Jen and Meg's Excellent Road Trip Recap: Albuquerque

Leaving Oklahoma City left us a short drive across the remainder of Oklahoma, a small part of North Texas, and then just over half way across New Mexico to end up in Albuquerque, which was our next city.  To break up the 8+ hour drive, we agreed to stop for lunch about half way, which put us in Amarillo, Texas, a pretty good sized town, and one you may have heard of thanks in part to its mentions in many country music songs (Amarillo Sky by Jason Aldean, for example).  Our predetermined lunch stop was going to be the Coyote Bluff Cafe.

This place was on our radar because it was featured on Man vs. Food.  I got a little nervous when we pulled up and I saw a crowd of abut 10 people waiting outside.  We walked up and some nice folks let us know about the informal line policy - you basically just find out what group is before you and when they get called into the restaurant, you know you are next.  While we waited, we headed inside to get beers from the famous "beer tub."  That alone made this place awesome.  Its pretty much an honor system with the beers - you take your empties inside and pay with your meal...nice!

Coyote Bluff Cafe in Amarillo, TX

 It couldn't have been more than 10 minutes before we were seated. We immediately eyed the "Burger from Hell," but why stop there?  Megan and I each ordered a burger with the intent to split them so we could sample more.  I got the 'California Burger,' which also sounded interesting.  The burgers came about as quickly as you could expect, and were promptly devoured, along with a plate of fries that we also split.  For getting the burgers done medium well (my request), they were SO juicy!  Seriously, one of the best burgers I've ever had.  With that, we were ready to finish the drive to Albuquerque, or ABQ, as referred to locally.

Burrito from Frontier Restaurant in Albuquerque, NM

While in Albuquerque, I was on a mission to find some 'Breaking Bad' filming locations...just kidding, though I did find a website dedicated to such a thing.  As per usual, we got settled in around dinner time and set off for the K&I Diner, which was yet another featured restaurant on Man vs. Food.  This time though, we were hoping to try their food challenge, which is the 'Travis on a Silver Platter,' a MEGA burrito covered in green chile and french fries, and served on a silver tray.  Unfortunately, they were closed when we got there, so we headed to another spot for good Mexican food, Frontier Restaurant, located on the campus of the University of New Mexico.  Frontier was setup more like a cafe where you order your food at a counter, then pick it up when you number is displayed on a video screen.  Both of us stuck with the burrito theme and got their signature burrito.  This was more or less "normal" sized but covered in green chile (just about everything was covered with green chile).  I was a little disappointed in the burrito, but perhaps unfairly, as I was really hoping to try the Travis Burrito at K&I.

After dinner, we wanted to check out some breweries, so Megan put together a list of three to four breweries.  The first one we visited, Bad Ass Brewing, was just opened up by a longtime homebrewer, and had a kind of odd strip mall location.  They had a lot of beers on tap, but more than one of them just didn't taste right to me.  In fact, I think I disliked more than I liked.  But, as a fellow beer enthusiast and homebrewer, I gotta give the guy credit for following his dream.  Hopefully he can refine his methods a bit and start putting out better quality beer.

Bad Ass was an OK start, but once we sampled the beers at La Cumbre Brewing, you could easily tell the difference in quality.  I was really impressed by nearly their entire lineup at La Cumbre, including a couple of Pilsner style beers that I normally wouldn't order.  They had a few awesome pale ale's/IPA's as well.  To top it off, since it was a Saturday night, they had two bands playing bluegrass tunes, so we had some entertainment with our beers.  On recommendation from a few locals we chatted with, we finished our beers and headed around the corner (literally) to Il Vocino brewing.  Il Vocino was different in that they had a large indoor space, but a HUGE outdoor patio as well, part of which was covered.  It also appeared they had a stage area, so perhaps they bring in live music from time to time.  Il Vocino had some different styles than La Cumbre - they had more variety overall, but I think we both liked the beers equally as compared to La Cumbre.  I'm definitely glad we found these two places, and I can't wait to come back to try their beer.

Beer sampler at La Cumbre brewing in Albuquerque

To round out the night, as had become another custom, we made a stop for late night eats, this time choosing Del Taco, a fast food restaurant not unlike Taco Bell.  We figured since there weren't any Del Taco restaurants near us, we'd try to eat "local."  Sadly, Del Taco was disappointing, and I might even put Taco Bell above them in the Mexican fast food category.

Albuquerque was a cool city, and I wish we had a chance to spend another day there - my initial impression was that it seemed very old and dirty, but as we drove around and talked to people, sampled some of the local fare, etc. I developed a much more favorable impression and will hopefully return sometime soon to explore what we missed.

Jen and Meg's Excellent Road Trip Recap: Oklahoma City

The second day of our road trip involved us heading from Memphis to Oklahoma city, by way of I-40 through the heart of Arkansas.  We left Memphis around 9am ish(?) and had somewhere around a 7-8 hour drive.  I remember it actually felt a lot shorter than that, thankfully!

I wasn't feeling super well from the night before, but Megan really wanted to see part of Arkansas so when we started seeing signs for "Arkansas Wine Country," we figured this was as good of a stop as any.  I personally had NO idea Arkansas had a wine country, and we were surprised to see how hilly the landscape was in Altus, Arkansas.  I refrained from doing any wine tasting, but we did check out a few cute wineries - Chateau Aux Arc, and Wiederkehr Wine Cellars.  Wiederkehr is apparently one of the oldest wineries in the United States, founded in 1880 by a Swiss immigrant named Johann Andreas Wiederkehr.  Megan picked up a few bottles of wine to take with us for the remainder of the trip, and we made ourselves a little picnic lunch on the Wiederkehr grounds.  

The "Presidential" T bone at Cattleman's Steakhouse

By the time we got settled into our hotel in OKC, it was pretty much dinner time, and it was clear that Oklahomans preferred one thing for dinner: steak.  There was no shortage of steak places in the city, but we heard one noteworthy place was Cattlemen's Steakhouse, located in a part of town known as Stockyards City.  It was a throwback to some kind of old Western town - very strange to see this so close to a big city.  Cattlemen's was a trip - the place was jam packed with just about every type of person you could imagine, including guys with big cowboy hats (score!).  We were told the wait was 45 minutes but we could head upstairs to a waiting room/lounge and grab a beverage.  The upstairs lounge felt like we were at a wedding reception, so we grabbed a beer, and when all was said and done, we couldn't have waited more than 20 minutes.  For dinner, I ordered up the "Presidential" T bone, as George H.W. Bush reportedly ordered this steak when he dined there in the past.  The steak sounded menacing at 20 oz. but I was a bit disappointed. I easily finished the steak, and felt the filet part of the steak was small.  In other words, I'm sure I didn't get the same steak the former President Bush did.



After dinner, we headed out to check out the nightlife in the Bricktown neighborhood.  This is the same area where the Chesapeake Energy basketball stadium (yeah, I had to look that up) is located - where the OKC Thunder play.  Anyways, our first stop was the appropriately named Bricktown Brewery.  We tried a sampler of their house brews, plus their summer seasonal.  The beers were average, but the venue was very cool.  It was huge - two floors, each with a dedicated bar, and the upper level seeming to be more of a pool hall.  Either way, I'm sure it was a great place to watch sports, but there wasn't much going on this particular Friday.


After Bricktown, we walked a short ways to TapWerks Ale House, which has close to 100 beers on tap, in other words...paradise!  We chose first to stick with local brews, and had a sampler of four Oklahoma beers, then Megan and I each ordered one of our favorite beers that happened to be on tap, Cuvee des Jacobins Rouge (a sour beer).  While at TapWerks, we chatted up a guy who lived in town and gave us a few places to check out on our drive to Albuquerque the next day.


To round out the night, we decided to get MORE food.  I read about a taco place in a local food blog that was recommended by Chicago's very own Rick Bayless.  So, we drove across town in search of Big Truck Tacos, and Megan and I each ordered 2 tacos.  The tacos were pricey, but very flavorful and stuffed full of goodness.  We sure didn't need to eat after mowing down steak just a few hours before, but when in Rome...

The outside of Big Truck Tacos...looks like it could have been a Sonic previously

Jen and Meg's Excellent Road Trip Recap: Memphis

Hello!  I am fresh off my recent two week, cross country trip with my best friend Megan, and wanted to share some of the sights and sounds we encountered, as we covered 5750 miles over 16 days! I'll be doing an entry for each stop, which will hopefully make it much easier to read.


Also, I have posted many pictures to my Facebook page, which you can view here.  Be sure to also check out Megan's blog - she was much better about keeping up with writing each day, so her recaps may be filled with a tad more detail than mine.

Plate of barbeque from Charlie Vergos' Rendezvous

Day/night one of the trip found us heading from Chicago to Memphis.  We were on the road by 7:30am, and surprisingly, didn't hit a ton of traffic!  We touched down in Memphis, aka "land of the delta blues," (yes, we had 'Walking in Memphis' on repeat) around 4:00pm.  We unpacked our things and figured what better way to start our vacation than to seek our some famous Memphis barbeque!  Our hotel was only a short drive into downtown, and we parked a few blocks off the famous Beale Street.  Our dinner destination ended up being Charlie Vergos' Rendezvous, which was listed as one of the 7 Best Memphis Barbeque Joints by Travel + Leisure Magazine.  Rendezvous is apparently known for their ribs, so we each ordered a combo plate of ribs + brisket (in my case), and ribs + chicken for Megan.  To wash down the bbq, we also had a pitcher of a local brew, Ghost River Golden Ale.  The beer was nothing to write home about, but as you know, we like to seek out local beer, and it was a nice, cold, complement to the ribs.

After filling our stomachs, we headed out to walk the other famous Memphis attraction - Beale Street.  At first glance Beale Street is not unlike any other, bar/club/restaurant lined street you may find in another big city, but apparently the scene can get pretty crazy, so most nights the local police close off a 5 block stretch of the street to cars so people can walk (stumble) freely.  This also allows you to purchase and walk around with your chosen beverage(s) without fear of ticket.  Being a Thursday, we could tell right away Beale was not going to be hopping as it might on a weekend.  Regardless, there were still a fair amount of people out, especially as the night wore on.  Megan and I bar hopped a bit, trying to take in the city. We made an obligatory stop at BB King's Restaurant / Blues Club, and heard a short set from the band, while enjoying a beer from our new souvenir glass.
Almost every bar we went into had a band playing, which I thought was pretty awesome.  We met and chatted up few random folks in some of the bars, but in the end, we called it a night a little before midnight, knowing we had a long few weeks head of us.

Beale Street by day

Beale Street at night

Chicago Marathon Training Update

Not surprisingly, my marathon training regimen took a bit of a hiatus while I was on my two week, cross country road trip.  Though for all of the days we camped - at the Grand Canyon, Zion National Park, and Yosemite National Park - we were active, in terms of doing anywhere from a couple mile hike to our Half Dome hike, which was 19 miles, I didn't really keep up with the daily running like I had for the 3 weeks prior to the trip.

I attempted to do one of my long runs (9 miles) while in Albuquerque, but I ran into difficulty finding a suitable (safe) location, and by the time I located a high school track (one that ended up being only a few minutes from our hotel), I was only able to get in 4 miles before it was time to head back and shower up.

I was a bit disappointed at not sticking with actual running, but for as much time as we spent in the car, I'm glad we were still fairly active.  When I got back into town, I was glad to hear that Mike had been keeping up with his running, and we managed to get in a long run of 9 miles yesterday to get things back on track.  With our vacation coming up this weekend, we'll need to do another long run sometime on Friday or Saturday morning, and if I can successfully make it through that, I'll feel like I'm still on track.