My Spanish is getting better, mostly as a result of ordering from menus. We had the most incredible Mexican food yesterday at a place called Nana's Taco Run. Ignoring my personal policy of not eating at a place with Run in it's name, we ordered from the Taquito menu. This was an authentic restaurant with no translations for the various components you could order in your Taquito, which is a sandwich made from folding a flour tortilla around your choice of stuffing. Avoiding the obvious components like Tripas, I took a stab at it, which got the response, "If you think you would like a beef jerky sandwich." My eyes rescanned the large list and I found Carne. There were two types, one a grilled steak and one with gravy. These were the best examples of Mexican food we had ever eaten. The tortillas were made in the restaurant and bore no resemblance to the doughy Frisbees you find in the dairy case. A well-made tortilla is becoming my favorite form of bread. If you need a coaster or if you have to remove a tight lid from a jar, get the dairy case tortillas. If you are going to eat the things, seek out someplace that makes them by hand.

At McDonalds you can get your order increased in volume by telling the talking clown head to Super Size It. Down here in south Texas it gets Huervos. If a Carne Asada Taquito is not enough, get it with an egg.

I think I have the translation for the word Chalupa. I could be mistaken, but am pretty sure it means:
"Anvil on the Dog"
So when used in the sentence, "Drop the Chalupa" it starts to make sense.

The I Love Lucy show has finally become educational. Everyone has seen Ricky slip into a hair-pulling tirade over something Lucy did. He would revert to his native language and the words, "Loco in la Cabeza," would be part of the ravings. This information helped us steer past a restaurant in Port Aransas, Texas. A large graphic on the outside of the restaurant announced that they had Barbacoa de Cabeza. You must understand that I am always on the lookout for good barbecue. In this case, Ricky's tirades, assisted by a graphic of a cow head, helped us avoid a form of barbecue I probable do not need to visit. The thought of a barbecued cow head does tickle the imagination. You would have to knock the horns off to get it into my Webber. Come to think of it, would you cook it with the skin on, or off? Then, when you got done, it would have to look like something you would expect to see if you were the first one to kick down Jeffrey Dahmer's door.

Enough about food, Corpus Christi is located in the Wild Horse Desert. This part of Texas is rich in wild life. Padre Island has over 350 species of bird, supplementing a rich bird population that inhabits Corpus. Palm, citrus and banana trees are common, but with the desert you get thorns. One of the common skin-piercing demons is the Sand Burr. These thorn balls stick to your shoes then opt for the carpet once inside our bus. The carpet is a temporary hiding spot. As soon as you kick off your shoes, these guys transfer from rug to flesh. About 8 mm across, and as hard as nails, there is plenty of thorn to sink in. The flash of pain causes an immediate reaction, to pull the thing from your foot. This just pulls the thorns from your foot and sinks them into your finger. We have adopted the oriental tradition of removing our shoes at the door.

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