Vacation to Mirando City
Apr. 29th, 2013 07:45 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
livingdebSaturday we took a trip back to Robin's childhood and visited Mirando City, Texas, his favorite place he lived as a child (with the possible exception of Hawaii) and home of the best Tex Mex restaurant ever, where his family used to go every Friday night.
It's very easy to get to Mirando City from here. Go south on I-35 until you hit Laredo. Turn left on 359 and drive for about 30 minutes. Then turn right on 649 which is Main Street and go 1 mile.
We actually took a different slightly shorter route on the way there, but that's the route we took home.
The first half of the trip was full of wildflowers. Thank you Ladybird Johnson.
The second half was just South Texas land, which actually was quite pretty to me: mostly yellow grasses and bright green mesquite, with other grasses and bushes in multiple earth tones and, in the background, hilliness tinged with blue (like mountains are, even though there aren't any mountains). Also, millions of pale yellow butterflies.
First we stopped at Lala's Cafe. In the olden days, Lala and her kids and grandkids were all running around helping. Lala taught them to make their tortillas by hand: no tortilla press for them. The large plate was less than $1.00 and you could get an additional side of enchiladas for about $0.65. Robin could still taste those enchiladas forty years later.
Lala is gone now, though her picture is on the wall. We met a daughter and granddaughter of hers. They are still using the same recipes. The prices are about the same, too, except multiplied by ten. Robin got the large plate and side of enchiladas, just like in the olden days, plus a side of guacamole. I got the large plate as well.
Fortunately, this is not like "Scooby Doo," where you are embarrassed to have liked it so much as a kid--it's more like "Speed Racer," which is actually kind of good.
The most unique thing is that the crisp corn tortillas are super thick, so you don't have to worry about them going soggy, even when the tacos and chalupa are sitting in the enchilada gravy. So the tacos remind me of what are called "puffy tacos" in town, only not dripping with grease. I also love the taco meat and the rice, plus they use real cheese and plenty of it. Mostly it's what I expect from Tex Mex, but the enchilada gravy is more like a chicken gravy than a chili gravy (still good, though), and the guacamole is also not spicy (but still fresh and good).
Mimi, Lala's granddaughter, warned us that most people had left and that the teacherages were gone. Robin's family lived in a house reserved for teachers as part of their salary. Also, the schools are no longer in use--they had been consolidated in another small town. Still, we walked all around the place.
It was a lot like I had heard. The entire place was built on a grid of streets: about five streets by five streets. There was plenty of grass and scrub, though we didn't see any rattlesnakes, and it would have been great fun riding around on your bike as a kid (ages 7 - 11 like Robin was) and walking up and down the railroad tracks.
When Robin was taking a picture of a rusted-out oil-drilling thingy, a local pulled up and told us where to see a full antique one just north of town. Robin introduced himself, and it turns out they recognized each other's names. Fun! So that guy told us that the music teacher's teacherage was still there and we found it. But the rich guy's house was gone! Leveled.
The high school was still there, and with a historic sign on it. The newer elementary school, with its green glass brick was still there, too. Both were carefully boarded up with perfectly-sized boards. Some had warped and we could see inside.
Many, many of the remaining houses were also boarded up. As were many of the businesses. Although the area was rich with oil money, it doesn't look rich at all.
After our walk, we talked to Mimi a bit more and learned where many of the people had moved to: mostly Corpus Christi, but also San Antonio and Laredo.
We thought of spending the night in Laredo (googling showed that it's considered safe, though Nuevo Laredo across the border in Mexico is no longer considered safe at all), but it just looked like a generic city, so we just drove home.
Robin got permission to make a Facebook page. Which is why you can see my car in the picture! I'll link to Robin's Mirando City pictures when they are ready.
Blog entry of the day - Eco Cat Lady's How I Control Migraines Naturally - "Now for the triggers... and unfortunately they are numerous. It's pretty much impossible to avoid all of the things that can trigger headaches for me, but I've found that there's sort of a cumulative effect, so if I know that I'm gonna be exposed to one trigger, I try extra hard to avoid all of the other ones."
This is a very interesting and informative article. Fortunately, I don't get real migraines. My headache symptoms are all cute miniature versions of migraine symptoms, and ibuprofen kills them for me. But if you do get migraines, you may find an interesting idea or two in here to check out. Warning--the author loves lolcats.
It's very easy to get to Mirando City from here. Go south on I-35 until you hit Laredo. Turn left on 359 and drive for about 30 minutes. Then turn right on 649 which is Main Street and go 1 mile.
We actually took a different slightly shorter route on the way there, but that's the route we took home.
The first half of the trip was full of wildflowers. Thank you Ladybird Johnson.
The second half was just South Texas land, which actually was quite pretty to me: mostly yellow grasses and bright green mesquite, with other grasses and bushes in multiple earth tones and, in the background, hilliness tinged with blue (like mountains are, even though there aren't any mountains). Also, millions of pale yellow butterflies.
First we stopped at Lala's Cafe. In the olden days, Lala and her kids and grandkids were all running around helping. Lala taught them to make their tortillas by hand: no tortilla press for them. The large plate was less than $1.00 and you could get an additional side of enchiladas for about $0.65. Robin could still taste those enchiladas forty years later.
Lala is gone now, though her picture is on the wall. We met a daughter and granddaughter of hers. They are still using the same recipes. The prices are about the same, too, except multiplied by ten. Robin got the large plate and side of enchiladas, just like in the olden days, plus a side of guacamole. I got the large plate as well.
Fortunately, this is not like "Scooby Doo," where you are embarrassed to have liked it so much as a kid--it's more like "Speed Racer," which is actually kind of good.
The most unique thing is that the crisp corn tortillas are super thick, so you don't have to worry about them going soggy, even when the tacos and chalupa are sitting in the enchilada gravy. So the tacos remind me of what are called "puffy tacos" in town, only not dripping with grease. I also love the taco meat and the rice, plus they use real cheese and plenty of it. Mostly it's what I expect from Tex Mex, but the enchilada gravy is more like a chicken gravy than a chili gravy (still good, though), and the guacamole is also not spicy (but still fresh and good).
Mimi, Lala's granddaughter, warned us that most people had left and that the teacherages were gone. Robin's family lived in a house reserved for teachers as part of their salary. Also, the schools are no longer in use--they had been consolidated in another small town. Still, we walked all around the place.
It was a lot like I had heard. The entire place was built on a grid of streets: about five streets by five streets. There was plenty of grass and scrub, though we didn't see any rattlesnakes, and it would have been great fun riding around on your bike as a kid (ages 7 - 11 like Robin was) and walking up and down the railroad tracks.
When Robin was taking a picture of a rusted-out oil-drilling thingy, a local pulled up and told us where to see a full antique one just north of town. Robin introduced himself, and it turns out they recognized each other's names. Fun! So that guy told us that the music teacher's teacherage was still there and we found it. But the rich guy's house was gone! Leveled.
The high school was still there, and with a historic sign on it. The newer elementary school, with its green glass brick was still there, too. Both were carefully boarded up with perfectly-sized boards. Some had warped and we could see inside.
Many, many of the remaining houses were also boarded up. As were many of the businesses. Although the area was rich with oil money, it doesn't look rich at all.
After our walk, we talked to Mimi a bit more and learned where many of the people had moved to: mostly Corpus Christi, but also San Antonio and Laredo.
We thought of spending the night in Laredo (googling showed that it's considered safe, though Nuevo Laredo across the border in Mexico is no longer considered safe at all), but it just looked like a generic city, so we just drove home.
Robin got permission to make a Facebook page. Which is why you can see my car in the picture! I'll link to Robin's Mirando City pictures when they are ready.
Blog entry of the day - Eco Cat Lady's How I Control Migraines Naturally - "Now for the triggers... and unfortunately they are numerous. It's pretty much impossible to avoid all of the things that can trigger headaches for me, but I've found that there's sort of a cumulative effect, so if I know that I'm gonna be exposed to one trigger, I try extra hard to avoid all of the other ones."
This is a very interesting and informative article. Fortunately, I don't get real migraines. My headache symptoms are all cute miniature versions of migraine symptoms, and ibuprofen kills them for me. But if you do get migraines, you may find an interesting idea or two in here to check out. Warning--the author loves lolcats.