a different route and get my own water bottle holder. Should I document it? Or did this linger on too long? Let me know. I will now leave you with the final video....http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HPEg16M4Rgc

Bon Voyage.

Shaken Up On A Tuesday by "Everything is bigger in Texas"

So yesterday in Explore Austin, I stopped by http://www.whataburger.com/ because I was hungry and didn't feel like making the Tator-tot Casserole quite yet. (Sorry for making you most likely salivate with the mention of such a tasty MN dish, but fear not, the post and pics will come soon since I plan to put on my cooking apron this afternoon). Anyways, so I decided to try a taste of this undiscovered burger. To no surprise I ordered the Whataburger with Bacon and Cheese. (Just a single though, because Shiner Bock has given me plenty of back up calories). Since I came from the gym, I thought a shake would be in order (you know, for the protein milk provides). So I ordered the value meal with a substitute strawberry shake. To my surprise and okay sure, a bit of fright, I was handed a huge shake, which I believe to be 32oz if I read the code under the cup correctly.

To be honest, It  probably wasn't a good idea to finish such a large shake, when milk and me are no longer good friends but I am not one to waste ice cream, plus it tasted pretty good. The burger was pretty good as well. However, lesson has been learned. Specify Small or hell, a Medium if you order a shake with your combo meal at WhatABurger. I hope I may save you some future discomfort if you are ever faced with such circumstances and also have had a fallen out with once tasty real cow milk. 





Since it's the middle of the week lets do a 2-fer post. It was either in Antigua or the Mexico resort which included free room-service with the all-inclusive where I fell in love with Papaya. It might have been Mexico because I would always order the fruit plate and there she was, this delicious red soft melon. Kind of like cantaloupe but a softer sweeter taste is what I remember. Don't get too excited, outside of Mexico or Caribbean, those papaya's lose their freshness on the freeway/boat and I have yet to experience the greatness I had there. Now the papaya I cut up yesterday, wasn't horrible, it just wasn't what I remembered. So I made a blend with some of cuttings.

I blended that papaya and other random fruit up with some SoyMilk to make a terrific tasting fruit smoothie. Perhaps in hindsight it would have been better to not consume such a large smoothie hours before a work out and a huge future milkshake but those whataburger events were not foreshadowed. Nonetheless here's the take away, if your fruit doesn't taste as great as you would like, blend it up.
This post is a bit different but I thought my two 32oz adventures were worth sharing because it's true, "Everything is bigger" here in Texas.


 

Austin Lessons Learned - A continuously updated list.

Last update 9/20/10

- Its hard to find a real farmers market here but there are perfect niche organic grocery stores to fill that gap.

- We are in the land of Wal-mart. The Targets here remind me of the tiny Targets 10 years ago in MN

- Green Tea formulated to be Iced Tea exists at grocery stores here and is delicious and caffeinated.

- People you meet here are very friendly, People in stores are rather rude.

- You get used to the 90 degree heat and find it nice and warming instead of hot and annoying.  

- Many apts here come with washer dryer hookups instead of the appliances themselves...

Catch-up with a bit of Ketchup (food) Talk.

Thurs pm/Fri/Sat/Sun - four filled days. Thursday - we went to an advertising happy hour which included some good networking and meeting some other people also new to the area.

Friday - I continued to unpack the place and then met with the ending of summers work-happy hour at the same bar we were at on Thursday. Kung Fu Saloon. Great place I must say and their 4-9pm $2 happy hour special which included ShinerBock means we will frequent this place often, most likely. Other than that Friday night and most of Saturday consisted of organizing the apartment and unpacking boxes. We did hit up PeiWei Chinese and I must say their Thai won tong soup there is delicious as was the veg fried rice and sesame chicken. 

Sunday - A day full of peaks and valleys. So as many of you know, I am a fan of food. I love grocery shopping and aimlessly wandering farmers markets. I like my produce fresh like everybody else plus the atmosphere is always interesting. So we woke early and our first stop was another attempt at the downtown market however, traffic, due to closed roads and some other festival made getting to this downtown market near impossible so we decided to hit up #2, this organic farm, farmers market located a little ways away. The write up about it made it seem large, it was not. 2 tables and a bunch of live chickens. A disappointment. We then iphone googled some other one in Northern Austin. It was nowhere to be found.

Now I won't lie I am disappointed. Minneapolis has a HUGE farmers market off Lyndale Ave.  Austin is in a warmer climate and organic-friendly. So I expected a whole foods like farmers market full of fresh food, happy faces and decent prices. Nope. Downtown which we visted in April seemed to be a good size, had delicious breakfast burritos and fresh kombucha but we've yet to be able to get back there so there is still hope for that place but other than that we were saved by Newflowers Market and Sonic and a nearby Nursery. Newflowers had great prices on organic produce so we filled our bags there, then we found a Sonic so I finally got my breakfast burrito. The nursery was huge and we got some rosemary, chocolate mint and a variegated prickly pear houseplant. So our shopping was in conclusion a success. We just had to go to the stores instead of the farms. Not what I expected of Austin and its green cachet, I will admit, but the long drive all over town gave us a view of our new city and the bad part of the day was to be viewed later.

The awful vikings game. Come on Farve, we pay you to have us win. Practice! and quit throwing interceptions or else it will be hard to follow you guys on network tv. Nobody wants to watch losers.

Monday bonus - 2 hours of writing has been completed =) According to Summer I have a couple readers. I thank you for sharing in our story. Feel free to use the comments section to give more life to this blog and I will try to continue to keep you all up to date and be a bit more entertaining (easier when I'm not writing all of these at once. haha)

Cheers!

Tues-W-Thurs

The pod came at 10am which was a good time. For the next 48 hours we proceeded to fill the jeep with boxes (since the pod was about a football field away from us). 20 or 30 jeep fills, 3 stories to climb. 2 pooped campers. What got us through moving in 100 degree heat? Multiple Jumps into the pool, 4 powerades and count-less glasses of water. The exciting result: an empty Pod!

Sunday/Monday Pre-Move Time

Make-shift Dinner table

Sunday we moved into the new place. Living on a car load/ Living off a Jeep. Great song titles if I do say so myself. But none-the-less we moved in with our suitcases and all the random boxes of stuff we either didn't trust with the pod or needed. It was a bit like cabining out. We had take-out food, beer and something more comfortable than the floor to sleep on. So for two days, we camped, drank, swam and ate until the Pod came on Tuesday.

Our snack/app plate

The Good Life *Outdoors Pt 2: Na zdorovje! / Na zdravi!

                                                                                                                                                               

These two posts didn't really need to be separated but none the less the next night was just as fun. And for those of you curious what this great backyard patio looks like, I'll include an iphone snap shot. Sure, the quality is eh but hopefully my great use of words serves as a supplement. Also, I'm going to be a bit vague with photos/names to keep the privacy of people and places, but to my few and favorite readers, I'm sure you can fill in the blanks.
Saturday began with a search for a good farmers market - attempt 1. We failed. The first one was tiny and mostly market stuff or over priced food. The time was getting late and our gas level was low so we didn't make it to the downtown one. (I have some rambling to do about the farmers markets here but ill save that for a different post). Summer hit the mall during the afternoon and I started this blog. Evening came and the feast came into preparing mode. A bit of everything was created. Pasta, Meats, Salads, Appetizers.  

It truly was a delicious meal. We ate until we were full and the only other thing that could fit into our stomachs was the river like flow of wine. White was our choice because well it's Summer time. However, the heritage talks came up again and I learned the correct pronunciation of my Grandpa's favorite phrase "Na zdorovje" (Na zda’rovye) [let me say thank god this blog has auto save because I accidentally closed the window and feared I would have to start over. ha. I am saved - literally ;)]

So anyways the conversation continued and many topics were touched. The group included the Russian, the Czech, the Finnish and the Lathams.  But then another guest was invited to the table. Tito. Tito may sound like an animal but trust me, he is kind, doesn't have a strong smell and his bite is rather smooth.


Meet Tito's the Handcrafted small batch vodka made here in Austin. Many tastes were taken during that night and all were smooth delicious and followed with a cheer of "to your health" in Russian. It was a great last night at our hosts.

We thank them for their hospitality during our first week here.

We look forward to more evenings outside with good drink, food and convo.

Iphone camera doesn't really give justice to this moon over the trees photo from behind their backyard.

The Good Life *Outdoors Pt 1: The Burbs According to Summer

Hi All. It's been a bit over a week since I've updated you all on the journey. No worries, we'll start where I left off. I last wrote sitting in Summer's relatives front room with a kindly poured glass of Rosé. It was a warm afternoon and the previous day/night was Friday. 

As you last read, there was a decision amongst the nine balconies. 2 made the final cut. One was close, expensive, small space with an even tinier deck. The other was 6 miles from downtown, large, affordable with a huge balcony. We made a good decision regarding the facts and such and signed the lease for #9 on Friday after spending the day at the LifeTime Pool since we didn't have access to the pool here yet. Afterwords, we decided to celebrate the decision with a glass of wine. The weather was beautiful, the night was quiet and the bottle of wine proceeded to be emptied. Our host and their friend returned from dinner and joined us outside. We switched to the delicious brew of Shiner Bock and great conversation lasted into the wee hours of the night/morning. A main topic included the heritage of Taragos (me, the writer). I claim it to be Czech. However, the Czech we were with had her doubts and it became leaked that it may be in fact Russian, which I knew all along but fear not Czechs, I later learned I share your heritage on my mothers side. So that was the first Friday night: Wine/Shinebock and good backyard patio conversation.

Austin Arrival - Balcony Ballot

Day 5 began the first full day in Austin. After a delicious breakfast at the Snack Bar, we proceeded to look at 5 potential places to live. Each was livable with its ups and downs. At first I took a picture of each balcony, but after the 5th or 6th, I either got lazy or just plain forgot. I'll post some of the pics I did take and comment, since the balcony space was a major factor in our decision process.

Good price, Square slight small balcony, attached garage but a bit far out.

Med price, small space, huge but 1st floor deck facing a woods. Deck nice, place okay..

Med price, awkward layout but 2 cozy decks on each side, one with a city view.

Good price, nice area, what killed it was this balcony, it would fit maybe 2 chairs and a small table...

 

 

 

 

 

 

DECK #5 NO PHOTO AVAILABLE 

The unit was a townhome right in the heart of green austin, close to everything, patio ground level, with a 2nd floor balcony. The place was nice but was a bit old and already had pests in it plus it was a bit pricey. Also the view of the balcony was the back of a store. It would have been fine, but we needed to see more.

DECK #6 NO PHOTO AVAILABLE 

This place was a bit of a drive, pricey, but very nice inside like the Mpls condo. The deck was a good size and faced open tree filled hill land.

DECK #7 NO PHOTO AVAILABLE 

Good price but a bit out there and way on top of a hill. 3rd floor balcony was a good size and faced a tree forest full of privacy.

DECK #8 NO PHOTO AVAILABLE 

This place was one of the final 2 contenders. It was in an awesome location, but a bit pricey. The salt water pool was a nice feature, plus it came with a flat screen. What hurt it from me, aside from the price was the deck was one of the tiniest and it was ground level in front of the parking lot. No privacy at all.

DECK #9 NO PHOTO AVAILABLE 

This place was a very good price and the deck was a great size and not too far from downtown. 3rd floor, there wasn't really a view since it faces the parking lot but trees were in view and I believe the futon could fit out there.

After looking at those 9 places. We decided #9 would allow us to save up some money while enjoying the Austin outdoors on our patio. Other bonuses is the 2 on site pools and hottubs, 1 of which was a very close walk to our building and private bike/running trail. Pic of this place to come.

The Journey Pauses/The driving part of the Journey completes

Day Four had us continuing the drive down Texas, that's were we met Tropical Depression Hermine (downgraded from storm, but still quite strong). Heavy winds and blinding downpours were our obstacles. We ended up pulling off the road a couple times. The first pull off introduced us to this chocolate maker.  I tried a sample of their chocolate covered/dipped potato crisp (pringle) and it was quite tasty. After that the rain died down so we continued our travels. When the rain picked up again it was a bit past 4pm and we were just past Fort Worth. We decided to pull off for a try of On The Border Mexican, since I loved their big bag of tortilla chips you could/can get at Sam's Club. I had a margarita, because hey we're kinda on vacation. =) I drank, we ate, and we waited while a tornado five or so miles away came and went. After that the rain came heavy on and off but we made it to our destination (Summer's Uncle's) safe and sound! We were able to unload most of the fully packed Jeep while the rain was on pause.

The Journey Continues

Minneapolis, Kansas. One of the other two Minneapolis's but far from as cool. We passed through on Day 3 of our travels, which was Monday (Labor Day). We drove down Nebraska, through Kansas, with a stop in Oklahoma City.  There we stayed with Summer's cousin, who kindly put us up for the night.

Day 4 began with Jason's Deli. It's hard to eat healthy on the road, but a delicious 10am breakfast/brunch salad bar at Jason's deli did the trick. Coming from a family that loves their salads/salad bars, ha, this one tops. Good selection of non-iceberg lettuces, pasta salads and all the toppings you can think of. Desert definitely included their free ice cream. From there we continued our journey south into Texas. And that's where the crazy weather began, to wear out an old pun, we weren't in Texas anymore...