Texas. Barbecue. Texas. Barbecue. Texas. Barbecue… Yeah. Keep it going.
For us, Texas is barbecue.
We’re native New Yorkers. Until 2 years ago (holy shit! TWO years ago!) we didn’t know what we didn’t know.
And what we didn’t know was barbecue. Texas barbecue.
Our friend Jeffy wants to check out San Antonio during the Christmas season (we heard the lights on the Riverwalk are awesome), so we’re slowly headed there. But, on our way, there is plenty of barbecue that needs to be eaten. And Jake has taken it upon himself to map our course from the North Eastern tip of Texas to San Antonio based on what barbecue joints are around.
Lexington, Texas claims Bodacious Barbecue. Ridiculous name. Ridiculously good barbecue.
So good, that they have opened a few Bodacious Barbecue offshoots. But if you know Jake, you know he insisted we visit the original. I wasn’t mad.
We ordered some brisket (which is smoked for 24-26 hours), some sausages, and a meat filled sandwich that I forgot the name of, but a gentleman behind us in line highly recommended. His recommendation was right. And the brisket touched me in the deepest pits of the barbecue portion of my soul. Yes, you too have a portion of your soul which is allotted to barbecue; you just might not realize this until you’ve visited (and eaten your way across) Texas. I have noted that none of the menus at the barbecue joints which dot the landscape of the motherland of barbecue (Texas) offer Vegan or Vegetarian dishes. I still think Vegans have a portion of their soul allotted to barbecue though. And while I doubt Texas has plans to foster the Vegan barbecue soul in the near future (Texas is Texas you know), most all of the barbecue joints give you free cowboy beans. And if you pull out the pork slab and wipe off the goop, the cowboy beans might be Vegan? Oh, and they usually give you a slice or two of white bread (Wonder style). I think Vegans can eat that.
We didn’t do too much else while we were in Longview. We were only there for a few days, and they were all weekdays (work days), and Longview is the type of town were everything of entertainment value closes at 5pm. And we didn’t note anything that seemed overly fascinating in our research of Longview anyways. Except for the barbecue. That was, indeed, fascinating.
While I don’t want to talk shit about Longview (because holy crap, that barbecue), the running here sucked. We stayed at Fernbrook RV Park, which is a tidy place. But it’s on a two lane highway with a speed limit of 75 and no shoulder. And also, Texas has a lot of stray dogs. And the stray dogs like to chase people who run. I love dogs when I am not running. I don’t like dogs when I’m running and they are chasing me and they are trying to kill me because that’s what dogs try to do to people who run past their property. Also, dogs don’t get to eat barbecue, so sometimes they try to eat people. Probably because they are angry that people don’t let them eat barbecue.
I checked out the two urban ‘trails’ listed on google maps for Longview. They were both very boring. But one had a cool sculpture, and I was grateful that there was at least somewhere I could run without getting eaten by barbecue starved dogs, even if I had to drive 20 minutes to get there.
And because we really only came to Longview to eat the barbecue at Bodacious (have I mentioned that it is really good?) and take a break from driving across the great state of Texas (trust me, Texas is proud to be Texas – they know they’re great), we packed up and headed out pretty quickly after we arrived. 3 days is a pretty short stay for us.
But, before we could leave, Jake discovered Oprah Winfrey’s favorite turkey. And he discovered that Oprah Winfrey’s favorite turkey was smoked in a town only 40 minutes away from Longview, in Tyler, TX at Greenberg Turkeys.
I bet you can guess that we made the drive to Tyler to buy Oprah’s favorite 6lb smoked turkey to put in our smaller than average fridge until Thanksgiving. We had to move/drink some of the beer, but it fit. And Jake was happy. And the 6lb turkey in the fridge had Oprah’s seal of approval. So that’s nice.
