This past Sunday, we piled into the car and headed out to Lockhart again, with our plan of action firmly in place. I'm happy to report that our efforts were successful, and
we were rewarded Ryan finally got to eat barbecue from not one, but two, of the famous restaurants in "The Barbecue Capital of Texas."
Our first stop, at 10:15 in the morning, was
Black's Barbecue, and we happened to catch a British film crew taping a segment for some upcoming cooking show. They were a bit tight-lipped about the whole thing and didn't give out much information, but I did manage to take a few sneaky pictures of them as Ryan drove our getaway car.
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| Black's Barbecue with no line and a few happy patrons who wouldn't get out of the shot. |
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| My sneaky picture of the British film crew at Black's Barbecue. |
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| Another sneaky shot of the show's hosts. Are these guys famous? |
After our first "pit" stop, we then headed to
Smitty's Market for more barbecue takeout. Just like at Black's, there was no line, and Ryan was able to run in, grab some meat, and run back out quickly while I kept our little guys occupied in the car.
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| Smitty's Market, with no line. |
In his haste and excitement, Ryan didn't pick out any side dishes (my favorite part of a barbecue meal) at either restaurant, but we did come home with a feast of brisket, sausage, and ribs, and we're still working our way through it all, days later. I was kind of partial to Black's sausage and brisket, but Ryan thought it was really too close to call and, in his words, "more research is needed."
It also seems that a long-time Lockhart barbecue feud has finally ended, with the opening of a new restaurant in Austin. Addie Broyles, of the
Austin American-Statesman, writes about it
here.
* * *
And, in totally unrelated news, we experienced a strange blackout that evening that lasted well into the night. Our electricity went out about 7:30 pm, and it only affected our house and four others surrounding us. It was also the hottest day of the summer so far, with temperatures reaching above 100 degrees Fahrenheit, but the house stayed fairly cool since the sun was already going down for the evening.
Of course, our family is incredibly dependent on technology, even to sleep, and our boys had a difficult time going to bed without night-lights and white noise. We were able to improvise with flashlights and a white noise phone app, but James and Rhys still stayed awake much longer than normal.
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| Reading by flashlight. |
Around 11 pm, a utility crew with several large trucks and very cool flashlights on their hard hats descended upon our street and went to work on an underground transformer in our neighbor's yard.
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| Ryan took this photo using a long exposure. |
Shortly after that, our electricity was restored and we were able to resume our normal lives. I was just relieved that I had finished and scheduled my
blog post for Monday morning.
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