Yes, in case we hadn't noticed the air conditioners suddenly powering up from house to house, all you had to do was walk outside around 3PM this afternoon and you would be well aware that the fireball has officially returned to San Antonio. Oh sure, they'll probably be shoveling snow for a few more months up in the northern states, but here, you can feel free to dust off your Speedo's and thongs (I'll be sure to avert my gaze) and lather yourself up with some serious sunscreen, because I get the feeling, it's on!
The good news is, this time of year as the sun begins to fade in the evening, there is the occasional breeze blowing through the trees and along the back porch to take the burn off. This comfortable weather allows those of us who had earlier retreated for the cooler climate of an air conditioned living room and a soft leather recliner in front of the TV to get back with nature and do as the cavemen did - barbecue some chicken and sausage on the gas grill. 
And I did. Then I went right back into the comfort of the air conditioned house with ceiling fans spinning to do just as the cavemen also did so many years ago; drink a beer and eat chicken, sausage and potato salad.
You'd think that we would have something better to do than jump in a little truck and head southwest of San Antonio just for a little drive, and today, we did. We drove through our neighborhood seeking out garage sales, and I must report that the pickin's were mighty slim. So, on a whim, I said, "Let's go to Lytle", and my wife simply responded with , "Let's go!" 
We took Loop 1604 from the GNW and headed south through Atascosa to I-35. At this point I usually insert a comment about how nice it is to drive just a few minutes and be out into the country. I won't repeat it this time, but you can appreciate the feeling (unless you live in a really huge city, or you already live out in the woods and are only reading this blog during your monthly visit to civilization).
Directly west of San Antonio along Highway 90 is a town called Hondo which we have visited before, and today, we ended up there for lunch. I'll tell you about that later. But to orient yourself, check out the handy map provided by our friends at Google Maps, and appropriately annotated by Bill Gates and I using PowerPoint.
I had originally thought of this as being a very brief trip down to Lytle, perhaps lunch at some undetermined restaurant, a few pictures of the things we find interesting and then back home. I also can tell you that I was eager to see first hand the evil Cabaret that has opened outside of the greater Lytle Metropolis, and get a picture of it. I did. You can read more about that over at Strange in SA.
From I-35 south, we headed down 132 which is also US-81 and for those that live there, Main Street. Lytle looks like a typical small town farming community, but a lot nicer than many of have seen in South Central Texas.
Of course, I love the older buildings along the main drag, but the mixture of new homes tastefully interspersed among the older neighborhood just a few blocks in town was a welcome sight for someone who would like to move outside of San Antonio, but not feel as though either everything will be brand spankin'-cookie cutter-new, or completely run down shacks inhabited by folks hiding from the law. Think Christine.
If you need to mail a package or a final resting place, you can do it in Lytle.
Okay, one final shot at the goofy Cabaret thing. The place is not only out of town, but by my calculation, it was also in the next county. When someone in Lytle says, Not in my backyard, they ain't kidding!
Just a stones throw down the road from Lytle is a tiny place called Natalia. It is probably much bigger than what you pass on 132, I mean, there is so much farm land out there and just wide open space, but to the Saturday afternoon drive-by, Natalia looks pretty small.
Sure, they have the post office and even their own memorial to those who have served. Very nicely done and well maintained. This alone is worth a trip to Natalia.
I noticed this tiny little chapel and I swear, I think I have seen this thing in another small town. And if you look at the picture, it looks as though it has been moved. Who knows? I know it is tall enough to walk in, but seriously, you'd have to go outside to change your mind.
Further down the road is the town of Devine. I really enjoyed this little place. We have some friends who live just on the other side of I-35 and it is easy to understand why they are willing to make the commute to San Antonio for work.
And these people put on a serious flea market! We didn't stop, although we seriously thought about it.
This is sort of interesting. You know how sometimes, some guy will open up a business and it does so well, he decides to open up another one right across town? Well, it turns out that some lady named Ruthie knows a good thing when she sees it. Hence, two lounges less than a mile apart. Technically, that is across town.
Devine does have your standard items - the water tower labeled appropriately, and a big huge bank. We actually stopped in the parking lot of the bank and purchased some Girl Scout cookies. The taste just the same out in the country as they do in the city.
One thing that you don't see everyday. A motorized wheelchair junkyard. I guess I just didn't realize there was such a market.
There is an intersection of Highways 132 and 173, and when you head back north, before long, you will make your way to Hondo - and that is what we did. The drive is wonderful. Open farmland and the occasional house. About half way to Hondo, you can begin to recognize the change in landscape. Off in the distance you can see the beginning of the Hill Country. On such a beautiful day, it is a crime not to own a convertible anymore.
I only post a handful of pictures on these little reports, but I often take close to a hundred pictures in just an hour or so. I have a method where I transfer the full-sized photos onto a portable hard drive, then delete the images on my 1gb disk for the camera. Apparently I forgot to clean up the disk, so by the time we got to Devine, my disk was full. First stop in Hondo was the Super Wal-Mart where I purchased two 1gb SD disks for $18.00. How did the people of Hondo survive before Wal-Mart?
Once in Hondo, we were simply famished. I'll tell you about the vittles next time.
My wife and I have been meaning to try out this new BBQ place that recently opened on Bandera and Eckhert in Leon Valley called Dickey's. According to a friend of my wife, this place is the cat's meow. So, we took a little drive over and gave it a try.
First mistake was deciding to go at the exact same time every other person in Leon Valley got the bright idea to try it. We stood in line for close to twenty minutes, primarily because they only have a single cash register/order taker. So, if you try Dickey's and see a long line, be prepared for a wait.
The crowd also resulted in a seating situation. The dining room is small so people were literally standing there waiting for other people to un-ass their seats so they could sit down. Again, timing is everything, because by the time we had finished eating, (around 7PM) seating was not an issue.
I would like to point out kudos to a proactive floor manager. There was a large table of folks sitting next to us (8 to 10 people) who had clearly finished dinner, had to-go containers filled and were sitting there enjoying after dinner conversation. This is perfectly fine and a reasonable thing to do if the situation permits. But in the case of having people literally standing there waiting for a table to sit at so they can eat their food, most reasonable people will get up and leave. The Dickey's manager came by and asked the people how everything was and if he could get them anything else. They said it was all great and no, they were fine. So then he gave them the boot. Bravo.
To the vittles. I genuinely had a hankerin' for catfish and had thought about it all day long. I figured my wife would get some brisket or something and I'd get fish. Important note: You are not at Grady's and there is no fish.
When we started looking at the prices for what she wanted and what I wanted (since there was no fish, I was going to try some pulled pork and some brisket) we decided it would be cheaper if we went all out and ordered what they call the Full House. You get 2 ounces each of the eight different meats they serve so you can get an idea of what it is like. You also get rolls and two sides. Dickey's does not skimp on the portions, so this Full House platter could easily feed a family of four.
They have a condiment bar so you can load up on the standard pickles, onions and other needed accoutrements to dress out your buffet, and I especially liked that they had a selection of three or four sauces that were in heated tins. You basically grab a plastic tub and fill it with the sauces of your choosing.
Though it took an eternity to order, our food was out rather quickly and by the time we had filled our drinks, gotten the sauces and prepared ourselves for a heart attack worth of food, it was delivered to our table.
I found it all to be fine. I had no issues with any of the meats or the two different sausages. Both the chicken and the turkey were cooked nicely and they were not dry. My wife said a piece of ham she tried was hard, but the piece I had was fine. The order came with a single pork rib which we took turns gnawing on, and it was cooked to be very tender. The pulled pork had great texture and the brisket was fine. For me, the key to all of this was the sauces. I took a bite of each item without sauce, and then tried the "Hot" sauce and the "Sweet" sauce. The Hot had a nice taste to it but I've had better. The Sweet was very nice and complimented all the meats. My wife felt like the Sweet had a bit too much of a kick to it, but I was already numb from the Hot, so I guess I didn't notice.
Our sides included the Onion Tangles (onion rings) and green beans with bacon. Oh, the green beans with bacon also included cooked potato slices. A nice touch and very tasty indeed.
We really couldn't make a dent in the full platter and opted instead to finish dinner with a soft serve cone, sort of like they used to have at Bananza.
Okay. I'd say give it a try. It may be that we are just hard core Grady's people, but overall, I didn't see this as being anything special. My wife was a little more blunt in her evaluation, giving it an Eeee-Yuck! I don't know how that translates in restaurant review jargon, but it definitely means we probably won't go again. But I'd say it is worth giving a shot. Just don't go at 6PM on a Saturday night.
And just remember, if you don't like it, Grady's is just across the street.
My daughter made another trip into town this weekend and this time around, she had Garmin guide her to my oft-obsessed BBQ place, Hashknife on the Chisholm located just north of Mineral Wells and east of the town of Graford.
The lady behind the counter took notice of her immediately as she was still in her military uniform (apparently, there aren't a lot of bases in the greater Palo Pinto County area). When she ordered up six sandwiches and asked for them to go, the kind lady asked her how far she was going. Upon learning that San Antonio was the destination, she kindly placed the fixin's into containers and gave her a bag of buns for the trip. How nice is that?
Though I did consider getting up at midnight last night to dig in, I thought it better to hold off a little closer to noon today. I made it until almost 10am to be precise.
Anyway, I promise, this will be the last Hashknife update - my wife is considering putting me in for some sort of Barbecue Obsession Syndrome counseling.
Suffice it to say, even 15 or 16 hours later, it was some kind of Tasty Treat.
I know to some of you this may come across as being a bit obsessive about a place to grab some food, but I think I have somewhat of a breakthrough on the location of the best barbeque I have had in recent memory, Hashknife on the Chisholm.
My daughter is making the trip from Wichita Falls down to San Antonio this weekend and as my wife was talking to her via cellular technology, she mentioned that she was getting close to Mineral Wells. I quickly alerted her to be on the lookout for the barbecue place we enjoyed so much and reported about here and here. Unfortunately, I told her literally minutes too late because when I looked up the name of a company she mentioned on Google Maps, it was obvious she had already passed the place.
But, that gave me an idea. The big mystery has been that this little BBQ place has no presence, other than this Blog, on the Internet. Using the Hybrid feature on Google Maps, I followed 281 north up from where my daughter was in Mineral Wells until I found a place that matched the features I recall. An intersection that was a 4-way-stop with two stores on the same side of 281 but nothing on the other corners.
To give you an idea of where I'm talking about in relation to Mineral Wells, here is an overview of the area. The big circle is the place where the BBQ place is.
So, once I got to the intersection on the map, I did a search on variations of BBQ and Restaurant etc with no luck. So then, I remembered that the business on the other corner was a gas station, so I typed Gas into the "Find Business" tab. Turns out that G's Gas and Groceries shares a corner, and further, G's has a phone number. So, I called them.
Now this can be sort of tricky because if I said the wrong thing, the lady who answered could have sent me on a wild goose chase. My main concern was that the barbeque place may be a fierce competitor of sorts. But, what the heck. So a very nice country-sounding lady answers and I explain that I'm calling from San Antonio and such, and the whole business about not being able to find any reference to this barbeque place on the internet. She indulged me for a few seconds which was nice of her, then she said, "Yep, that's the place right across the street from me." Bingo! She said they had been in business about a year - which may explain the lack of any advertising.
I had hoped that she might have an address or a phone number, but I think she decided that perhaps I was a telemarketer or Hillary Supporter or something, because that was pretty much all she would confirm. I thanked her for her time and wished her a fine evening.
So now, what we know is that G's Gas and Groceries is at 8161 North Highway 281 in the unincorporated town of Peadenville in Palo Pinto County, TX. So, I'm guessing that Hashknife on the Chisholm is going to have an address of something like 8000 or maybe even 7950 or something like that - who knows really, but the good news is, when my daughter gets home, I'm going to plug in the address to G's Groceries into her Garmin so she'll be able to get a good chipped beef barbeque sandwich when she returns to Wichita Falls.
You know, I could probably just call 1411 on my cell phone and ask for a listing, but I want to keep this mystery going for a little longer. I have faith in the Internet and I trust one of you people out there will say, "Hey, doesn't Bob own the Hashknife on the Chisholm? I wonder if he knows that some dumbass on the Internet likes his barbeque?"
So there you have it. An update on lunch from a few months ago.
And I did. Then I went right back into the comfort of the air conditioned house with ceiling fans spinning to do just as the cavemen also did so many years ago; drink a beer and eat chicken, sausage and potato salad.
