Mission, TX, Delights and Surprises
Mission, TX was full of surprises. It looked small on the map, like a little strip of city, not so much. We are here on a mission, AdventureMan wants to visit the National Butterfly Center (did you know the United States had a National Butterfly Center?) and I wanted to see the Rio Grande.
Mission was big, and modern. Contrary to much of our Texas experience, it has very new roads.
Mission, and McAllen, her next door sister city, are right on the Rio Grande. There is a huge Homeland Security presence in Mission and McAllen. Many of the TripAdvisor reports I had read to find a good hotel seemed to have been written by government workers, so I should have put it together, but I didn’t, and I found the hugeness of the security presence a little overwhelming, and seriously intimidating. I am guessing all the new infrastructure is in support of guarding our borders.
Our hotel was very new, very modern and welcoming. It was all polished surfaces and glossy textiles, clean white linens, totally lovely for a chain hotel. We jumped into our swimsuits to hit the equally lovely pool, only to discover it was really cold, and for an Alaska girl to say a pool is cold, it really has to be cold.
Fitness goals thwarted, we checked at the desk for a local restaurant recommendation. The desk clerk was very helpful, but recommended a chain, and we wanted something more truly local. Fortunately, there is Trip Advisor. In minutes, we found a place that thrilled our hearts. It was a Thursday night date night kind of place for the very married. People were flocking in and ordering platters of BBQ. The Lone Star was our kind of place.
We are not people who like to waste, so AdventureMan had to take about half of his beef brisket back to the hotel, thinking he would have some for breakfast. It was very lean and beautifully smoked. Unfortunately, we discovered we did not have a refrigerator in this lovely hotel, oh AARRGH, and the excess beef went to waste.
I had my favorite, BBQ chicken, and a really good potato salad. Normally, I am not a big potato salad fan, I don’t like too much mayonnaise, and I like flavor. This was really good potato salad, for me, and very tasty.
The entire time we were there, people were flooding in. We really liked the Lone Star BBQ. We do a lot of talking with locals, so we later learned that everyone goes to Lone Star for it’s famous grapefruit pie. Grapefruit pie had not sounded all that tempting to us, but before Homeland Security, Grapefruit was the mainstay of the Mission, TX economy, and Lone Star BBQ specializes in a wonderful, very sweet, Grapefruit Pie.
I have a feeling that in order to make grapefruit into a pie, it’s kind of like rhubarb, you have to use a lot of sugar, a LOT of sugar. I would rather like to try one spoonful of a grapefruit pie, just for a taste, but I am not all that sorry that we passed, only that it is something that Mission was once famous for.
Beaumont and Refugio, TX en route to Mission, TX
This is an exciting day; this is a day we travel new roads, roads we’ve never travelled before. New roads make our blood race.
First, we have to get through Houston. It’s early in the morning, so Houston friends, I didn’t call. I know you’ll appreciate it 🙂
One of the best parts of this trip was crossing rivers. We crossed lots of rivers. These are some of the rivers we crossed:
Brazos River
Colorado River (we crossed the Colorado many times on our journey)
Lavaca River
Arenosa River
Garzitas Creek
Guadalupe River
San Antonio River
Aransas River
Texas can be a very dry state, but after this winter and spring, southern Texas is as green as Alaska, and the rivers are flowing. We learned that a swale is the same as an arroyo; we know them better as wadis – places where rivers or creeks may sometimes run, but which may also dry up. In a country like Tunisia, when we lived there, there were not a lot of public facilities available, so a bridge over a wadi always was a welcome sight.
We trust in Google, but sometimes we don’t thoroughly understand the instructions. On this route, when we got to Victoria, they told us to take the Southern business route, so we exited and tried to find it, but discovered (it was only about ten minutes) that the road we had been on was the southern business route around Victoria.
Some of the worst roads we travelled were in Texas. At one point, we gassed up and it was my leg for driving. It wasn’t an interstate, but it was a highway with two lanes going both ways, a 90 degree entrance to the highway, and fast trucks barreling down the road. I am not a person who likes screeching tires, but I had to screech my tires to get on that road, and I still feel resonances of the adrenaline jolt.
Along this long long route 77, we got hungry, and there aren’t a lot of likely stops – it’s a long, lonely road. When we saw the signs for Refugio, our tummies were rumbling and we knew we needed to take a chance.
Sometimes, luck is just with you. As Highway 77 went straight through Refugio, we saw, on the left, a place called Gumbo Seafood, and the parking lot was packed with big trucks, farm vehicles, cars; we’re not even sure we can find a place, and just as we start to turn into one, a big huge lawn-service kind of double truck takes it and we are forced to go to the back, where we find a spot. Inside, it is packed with customers, and loud, and food is going to the tables and it looks . . . Mexican!
We are shown to a table in a quieter area, where we order. When my meal comes, I am delighted – grilled shrimp, with sauteed onions and green peppers, a very hot pepper of some kind, and about half an avocado sliced. It was magnificent. In this hopping roadside stop, I had one of the best meals of my trip. AdventureMan’s tacos were stuffed to the brim, so much meat he couldn’t eat half of it, and he said it was not tasty, so he would rate this place lower than I would. Sometimes, it’s all in what you order, and there is no telling what you’re going to get. I loved this meal!
For some reason, we assumed all the seafood was frozen, and wondered how an interior town would specialize in seafood. Once we saw the larger map, however, we saw they weren’t all that far from the Gulf, and we had evidence that at least the oysters were very fresh:
A lot of times, we run across fun places to stop along secondary and back roads, but we didn’t find any fun places this time, like for home made goodies. It was all rural and agrarian, and a lot of it looked like it had seen better days, until we got to Mission, TX.
Obesity Linked to Lower Risk for Dementia
From today’s AOL news, surprising and counter-intuitive findings:
Obesity is linked to a whole slew of illnesses like cancer, type 2 diabetes, and heart disease, just to name a few.
However, new research surprisingly finds that obesity can actually reduce your risk of a devastating and fatal condition: dementia.
A study out of the UK found the link after analyzing data from nearly 2 million people over the course of decades.
According to the research by Oxon Epidemiology and the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, underweight people had a 39 percent higher risk of dementia versus people of average weight. The shocking part is that overweight people had an 18 percent reduction in risk and those who are clinically obese, a 24 percent reduction.
The lead researcher told BBC News, “The controversial side is the observation that overweight and obese people have a lower risk of dementia than people with a normal, healthy body mass index. That’s contrary to most if not all studies that have been done, but if you collect them all together our study overwhelms them in terms of size and precision.”
It is important to note that while this study is certainly controversial, it’s not the be all and end all in determining how weight correlates to risk of dementia. If nothing else, though, it certainly opens the door for further research.
The Nomadic Life: Our Journey to the American SouthWest
We still get restless. AdventureMan still gets calls asking him to come check something out, even goes back to Doha now and then, and I visit family. But we get so restless. We need the stimulation and challenge of other ways of seeing things, other ways of thinking, new sights, new smells, new adventures. There are so many places I have never seen!
Some people are just wired that way. I can remember, even as a young girl, being at the Juneau Airport, smelling that aviation fuel smell, and wishing I were going somewhere. It’s just the way I’m wired. I still love the smell of aviation fuel.
I am so lucky to be married to a man who indulges me. AdventureMan isn’t wired precisely the same; he is better at growing roots than I am, but he still likes to shake things up a little when it’s all same same same, day after day.
We’ve both had to adjust. I grew up in a family where when we were going, say from Germany to Italy for a vacation, we got up early and went, as AdventureMan so colorfully puts it, “balls to the walls” driving 12, 13 hours until we dropped from exhaustion. We were just intent on getting there. AdventureMan’s family traveled in shorter segments. It’s taken us about 40 years to find a happy medium. He has adjusted to sharing the driving with me. I’m a good driver, and I love driving. He goes to sleep, and I can drive for hours, it’s sort of a zen thing.
So off we went. We put over 6,500 on my two year old car, more than doubling the total mileage. It was a wondrous and joyful journey, full of surprises, full of delights, and with a couple days of truly awful driving.
We packed too much. When you are going someplace every couple days, you really don’t need a lot of clothing. I worked out of a large duffel; I would put what I needed for the next day or couple of days in a smaller bag to carry into the hotels.
At our church, we collect toiletries for the homeless population in Pensacola and the recovery population. I came back with a lot of toiletries 🙂
Our first day was to Beaumont, TX. No particular reason to stop in Beaumont, it was just a good place to stop en route to where we were going, which was The National Butterfly Center and the National Birding Center, both of which happen to be in Mission, TX. Mission is right on the border, on the Rio Grande, and I have never seen the Rio Grande before and wanted to see it.
When lunchtime came, we were just passing Baton Rouge, where one of our very favorite restaurants, Al Basha, serves mouthwatering Arabic food. It’s just off I-10, we can see it from the road and what a great way to start our journey. But as we enter, every table is filled!
No worries, the waiter hurries over and leads us to a table way in the back, against the wall, which happens to be my favorite place. They have stuffed vegetables on the menu, which AdventureMan orders in a heartbeat, and of course, too much food comes.
We first became acquainted with stuffed vegetables long ago, living in Amman, Jordan, where it was a very common dish, served to family and to guests alike. Later, living in Kuwait, my friends knew how much AdventureMan loved stuffed vegetables and would make extra for him when they were preparing food for family or gatherings. What great memories this lunch brought back!
Louisiana is a quirky state, a state we like a lot. At a gas station near Lafayette, we saw three restaurants and an antique shop, including one with Lebanese food.
By the time we got to Beaumont, it was nearly dinner time. Beaumont is an oil refining town, and the hotel was full of men working in the refineries or about to be hired to work in the refineries. It was a very male populated environment. I went to the pool, but there was a large group of men sitting out on the patio by the pool, and I didn’t stay long, I wasn’t comfortable. It reminded me of the Middle East. I don’t like being oogled.
We were still so full from our Al Basha lunch that we found a local supermarket and got salads for dinner. It was a great first day on the road.
Poetry for the Very Married
This was on GoodReads Books today:
what we mean
by Maya Stein
I took out the trash to apologize. You made dinner to thank me for finishing
our taxes. I stayed on the couch for my bad mood. You went to bed early
for yours. The croissant, a peace offering. Two loads of laundry,
repentance. The sidewalk you shoveled while I slept, something resembling
forgiveness. When the words fail, the house still rings with conversation,
its rooms, wide mouths, the unswept floors, a burgeoning embrace. A kiss waits
inside every spent tube of toothpaste. When the milk sours, we fall in love
all over again. So I am saving the garage for the hard argument.
You are keeping the basement
in your back pocket.
FitBit Survives Washer
Today was the last day of our very long journey, and as I was quickly dressing, I forgot to move my FitBit from my nightdress to my daytime clothing.
Ever efficient, as we got home we dumped all our dirty clothing directly in the laundry, and I sorted it and put the first load in.
Unpacked, put suitcases away, hung up clothes, put away travel kits, etc.
Turned on computer, which to my great regret I had not taken with me. While taking care of a few other chores, thought I would put my FitBit near to sync, first time in a long time, we’ve been gone, gone, gone.
Oops! No FitBit! There is only one place it might be, on my nightdress, which is now swirling around in the washing machine.
Thank God for front loading washing machines; mine turns off and lets me look. My nightdress is close to the front, and there is my FitBit, safe and well.
Took it back upstairs, and it worked as well as ever, uploading all my fitness information from our long trek, including today.
LOL, it gave me credit where none was due, including 47 minutes of “very active” time as it went through the wash cycles.
As soon as I get on track, sort through all the photos, I will share our long journey with you. 🙂
Where is Mbeere District, Kenya?
Today the church prays for the diocese in Mbeere, in Kenya. It is north of Nairobi, mountainous, farming area.
Santino’s in Woodstock, GA
We had the most wonderful time visiting our friends in Atlanta, and getting to see their new restaurant, Santino’s. Santino’s is not a chain, but is family owned. There are several, with small differences from restaurant to restaurant. The food at the Santino’s in Woodstock, GA is fabulous.
I had heard about these garlic knots, so I was eager to try them. They are so delicious I had to push them away so I wouldn’t fill up on them!
They have my very favorite pasta – aglio oglio, simple pasta with garlic, oil and parsley.
Oh! The Vegetable Pizza is out of this world! The crust is made with special water to give it that New York thin crust pizza special taste!
AdventureMan loves Caprese Salad, and his was fabulous:
My Ceasar salad:
When it came time for my Ceasar Salad, they grilled up the most delicious pounded chicken breasts:
And a mixed pizza, half veg, half pepperoni. So much food!
We are so happy for our friends, making their dreams come true. They have a wonderful location, just outside downtown Atlanta, where everyone is buying and building. We wish them great success.
George Artisan Bakery and Restaurant in Pensacola
We got so spoiled, all the years we lived abroad, by really good bread. When George opened, we couldn’t wait to go try their bread offerings. We weren’t disappointed.
First, their baguettes have that firm, crispy outside, and soft, tasty inside that we look for. Their challah is like eating a sweet cloud, and their combination pumpernickel/rye is perfect for sandwiches. Welcome, George! We are so glad you are here!
George is on Garden Street, near E.
George has the buzz – George is hot, and fills up fast at lunch. People know a good place when they find it:
George has a wonderful selection of freshly baked breads with only healthy ingredients:
My divine Salade Nicoise – crunchy green beans, tasty olives and perfectly grilled tuna.
AdventureMan’s Divine Beet Salad – fabulously tasty.
George has a generous offering of pastries daily:
And wonderful tiramisu . . . we almost licked the plate!
The Hunting Ground: Campus Rape Victims Speak Out in New Movie
From AOL News via Sports Illustrated
When I lived in Kuwait and Qatar, I was appalled by the way rapes were treated, it was like this huge wave of abductions and violations, and nothing was done. As it turns out, things are changing a lot slower in my own country than I thought. This new film, The Hunting Ground, is by the same person who documented violence and rape in the US military, spurring then Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta, a truly decent man, to put the fear of God into the military leaders who were covering up the many rapes and blaming the victims. We have the same problem on college campuses.
There is only one cure. We have to raise our sons to respect women. We have to continue raising the bar for equality in our country until women have equal access to jobs, health treatment, legal proceedings, etc. Films like The Hunting Ground are painful, and at the same time, help us to face, and to overcome our societal short comings.
I love it that this film is “giving voice to those who have no voices;” that these courageous women speaking out have bravely named their rapists and described their circumstances. It can’t be comfortable, but it is their right. I am proud that they are not intimidated by fear of the ‘blame the victim’ mentality they have endured on their college campuses. When did colleges and universities begin placing money-making and winning teams before the well-being of their students?
New film gives chilling account of sexual assault on college campuses
Sexual assaults on college campuses have reached alarming levels and the issue has drawn the attention of Congress and even President Obama himself. The latest research indicates that one in five college women will be sexually assaulted and as many as 90% of reported assaults are acquaintance rapes. It is believed that more than 100,000 college students will be sexually assaulted during the current school year. Nowhere is the deck stacked more against sexual assault victims than in college athletics. In just the last few years alone there have been cases at Florida State, Michigan, Oregon, Vanderbilt andMissouri.
All of this is a backdrop to a harrowing new film that premiers in theaters on Friday in New York City and Los Angeles. The Hunting Ground is a jarring exposé that shines a bright light on the epidemic number of sexual assaults taking place on college campuses each year.
The Hunting Ground features a group of survivors who faced harsh retaliation and harassment for reporting that they had been raped. The film focuses on institutional cover-ups and the brutal backlash against survivors at campuses such as Harvard, Yale,Dartmouth, the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, USC and the University ofCalifornia-Berkeley, among others.
Some of the most vexing stories featured in the film involve women who were assaulted by athletes. While The Hunting Ground isn’t all about sports, the most dramatic moment in the film occurs two-thirds of the way through when the woman who accused former Florida State quarterback Jameis Winston—who after a strong showing in last week’s Combine is projected by many to be the No. 1 pick in this spring’s NFL draft—appears and tells her story publicly for the first time. The woman, who is named in the film but SI.com has chosen to protect her identity, is shown on camera and gives her life-changing account of what she says happened the night in December 2012 she left a Tallahassee bar with Winston.
A high school honor student who planned to attend medical school, the woman is articulate and attractive. She looks like the girl next door, a person you would trust to babysit your children. It is uncomfortable to watch—yet impossible to look away—when she describes being beneath Winston on his bathroom floor, repeatedly telling him “no” before being physically overpowered.
“We’re grateful it’s the first time people will get to hear [her] story,” said The Hunting Ground director Kirby Dick. “It’s her first-hand testimony. Up to this point it hasn’t been in a public space.”
The woman’s parents also appear in the film. Her father talks about driving to Tallahassee Memorial Hospital with his wife to be with their daughter hours after the incident.
There is nothing easy about retelling these stories for the world to see. But the attorney for the woman who says she was raped by Winston, John Clune, said his client decided to break her silence in the film because she felt it was the right venue to tell her story.
“The film was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity,” Clune said. “The work by these filmmakers is nothing less than groundbreaking. It took tremendous courage, but our client and all of the incredibly brave women in the film have advanced the cause of rape survivors everywhere.”
The Hunting Ground also examines a sexual assault accusation against a Notre Damefootball player in 2010. Tom Seeberg, whose daughter committed suicide after she says she was sexually assaulted by a Fighting Irish starter, tells a heartbreaking account of school officials thwarting the investigation into his daughter’s complaint. A former Notre Dame police officer reveals that he and his colleagues were not allowed to approach or question an athlete on athletic properties.
The film also mentions rape cases involving football players at Missouri and Vanderbilt, as well as basketball players at Oregon.
The testimonials of rape survivors are wrapped between raw footage that is both gut-wrenching and disturbing. A small mob of unruly fraternity pledges at Yale are captured on film outside a freshman dorm for women, chanting: “No means yes. Yes means anal.” All the while a guy with a bullhorn is shouting: “Louder.”
In another scene we see drunken frat boys spilling out of a house where there is a sign out front that says: “THANKS FOR YOUR DAUGHTERS.” It’s enough to outrage any parent with a daughter heading off to college.
The film is directed by Dick and produced by Amy Ziering, the team behind the Oscar-nominated film The Invisible War, which revealed systemic sexual assaults and cover-ups within the U.S. military. That movie prompted Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta to announce significant policy changes and inspired the passage of the Military Justice Improvement Act.
Dick and Ziering started looking into the situation on college campuses shortly after the release of The Invisible War. “We were astonished that the problem was as serious in higher education as it was in the military,” Dick said.
Full disclosure: I appear in The Hunting Ground as an expert. Two of the cases in the film—Lizzy Seeberg’s alleged assault at Notre Dame and running back Derrick Washington’s sexual assault of a student at the University of Missouri—are featured in my book The System: The Glory and Scandal of Big-Time College Football, which I wrote with 60 Minutes correspondent Armen Keteyian.
Some of my research is also featured in the film, including the statistic that student-athletes are responsible for 19% of the reported sexual assaults on campus, despite the fact that they comprise just 3.3% of the male student population. Those figures arose from a first-of-its-kind study I conducted with researchers at the University of Massachusetts in the mid-90s when we were granted access to judicial affairs records and police reports at colleges across the country.
Over the past 20 years I have researched hundreds of cases of sexual assault involving athletes. During that time I’ve interviewed countless sexual assault victims. The thing I found most telling was what prosecutor Willie Meggs did not say in the film. Meggs was asked if he thought a rape took place in Winston’s apartment. It was a perfect opportunity for the man who chose not to prosecute Winston to say no. Instead, he said something “bad” happened in that apartment that night. He just didn’t have sufficient evidence to prove it.
That’s not unusual. That’s typical. Only about 20% of rapes reported to the police in the U.S. are prosecuted. Yet at least 92% of reported sexual assault claims are found to be true. The problem is that date rape cases are very difficult to prove beyond a reasonable doubt, especially when alcohol is involved and the incident occurs in the perpetrator’s apartment, dorm or hotel room. The doubts raised by those factors are amplified when the accused is a star athlete.
The greatest achievement of The Hunting Ground is that it empowers rape victims to team up with each other and come forward. It’s fair to say that for the first time in many years, women like Jameis Winston’s alleged victim have powerful allies.
By the time the NFL draft takes place in May, the film will be in theaters around the country, the name of Winston’s accuser will be everywhere and more details about the night in question will likely come out. All of this brings to mind the legal maxim caveat emptor, which essentially is a warning that means let the buyer beware.
Jason Licht, the general manager for the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, ultimately has to decide whether to use the first pick on Winston. He’s on record saying: “This is the most important pick, potentially, in the history of the franchise.”
Memo to Licht: Watch The Hunting Ground.
The ramifications in this instance are equally big for the NFL, whose image took a beating over the last year after Ray Rice was caught on tape knocking out his then-fiancé in an elevator. The controversy erupted after Commissioner Roger Goodell imposed a two-game suspension without bothering to obtain and watch the video.
Memo to the Commissioner: Watch The Hunting Ground.
No matter what happens with Winston, the film succeeds in its main goal: to shine a light on sexual assault on college campuses. It’s an important issue that isn’t going away, and if something drastic isn’t done immediately, it will only get worse.
Jeff Benedict is a lawyer and has written five books on athletes and violence against women, including Public Heroes, Private Felons: Athletes and Violence Against Women, and Out of Bounds: Inside the NBA’s Culture of Rape, Violence and Crime.
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