When headed to Phoenix from LA, Joshua Tree isn't really on the way, but I decided to go there anyway for breakfast and coffee as our first stop. Joshua Tree Coffee made me so happy, I decided to bring back a bag of beans for my parents. JT Country Kitchen, which has been featured on Anthony Bourdain's No Reservations, wasn't nearly as good, but it's hard to mess up scrambled eggs and chocolate chip pancakes, isn't it? The little Asian (Vietnamese?) lady who runs the diner puts insane amounts of butter on anything and then watches over your shoulder to make sure you eat it all. She wasn't shy about touching us and telling us to take "one--just one--more bite."
Phoenix and New Mexico can be grouped together because there's literally nothing there. A girl in England was polishing my nails the other day and told me she goes to Phoenix on holiday with her family. "To do WHAT?" I asked her. She said they rent an old Hummer and drive around in it, and I'm not sure if that really sounds fun to me at all.
Scottsdale is worse than Phoenix; the girls there dress like it's 2005 and a good amount of bar patrons think it's OK to get on their knees in front of all the other bar patrons in order to snort a line of coke off a cocktail table. Drove through New Mexico on a Sunday and everything except McDonald's was closed. I haven't cared to research it, but is New Mexico a particularly religious state? I'm assuming that Sunday is God's Day there, and that's why we couldn't get a decent meal. NM is a prettier state to drive through than Arizona, though it felt at times like my litle Fiat might blow away. Spotted dust devils in the distance more than once. Experienced a moment or two of terror remembering Twister and a couple tornado scares I had while living in Savannah.
I chose Marfa over Amarillo, and it wasn't all I expected it to be. But I also think it needs a second chance to be fair. You can't judge a town really by the transplants who work/live there. And you definitely can't judge a town on a Monday when that's the one day everything is closed. We had dinner at Cochineal, drank at our hotel bar (El Paisano) and grabbed coffee/juices at Frama--a cute little shop attached to a laundromat--in the morning.
Made a pit stop in Austin, where the food, for the first time since California, gets really, really good again. A little out of the way, but Salt Lick has the most amazing barbecue everything (cash only) and it's BYOB. Get the sampler that has pork ribs, sausage, cole slaw, potatoes, bread and brisket.
Alabama and Mississippi: I drove through both in a matter of hours, only stopping once for gas. Those are two states I didn't give any thought to while planning this trip. In retrospect, I should've mapped out a couple food spots, but there will be a second chance for all of that.
Next time around, I'm thinking seven nights instead of five. One each in Savannah, New Orleans, Austin, a town called Alpine I discovered while driving through Texas (it's a little more centrally located than Marfa), possibly Amarillo, the Grand Canyon, and a wild card.
*This is still pretty rough considering I'm about to jump on a train to Berlin, but I'd prefer to share now rather than later. Updates and links coming soon.
7/22/15 UPDATE: Finally added links a month and a half later. Don't. judge. me.
7/22/15 UPDATE: Finally added links a month and a half later. Don't. judge. me.
I'll take a # for the ride back to the west. ;)
ReplyDeleteI really love those pics! Good to know about you Allison!
ReplyDelete