TX Day 5- Tacos, Toilets, and Texas History
Today started with saying a fond farewell to my friend Theo, and a trip to get some coffee at Ahh, Coffee. I think the the intention of the name is to be a refreshed ahh, but I liked imaging that it's a horrified scream as the coffee comes to get you. Luckily the coffee was good enough that you wouldn't mind meeting it in a dark alley.
My next stop was a place that Theo called a Texas must-see, Buc-ee's. Buc-ee's started out as a small convenience store/gas station but soon expanded to a regional chain largely on the strength of their award winning bathrooms. They pride themselves on having beautiful, clean, artfully decorated bathrooms, even winning the 2012 "Best Restrooms in America" award from Cintas. I don't know about best in the country, but it's definitely the best of any gas station bathrooms I've ever been to (not that they had the stiffest competition), and also definitely the only one I've ever been to with tons of really good western paintings.
After fueling up and making the most of Buc-ee's most famous amenities, I started heading for my next major Texas city: San Antonio. It was about a three hour drive so by the time I got there I was pretty hungry. I got some lunch at a place called Cappycino's, a smaller more laidback offshoot of one of the city's fancier restaurants called Cappy's. I got a "Fun Guy" Burger because I love mushrooms and puns. The burger had grilled mushrooms, poblano peppers, onions, and melted fontina cheese. It was an amazing blend of burger and toppings adding up to a very satisfying whole. The surprise key ingredient tying it all together though was the bun that was perfectly toasted on both the top and bottom. I've found that there's rarely a better introduction to a new city than having a really good burger.
After lunch, I got some more coffee at a local coffee chain conveniently named Local Coffee. It was very cozy with great service and tasty coffee, just when I was really starting to need it.
I took my local Local Coffee coffee to go and went to see one of the museums I was most excited for: Barney Smith's Toilet Seat Art Museum. Barney Smith is a 97 year old master plumber turned folk artist. Using all kinds of mixed media materials ranging from standard paint and carving to more esoteric items like antique civil war bullets, Native American arrowheads, and rattle snake rattles, Barney has transformed over 1350 toilet seats into an impressive array of themed artistic creations. This amazing collection decorates Barney's garage floor to ceiling, even hanging from rafters, and Barney can usually be found hanging out working on his latest toilet seat and chatting with visitors seemingly so genuinely happy that the odd thing thought brought him joy has spread to others. You might have to speak up a bit though, because while he's always happy to talk, he is still 97 years old.
While every seat was special in its own way, the ones that stood out to me the most were the World's Widest Toilet, spanning several feet; a toilet seat with a beautiful oil painted landscape complemented by illuminated pieces of petrified wood; and a wonderfully creepy but deeply loving tribute to Michael Jackson.
One of the prides of Barney's collection is his toilet seats with license place from every state that visitors from that state can sign the back of. When seats become too full of signatures (which has happened at least once for most states), they get put on an overflow rack and he tries to acquire a new license plate from that state and make a new seat for it. The Massachusetts seat was getting a little full, but I was able to find a spot to scrawl my John Hancock and Barney insisted I take a picture with it. Please note, how overly happy I look to be so immersed in my natural habitat.
After the toilet seats, I went to the Witte Museum, a museum my mom's friend who doesn't usually like museums recommended so I knew it had to be good. Further evidence suggesting this was the right place for me to spend the day came when I saw this big ol' dopey dinosaur out front looking like he just got caught with his hand in the cookie jar.
The first exhibit was about the natural wildlife and different ecosystems of Texas, which being one of the biggest states in the union means that covers quite a lot with desserts, plains, oceans, and lakes all represented. I think the most interesting animal habitat was the prairie dogs because they were cute but also had complicated system of underground tunnels that you wouldn't normally get to see outside of a museum setting. I also never pictured seeing a turtle and wolf in the same place, but I guess they both just love the beach.
After all the stuffed animals was a few real live Texas natives. Most of these were of the creepy crawlie variety, tarantulas, scorpions, snakes, and all manner of things you wouldn't want to wake up looking at. I did think the frog was pretty cute though, in a lumpy, slimy sort of way.
And of course, wherever there's animals there's animal poo. And like any museum worth their salt, the Witte had a whole drawer full of that poo so you could see what it looked like when different animals did their business (I didn't realize beforehand what a scatological day this would turn out to be).
After reading and learning about all that nature, I went out to the outdoor portion of the museum to see some for myself. They had some classic Southwestern stone architecture, a small stream, some activities for kids, and even a big treehouse, which was probably also intended for kids but I choose to assume that wasn't the case because I was very excited about that tree house and there was a pretty tremendous view from the top.
Inside the building next to the treehouse was an exhibit about the human body, with lots of interactive activities for the kiddos. I already knew most of the anatomy facts, and I felt bad taking spots away from kids at the games so I didn't stay too long but in keeping with the unintentional theme of the day, my favorite exhibit here was on the story of digestion from mouth to rectum. This museum really was full of shit.
Back outside, they had two of the oldest buildings on the museum campus some log cabins built in the 1940s by some local teachers who wanted to illustrate what life was like for the first San Antonian settlers. It was very neat historically, both in terms of the actual settlers but also in terms of really earnest teachers in the 40s going above and beyond to give their students a good experience with history. I always like log cabins because they make me think of a combination of legos and Abe Lincoln.
I went back inside to see the current special exhibit called Confluence and Culture: 300 Years of San Antonio History. This exhibit celebrates the centennial of San Antonio becoming a city, which happened while Texas was still a Spanish colony. Obviously technically the area that is San Antonio goes back more than 300 years, but the Native Americans didn't have Catholic saints so they probably called it something different. The exhibit had a great mix of really fantastic artifacts and inventive curatorial choices. This started with an introductory gallery where you got a brief introductory narration over different videos projected onto an early Spanish style settlement. It was really great intro to the exhibit as I loved the juxtaposition of historical architecture with modern technology.
The tricentennial exhibit was organized chronologically starting with the Spanish missionaries who first organized the town around their missions. A lot of their early survival depended on the aid of indigenous Native Americans, who ended up choosing to side with the Spanish in exchange for protection from other rival tribes and opportunities for earning exotic goods to trade. This chunk of the exhibit contained dioramas of early villages, conquistador weapons and armor, religious artifacts, and full door salvaged from a type of monastic building called a Maestro. My family calls my youngest cousin Jason the Maestro, because he runs the show, so that made me happier than the average door does.
The rest of the tour through San Antonio history was told through a combination of art and artifacts that captured life in early San Antonio. The art ranged from pieces of the time it was representing to more nostalgic modern pieces. Artistically I think my favorite piece was a painting called Woman Grinding Corn by Ernst Schuchard because it just has a weird quiet dignity to it. Historically, I was really fascinated by old photographs of historic San Antonians that sometimes get left out of the history books, most notably a smiling Black cowboy. Along a similar intersection of race, history, and Texas, there were four Castas painting from the 1700s, which illustrated the complex hierarchy of race-based social class at that time between Spaniards, Native Americans, and Africans and African-Americans. Besides being beautiful (if kinda creepy) paintings, the castas were remarkable illustrations of the diversity of that time, and also just how socially constructed the idea of "race" is with classes and distinctions that the Spanish colonists thought were really important at the time that are barely thought of nowadays. I feel like Westerns are all very Black and White, but I love seeing actual historic documents that show how much more interesting and diverse that time period was (even if that diversity was coupled with a whole heaping helping of discrimination).
The real star attractions of this exhibit though was the historic artifacts tracing San Antonio from a tiny mission settlement through several wars and battles to the bustling city it's become. These Included remnants of the bloodier history with Spanish swords and guns from the Alamo as well as more day to day items such as tortoise shell hair combs, wagon wheels, and even a horse-drawn carriage. In terms of curation, I was most surprised by the combination of old and new with a replica Tejano cottage with a projected video of a woman in period appropriate clothing walking you through her daily life like the Ghost of Texas Past. In terms of pure silly joy though, my favorite item was an accordion that belonged to the legendary accordion player and San Antonio native, Flaco Jiménez. I'm not sure that name will ring any bells as is the lot in life for anyone who plays the accordion and isn't Weird Al, but Flaco's mark on popular music is undeniable. That little squeezebox has accompanied the likes of Bob Dylan, Willie Nelson, Ry Cooder (he's all over the album Chicken Skin music which is a personal favorite of mine), and even the goddamn Rolling Stones to name just a tiny smidge of the man's discography.
Lastly in this exhibit was a shoutout to an amazing woman, named Emma Tenayuca. She may not be the most famous activist in the country, but in her native San Antonio she was a true hero. She was appalled at the working conditions she saw all around her during the Great Depression, and began organizing strikes and fighting on behalf of different labor groups starting when she was just 16! She also took up causes that frequently went without champions or representation such as Women laborers and Mexican immigrants. Her biggest success came in 1938 when she helped organize one of the largest strikes in Texas history on behalf of Pecan Shellers. The shellers worked in horrible, dangerous, unsanitary conditions for only $3 a week, and Emma was not going to stand for that. She led a strike of over 10,000 workers across 130 pecan factories. The strike lasted 37 days, people were arrested, beaten, and gassed, but eventually the pecan factories caved and raised everyone's wages. It was a huge success, but it made Emma public enemy number one. She didn't make any more friends after getting involved with the Communist party (I love this woman) and she had to flee San Antonio after an angry mob attacked a communist meeting she was supposed to be speaking at, literally hurling bricks at this woman who was just barely 20 years. That might scare away the average person, but not Emma. She left San Antonio while the heat cooled down, but she never stopped fighting on behalf of workers, women, and minority groups. She became a teacher in California, and eventually earned a masters degree. By the 60s, San Antonio forgave Emma enough to allow her to return and she lived there for the rest of her life teaching the next couple generations of activists.
After the special exhibit, I went to a room that just had a big ol' tree growing in the middle of it. I'm not sure why exactly, but it did look pretty cool and that was good enough for the likes of me.
Up next was a gallery dedicated to the earliest Texans, who at least prove the expression that everything used to be a lot bigger in Texas. In case you were wondering how much bigger, you can see from my photo that an adult woman doesn't even reach the knees of a T. Rex. The other dino highlights for me were the big flying guy that looks absolutely terrifying and impossible to escape from and some different teeth to illustrate the ways different kinds of big scary lizards ate. I think it's so cool that scientists are able to learn so much about an extinct animal's habits just by working backwards from something as small as its teeth.
The next gallery looked at some smaller early Texans, the first Native People along the Pecos River. This gallery started with a very cool immersive introductory video projected onto a long curved screen that extended past your peripheral vision creating a cool optical illusion of depth. Over some beautiful footage of Texas scenery and that big big sky, a narrator told one version of a creation myth attributed to those early tribes.
The rest of the gallery collected historical artifacts from these prehistoric peoples (pre-history is a weird concept semantically, huh?). My favorite thing here was a salvaged Shaman's tool kit because I think that's such a fascinating part of any ancient culture, both because it shows what they considered sacred but also gives insight into some real medical knowledge they acquired without any of the biological knowledge we sort of take for granted nowadays. Because these peoples lived before written history, nobody is totally sure what all the shaman's tools were used for and any ideas are mostly extrapolations based on current cultural practices and the occasional cave paintings. One other big fascinating clue was the finding of buried bodies that had been cremated, wrapped with special herbs and items thought to be protective, and then placed in caves so that the dead could very literally travel to the underworld. In terms of non-shaman artifacts, they had some tools, arrowheads, and some of the early examples of painted rocks dating back over 4000 years! The rock paintings were exciting to me aesthetically and as further windows into the inner lives of ancient peoples, and the tools amazed me for how they showed such a refined and intimate knowledge of the environment with special knives adapted to the very important task of cutting native agave, a dietary staple back then that had to be harvested in a way that removed thorns thus requiring vey different shaped knives than hunters would need for animals. I'm get that survival was very literally on the line back then, but I'm never not impressed at how resilient and clever people were to figure all of these things out so long ago.
Lastly this gallery was rounded out by some informative, if slightly creepy dioramas of what researchers suspect communal spaces would have looked like back then. Even if the figures are a little not-quite human looking, the image of a bunch of ancient people sitting around a campfire telling stories to me stresses a powerful sense of shared humanity through history that made me feel more strongly that these were actually once people not just museum exhibits and that was a pretty neat feeling if I do say so myself. I've probably gone to more museums on this trip than most people go to in a lifetime, so sometimes I can feel a little desensitized to what I'm seeing and I always like when some piece of art or a display totally busts through that the myopia of road-weariness ( I learned the word myopia today).
Up next I went to another building associated with museum, because if you think museums are just one building than you don't know Texas, baby. This new building was all about Texas culture. The rooms were a little bit smaller, but they packed a lot in. The first room I went to here was all about items that told interesting local family history stories through a lot of vintage knick knacks. I think the most beautiful of these was an old revolver that belonged to a cattle farmer. The barrel had over 275 local cattle brands engraved in it, and the handle was gorgeously carved ivory cow. Something like that is just way too pretty to shoot. I think the most fascinating family story came with a very unassuming item, a crumpled up old bugle. The bugle initially belonged to a young man named Joseph Santa Anna Cruz, who joined the Texas Infantry in 1861 at the age of 17 despite being told many times by the commander that buglers and flag bearers would be the biggest targets for enemy soldiers. During the civil war, Cruz befriended a French mercenary named Paganel who also somehow ended up fighting for the confederacy. He had brought a bugle with him from France, and the two bonded over teaching each other bugle calls. After the war, Cruz went back to Texas to work with cattle and Paganel went back to the mercenary grind fighting for Maximilian of Mexico, taking Cruz's bugle with him. Paganel was captured and killed. While he was awaiting his execution, he managed to find a Mexican cowboy and give him Cruz's bugle to take back to his old friend. Quite the journey for a little lump of brass.
The next room I went to was all maps, maps, maps. I liked this room way more than I expected as a wildly inexperienced cartographer. I was really interested by how much the maps changed both because over time but also between different artists. It goes to show that something you think of as objective like the shape of state really depends on the accuracy and the interests (!) of the person making the map. Every map really worked well as both pieces of art and historical documents. I think my favorite on both accounts was on that showed the range of Texas cattle which went all the way up into Canada! I feel like cows today just don't hustle like they used to.
The next room I went to was a little bit bigger, and it had to be because it traced the history of transportation in Texas from horses and carriages to early automobiles. As someone who's been making a lot of three hour drives lately, I can attest to the importance of having good transport to get around Texas so I really connected with this gallery on an emotional level.
Up next was a history of daily life around the turn of the 20th century. There were guns, bootleg bottles, swords disguised as canes, , tools for finding oil, giant syringes for cows, fancy tortoise shell combs, cigar smokin' cowboy dolls, decorative cookie cutters, a scary cane that belonged to a messenger from the Alamo, and a perfume bottle shaped like a cicada! Spooky! I do love that this gallery really captured all the weird and wild intricacies of everyday life.
My favorite piece here though was a series of photographs of the Chili Queens of Military plaza, a group of Mexican- American women who made chili con carne, enchiladas, coffee, and corn husk cigarettes and completely took over a local city plaza. These ladies put the queens in Chili Queens... also the chili, it was supposedly very very good.
As I was leaving this chunk of the museum, I noticed a little tile gondola painting hanging on the wall and it was just so darn cute I had to snap a photo.
Back outside, I walked around the beautiful outdoor area and took in some local sculptures of children and cowboys and also some ducks that were not sculptures but real ducks but I didn't notice that right away.
As I walked out the main entrance I notices one last thing I hadn't seen before, a big ol' pile of fake rocks that powerfully illustrate how different the earth has looked over millions of years. When you hear numbers that big, it can honestly be almost too abstract to actually visualize so seeing eons mapped out in rocks was super cool.
And if you thought two buildings was enough for a museum, oh ho ho the Witte had to one up you with one more building across the street. But before you could get there you had to walk by a cute little statue of a circus elephant named Cinnamon Kandy (which to be honest sounds more like a stripper name, but I'm not judging. Live your best elephant life and make that money, Cinnamon). This little sculpture was gifted to the city of San Antonio in 1940 and has been moved around to different locations all over the city, but wherever it's been it's always been a popular photo spot for tourists and locals alike. It's hard not to be taken in by a surprise circus elephant.
The last building was actually more of a rag tag selection of items on display from the main museum's storage. There was kind of a little bit of everything there, from vintage toys to cool rocks to local paintings to butterflies to even some silverware owned by George Washington. It was such an odd and eclectic collection, and I don't know why everything there was there but I loved it.
The crown jewel of this collection though was an old Wooden Bench that used to be in downtown San Antonio, where a young man about to ship off to basic training was a-courting a young woman so he took out a pocket knife and carved into the bench "Johnny Loves Vivian". This might have seemed totally mundane, but that young man turned out to grow up to be Johnny Cash. It's a great story about the serendipity of what young people can grow up to be and also that teenage love usually doesn't work out. I wonder if June Carter knew about that bench.
After the Witte Museum, I went to probably the most famous building in San Antonio, and maybe all of Texas, The Alamo. I think I always just assumed because it was fort that it would be on a hill or something, so I was totally shocked that it was just abruptly in the center of downtown San Antonio. Like there's a CVS, there's the Alamo, there's a bank. It's nuts. It's gotta be up there for most unassuming national monument I've ever been to. Part of that has to do with the fact that most of it isn't there. I mean it was a battle that became legendary for being a rally cry, and for the bravery of a ragtag group of people but I feel like people forget that they actually lost there violently and most of The Alamo Mission was burned down and destroyed. Despite it's unassuming nature, it's reputation precedes it and a lot of travelers from all over the world still flock there everyday like I did. Before you go to the Alamo itself, you're greeted by a big beautiful marble statue called the Spirit of Sacrifice, that consists of grand obelisk, figures of the famous men who died there, and large saintly figure. It's also gained some infamy for being the actual spot that a strung out Ozzy Osborne got arrested for peeing on while wearing a dress. This led to the ol' Prince of Darkness being banned from the city for 10 years.
Naturally the first thing I did when I got there was ask the man outside greeting tourists if there was a basement because Pee Wee's Big Adventure was a big part of my childhood and I thought I'd help look for Pee Wee's bike. I feel like the guy hears it a lot, but too his credit he always maintained a positive attitude and just yelled "You're standing in it!" excitedly proving that there really was no basement, and Pee Wee's super cool bike was elsewhere.
Inside the Alamo, I only did the free self-guided tour so I probably didn't take in as much as I would have with a guided tour, but what was salvaged was some impressive old architecture, a few cannons, and some beautiful natural scenery. These artifacts were accompanied by some memorials to the Texans who died there, including the famous six flags over Texas, a gallery of art and information about each guy there, a gallery of vintage weapons from Texans in every major US war (not just the Mexican- American war). I was definitely a little hot and tired at this point, so I was fading which, coupled with my general skittishness about whether the US ever should have ethically entered the Mexican-American war (probably not), meant I was having a tough time being the reverent tourist I was supposed to be. I was still very happy I went though, because it was genuinely a very cool space to be in.
Just a little ways down the street from the Alamo, I decided to take a little mid-day break at a local hot spot for beer and oddities, the Buckhorn Saloon. While the bar is still a functional beer hall, it also has a famous wildlife museum complete with hundreds of taxidermied animals (both real and imaginary), rattlesnake rattle art, an arcade, and famously shocking displays about Texas history including a scene of a Comanche brave scalping a pioneer while his wife and children look on in horror. I didn't feel like paying the museum fee, partly to save money and partly because you could also see about a hundred mounted animal heads right from the bar and I felt like that was pretty good.
I ordered a beer called the Guns and Oil Black Lager because it had the coolest sounding name, and it came in a chilled Texas-sized glass that you can see for comparison is roughly the size of my head. I really really liked the beer, because it looked like a stout but it was actually very light like a lager but with just a bit more maltiness. Perfectly refreshing after a busy day.
After the beer, I went to recharge at a beautifully decorated Mexican market/bakery/cafe called Mi Tierra Bakery that my mom's friend recommended. It was so bright and colorful and the food and coffee were out of this world. I got a sugar candy that looked like the Mexican flag and then I walked around the Mexican neighborhood drinking my coffee, because there was a street festival happening with lots of live music. I even saw a tuba player so I was extra happy. I also had an incredibly convenient parking place that I got on the first try for the second time today which made me extra extra happy, and proves that I am my father's son.
I rode that sugar and caffeine rush up to see a little bit more Texas history by going to see one of the last surviving 300+ year old Spanish mission buildings, San Jose Missions. Unfortunately I forgot to charge my phone in the car while I was talking to my parents so my phone promptly died as I was pulling up, but I found a pretty solid google image capture of this beautiful old architecture.
After the history, I went down to check out the river walk area, because it was almost sundown and I figured it would be really pretty. I happened to accidentally pull into an area of the San Antonio River bordered by a place called the Blue Star Arts Complex so I got two things for the price of one. Most of the stores and art galleries were closed at this point, but being an art complex they even spruced up their bus stop with mosaic art benches that feature a lovely little quote from Pablo Picasso "Art washes from the soul, the dust of everyday life". I like this because I thought the tiling was really pretty, and because now I want to always call waiting for a bus "collecting the dust of everyday life" because it's pretty spot on.
The Actual riverwalk did not disappoint, with lots of racing waters and stepping stones both natural and man-made peppered throughout. It was really pretty, and while I didn't actually walk a ton of it, I was very glad I got to see it. I was also pretty glad that there was yet another coffee place right in the Arts Complex that was still open called Halycon Coffee. It was too sleek and stylish for me not to go in for my fourth coffee of the day (i have to pee all the time, it's whatever, don't judge me). I got a cold brew and I was very happy with it.
As I was driving to dinner, I passed the World's Largest Mosaic of the Virgin Mary. I couldn't find a good parking spot and daylight was dwindling so I couldn't get a great picture, but it was monumentally impressive and I think this picture online does it pretty good justice.
For dinner, I went to a Mexican restaurant called the Original Blanco Cafe. My mom's friend and TripAdvisor both raved about it, but like the Alamo this local legend couldn't have seemed more unassuming from the outside. Looks can be very deceiving, especially when it comes to both Mexican and BBQ restaurants for reasons I'll never fully understand, with some of the best examples of both in the country having very plain looking exteriors. I guess when you're actually the best, you don't need to go around telling everyone you're the best, and the Original Blanco truly did have some of the best tacos I've ever eaten. I got the crispy taco plate with one chicken, one pork, and one beef taco (because I am indecisive) and a big scoop of delicious rice and beans. It was simple but it was perfect, and my waitress was very funny because I looked so lost coming in (probably had something to do with the four coffees and knowing if I was supposed to seat myself) so they just treated me like I was the dumb white boy that I am, giving me a lot of very sweet check ups throughout the meal. All in all it was a really great end to a pretty great day, with San Antonio really threatening to become my favorite city in Texas if only for the more relaxed and friendly vibes than it's bigger counterparts. It was just a shame I only had the one day there.
Favorite Random Sightings: Wet Your Pants Splashway (poorly named waterpark); "Unlike Washington, we get things done" (unnecessarily political Handyman ad); Texxx (exactly what you think); Nothing Bundt Cake; Two little kids at the museum having this conversation: Boy- *makes a bunch of nonsense sounds* Girl- "You're talking nonsense" Boy (immediately defensive beyond his vocabulary)- "well you're talking nonsense too!"
Regional Observation: A waiter unironically called me "pardner" today and I have never been happier for a stereotype to come true.
Albums Listened To: Reaching (A new refutation of time and space) by Digable Planets; Read a Book Single by Bomani "D'Mite" Armah (probably the most vulgar assemblage of very good advice ever put to music, i love it); Read Music/ Speak Spanish by Desaparecidos (I like it but don't love it as much as my cousin who gave it to me does); Real Covers Caught on Tape by Gaslight Anthem (just Songs for Teenagers); Real Gone by Tom Waits (a real weird one, but the last song always makes me cry and I hate that Tom has that kind of power over me); Real Infidels by Bob Dylan (just the songs that didn't make it on Infidels); The Real Thing by Taj Mahal (an absolute blast of a live album)
People's Favorite Joke:
Didn't get any today but here's one from the internet:
A blonde, a redhead, and a brunette were all lost in the desert. They found a lamp and rubbed it. A genie popped out and granted them each one wish. The redhead wished to be back home. Poof! She was back home. The brunette wished to be at home with her family. Poof! She was back home with her family. The blonde said, "Awwww, I wish my friends were here."
Songs of the Day:
Hip Hop over live jazz, very 90s but still super cool
Very funny, but very over the top
not the song that makes me cry, but very good blues number
Bob Dylan, Mark Knopfler, and The Wailers’ rhythm section shouldn’t work this well but I’ll be damned
I can’t believe Papa Taj was ever this thin
Bonus Taj because I wasn't doing this segment of the blog when my favorite song came around: