Marshall and I drove to Lufkin, Texas yesterday (I'm blogging from our hotel room while he sleeps) to check out the town and get away from Austin and our normal routine. We also wanted to take our first extended road trip in my new car, Donny, but find a drive where we could see lots of wildflowers along the road because this time of year is gorgeous.
I got a great deal on the nicest hotel here, a Courtyard Marriott, through Priceline.com. We left the house around 10:30 and made it to Crockett, Texas at 2pm. We had lunch at the Moosehead Cafe. Marshall had the patty melt with homemade onion rings, which were delicious, and pickled green tomatoes. I had a cheeseburger with fries. The burger had excellent flavor but the fries not so much. We drove through the Davey Crockett National Forest and then came upon a town called Diboll. This was the first town where buildings were spread out from each other and had some level of civilization about it. They had a gated community with a golf course. Could we still be in the heart of podunk Texas?
Diboll is a suburb of Lufkin, a town of 35,000, which is the size of my home town. The newer parts of Lufkin such as along the main highway seemed nice and I thought, "ok, this doesn't look as bad as the nearby towns." We found our hotel (we bought a new GPS Thursday night), and unloaded in our room. I browsed through a "Welcome to Lufkin" magazine, which did a great job promoting the city. Marshall and I wanted to get a massage. Ooops, they are all closed by 5pm. We also learned that everything closes on Sunday as well. Bummer. "How about go-karts? Do they have go-karts here at all?" I asked. Google showed us King Tut Park on the east side of town that had go-karts and put-put golf. We plugged in the address and headed that way.
What...a...bust! You could totally blink and miss this place. The go-kart "track" was an un-mowed field about 30x50 yards big. The put-put golf set-up looked like planks of plywood with green felt on them. It was "roped" off by orange plastic tape. The front of the "park" was overgrown, and we could barely see from the road because the grass was so tall. I burst out laughing! Imagine if someone taking you to this place on your first date! Only in Lufkin! Marshall was speechless and flabbergasted. He started laughing too. Wow, that would have been super romantic. We decided to check out downtown Lufkin instead.
Downtown was even more depressing. It was a little after 5pm and everything was closed (on a Saturday night) except for the Standpipe Coffee Shop. We went in so Marshall could refuel with a cup of joe. We asked two nice young ladies who worked there of a nice hole-in-the-wall restaurant. They recommended Manhattan's Restaurant, which was up a block and to the left. It was the most expensive restaurant in town. We asked if there was a dress code, and they agreed there wasn't one. They tried pulling up a menu online, but didn't have any luck. They had been there before, and we asked what the price range was like. "I think I had chicken alfredo there once, and it was $8.50. Maybe." Marshall and I just looked at each other. Austin has spoiled us. Marshall was thinking expensive meant $35-45 an entree. When he told the ladies this, they waved their hands and said, "no way. Nobody in this town would pay that much." Again, Marshall and I looked at each other. After we left the Standpipe, we walked 90 seconds to Manhattan's and found their menu. It leaned more to the Italian palette. The steaks were $15-$30. Sure, we decided to give it a try later because we were still so full from lunch. Other than a bridal store and multiple antique shops on the main strip of downtown, there were boarded up buildings for rent and nobody walking around.
Next Marshall took me to where Lufkin Industries was. It's a massive facility, and I know Marshall could learn a lot if he got an internship there this summer. We had to go through the surrounding residential neighborhood, and it was rather depressing. I would not buy a house here. No way! In my mind, it would be a complete waste of money. Marshall asked, "Do you want to look at other neighborhoods?" My response, "No, I just want to go back to the hotel." On our way back, I told him I could not live here.
Back at the hotel, I turned on the TV and came across Bridesmaids on HBO. Around 8pm we went to the car to head to the restaurant downtown, when I changed my mind. "How about we go to the Walmart over there, pick up a bottle of wine, have the bartender at the hotel open it for us, swipe some cups from somewhere and order pizza to our room instead?" Marshall was all over it! We opted not for wine but Shiner Wild Hare pale ale beer for him and green apple Smirnoff Ice for me. We ordered a supreme pizza from Papa Johns, which only took 20 minutes to get to the hotel (I was quite pleased). We finished the movie and then just had a good, fun time by ourselves being silly and joking around. My 2 drinks did me in and made me sleepy. I was asleep by 10:30. Definitely not a night owl.
While we were at Walmart, I was completely taken aback at how unhealthy and unfit the local people are. Then it dawned on me how much Austin has spoiled us because we live in such an active city. I'm alway seeing people walking or running with their dogs, roads being closed due to a race of some kind, people rowing or kayaking on the lake and gangs of bicyclists taking up an entire lane on the road. Austin is one of the top ten most fit cities, and until my visit to the Lufkin Walmart, I didn't realize how much I value what that status meant. Our next home has to have lots of outdoor activities and people taking advantage of them, that's for sure.
Marshall is still sleeping right now, but I'm getting hungry, so I'll probably wake him up so we can get breakfast. I have a nice April Fools joke planned. He knows I don't like coffee, won't even touch it. I'm guessing he'll order some with breakfast, and when it's cooled a bit I'll ask if I can try some. He'll willingly give me the cup, and I'll take a sip, ponder it for a split second then say, "Well, it's not as bad as I thought. Maybe I even like it a little bit." Of course he'll be excited and say, "Really?!" Then I will say, "nope, sorry. April Fools!" muahahhahahahah
No comments:
Post a Comment