Ploafmaster General

A dingle is a small, wooded valley. So one could, theoretically, pick and eat some dingle berries without risking gastrointestinal distress.

I count myself lucky to have, until today, remained ignorant about the meaning of “quiet quitting”. Curiosity got the better of me so I looked into it, and most places I see discussing this “trend” or whatever seem to describe it as what I like to call “work/life balance”. How is it that rejecting the idea of working beyond 40 hours is some special new concept?

Chuck this on the pile of what is surely far more social media posts and articles about the quiet quitting that came out when people started using this stupid phrase.

I’m beginning to think that if we talked about all the things people say we don’t talk enough about we would all lose our voices from so much talking.

It took two grueling days to return home from Texas. The day of the solar eclipse was a bit all over the place. To start, cloud cover forecasts for most of Texas were horrible. From the moment we left our final visit to Crude Coffee in Fort Worth, Valerie was checking cloud forecasts from multiple weather data sources for various cities along the path of totality. Ultimately, we had nearly 3 minutes of totality at the Arkansas Welcome Center over the border from Texarkana. It was terrific. It was as amazing as I remembered, and my family loved it. Everybody agreed it was with the trip.

After that everything seemed fine - the rest of the ride through Arkansas was going smoothly enough until we approached West Memphis. I should have been prepared for this—I’ve been stuck in post-eclipse traffic before—but I was still caught off guard because of the bit I didn’t consider. The Mighty Mississippi. There are only so many crossings of this great river, and just two at that heading into Memphis, Tennessee. Both of them were absolutely jammed with traffic, and it took us nearly 3.5 hours to travel our last 30 miles. Our hotel was this neat, quirky glass tower in the suburbs (grand views of office buildings and parking lots from our 22nd floor room) that I called the “Disco Can”, but we really just stayed there for a short night’s sleep.

The next day, April 9th, was simply a long day in the car riding from Memphis back to Richmond. We made decent time, but had so many miles to ride. We stopped at our first ever Buc-ees which was, to be honest, a horror show for me. But the kids liked it.

With the time change on the way back, however, it felt like forever by the time we stepped out of the car back at our house. Everybody slept in late the next day (the kids had a day off from school anyway, and Valerie and I had scheduled days off), and by the time I was awake I was distracted by getting back on my bike and transitioning from vacation mode to work mode. So here we are, about a week later, well after everyone finished talking about the eclipse.

It was a good time, though! If I did it all again I may have flown and rented a car. This was a bit much for me in the time we had, and it would likely have been worth the money to have those extra two days of fun out of town instead of in my car on interstate highways. But we all had a nice vacation anyway.

It’s not like I ever really went to Blanchard’s for the pastries (I love the coffee, but the pastries were mostly fine).

But since they’ve been forced to replace their long-term baker a few months ago, I think the pastries are kinda dire.

Really gorgeous day to be outside. 18.5 bike miles this morning, tooling around King’s Dominion the past few hours, and probably going for another ride after the kids are in bed.

The Thai Basil ice cream (which is vegan!) at Ruby Scoops is sooooooo good.

Is there an official name for what looks like a shared use, paved path going in along Stony Run Parkway in the East End?

It felt so dang good to get out on my bike today now that I’m back in Richmond.

Aaaaaand of course it’s gonna rain tomorrow 🙃

I’m home! Thank goodness!

Lort help me, I’m at a Buc-ee’s for the first time (the kids demanded it).

Anyway, past Knoxville, getting closer to Virginia.

Time to spend all day driving across Tennessee and Virginia the long way…

Finally made it to our hotel in the East Memphis suburbs right before 10 PM, and I am FRIED.

We have been trying to get across the Mississippi River for like 2 hours and are still stuck in West Memphis 😖

Look, zoos are complicated. They are not simply entertainment, and plenty of them have a history of negligence and needless captivity. But many care for animals which are injured in such a way as they could not survive on their own in the wild. Rationalizing? No, but it’s not always as black and white as “zoos are bad”. So anyway, we spent almost 4 hours in gorgeous weather at the Fort Worth Zoo. It was spectacular. I’m not made of stone. Most of my photos were (more than usually) pedestrian, but I did like a pic I liked of the macaw at the top of this post. The kids had a blast and never complained about how much walking we did. If you’re on the east coast, I’d say the scale is comparable to the DC Zoo.

Today was our last whole day in The Lone Star State, and after another lazy coffee hour at Crude, we finally put ourselves near the head of the line at Panther City BBQ. Ho-leeeeee crow, this was some serious smoked meat. I feel like this is what people mean when they talk about the quality of Texas barbecue. The whole family loved it, and agree the standouts were (of course) the brisket and the pork ribs. I was also in love with the pork belly burnt ends which tasted like meat candy. We walked all of that off during our time at the zoo, starting slowly as we recovered from our gluttony.

Dinner tonight was okay, but one more stop in the Near Southside was a nice way to wrap up our time in Fort Worth. The Bearded Lady has okay food, but a great beer selection, and enough atmosphere for almost anyone. Their patio (likely a former parking lot) was capacious and felt a lot like a nice beer garden, while the interior was comfortable with plenty of light. One final stop at Melt for ice cream (it is vacation, after all) and we’re all back at the hotel.

Tomorrow’s eclipse forecast here in East Texas still looks really cloudy, but we’re not giving up yet. We’ll leave the hotel early enough to get out to Clarksville, TX, hopefully by lunch time, and we’ll wait as long as it makes sense to see whether the cloud cover is improved before moving on.

Fingers crossed!

Part of what tempers my feelings about all the driving on this trip is the chill, perambulating pace of our days. No pressure to be any particular place at any particular time, no packed itinerary of things to do. We head out for coffee, we visit a museum, we linger, we have a siesta back at the hotel. Not too bad. It makes for less tension, especially when I miss an exit on the highway.

This morning we encountered what I think is called the Near Southside neighborhood (unless that’s just its gentrifying realtor name?) when we visited Crude Coffee, and returned to this part of town several times throughout the day because it rules. The coffee shop itself was cozy, gorgeous, and served excellent drinks from a variety of roasters. Great pastries, too. While enjoying our caffeine we decided, due to the high winds, to check out some museums.

One of the true highlights of the day was the National Cowgirl Museum and Hall of Fame. Inventive exhibition spaces showed off a wealth of artifacts and information, and my favorite by far was about the escaramuza charra, or Mexican traditional side-saddle riders. These women, in Mexico and the US, perform incredibly skilled riding while wearing intricately detailed (and heavy) dresses. The craft on display in both the attire and riding were a sight to behold.

Within this section of the museum, however, was essentially a sub-exhibit of Constance Jaeggi’s Escaramuza, the Poetics of Home. Large and beautiful prints of Jaeggi’s photographs shared space on the walls with poetry by Angelina Sáenz and Ire’ne Lara Silva, providing contemporary context for this traditional practice. Astonishing work, seriously.

Oh yeah, and because it was next door and we have young kids, we killed some time at an underwhelming science museum. At least they had a few dinosaur skeletons :-P

We returned to the Near Southside for a killer lunch (and some decent beers) at Funky Picnic Brewery before crossing the street for even more coffee at Roots Coffeehouse. Another charming cafe, some decent coffee, and time to make a decision to visit the Botanical Gardens.

Except we hadn’t accounted for a flower show that had the whole place absolutely saturated with visitors. We bailed out, called an audible, and headed for the Kimbell Art Museum so Valerie (and all of us, really) could check out the buildings designed by Louis Kahn and Renzo Piano. Turns out the permanent exhibits in each building are free to the public! The kids—particularly the 10-year-old—didn’t have the patience for a stroll through the halls, but we did happen upon two works by Mondrian immediately inside the first gallery! Sweet!

On our way around the buildings I noticed a large steel structure across the street beside the Modern Art Museum. Turns out it was, as I suspected, a work by the late (recently, as of this posting) Richard Serra: his 2002 work “Vortex”.

We were all able to walk within the multi-story sculpture and the kids loved playing with the acoustics. We returned to the hotel for a short break while I researched dinner. Guess what? We returned to Near Southside for some amazing tacos at Buena Vida. The tortillas, the fillings, garnishes, salsas, everything. I ate my son’s abandoned rice just so I could use it as a salsa delivery vehicle. Follow it up with some decent ice cream at Morgan’s and that’s another day for you. And a pretty great one at that.

Hot DAMN, Crude Coffee in Fort Worth’s Near Southside is an excellent coffee shop.

Texas is certainly more driving than I care for these days, but it’s structural. The whole place is wide open space that really developed concurrently with the automobile and too…well, Texan, to give that up. I know that’s reductive and Texas contains multitudes, but I have found the Fort Worth area to be chock full of super wide, one-way streets and an absolute mess of access roads. Don’t even get me started on their strange u-turns that make my Jersey jughandles look sensible!

However.

Driving did take me to Dayne’s Craft Barbecue today. So yeah - we left the Stockyards this morning on the way to the barbecue joint. It was recommended by the fine folks at Richmond’s own ZZQ, so I had high hopes. They didn’t disappoint - but at the risk of damning them with faint praise, I was left feeling pretty surprised by just how good we have it in Richmond, Virginia. Dayne’s was amazing, but so is ZZQ, and I felt like the Texas joint was more like another great entry in the same style of barbecue than a far superior version.

We followed lunch with a visit to the Bureau of Engraving and Printing - I don’t have photos or anything here because no phones or cameras were allowed! - but wow, what a cool tour. The amount of highly skilled craft that goes into producing paper currency is astonishing. And the printing operation and technology were a sight to behold. I loved the nice little touch where the press workers on the floor frequently looked up and waved to us as we watched from above.

And now finally the actual city of Fort Worth. I needed a coffee stop and Rio Dulce did the trick, after which we checked in to our downtown-adjacent hotel. Once everybody had settled in and shaken off all that time in the car we hopped right back into it so we could get to the actual downtown and explore for a couple of hours. Dinner was lip-smacking tacos at Salsa Limón before wandering around Sundance Square Plaza and a cute alleyway filled with seating, plants, and more shops. Wrap it up with some ice cream from Melt and back to the hotel for the day.

It’s supposed to be super windy tomorrow, so we’ll see what the kids will tolerate outside, but we may be checking out a few museums and a few bits of architecture.

Anyway, I managed to take a few photos I don’t hate along the way, and I hope for more over the next few days.

<img style=“display:block; margin-left:auto; margin-right:auto;” src=“https://ploafmaster.micro.blog/uploads/2024/8c3e5b6a46.jpg" alt=“The words “Taco Heads” wrap around the corner of a restaurant in Forth Worth” title=“DSC_9042.jpg” border=“0” width=“800” height=“640” />

Finally made it to Fort Worth this afternoon, but not without incident. Somewhere east of Paris I unavoidably struck a truck tire belt either coming off of a truck in front of me or passing right underneath it. Either way, I couldn’t swerve in either direction and couldn’t break quickly enough to dodge so it slammed into the front of my car at highway speeds, effectively tearing off my front license plate and part of the plastic covering on the underside of my car. I’m grateful my family is safe, and it’s a minor miracle that none of my tires lost air. We made it to our hotel without any further drama and I’ll defer that costly repair until my return to Richmond.

Thankfully we arrived early enough to start taking in the touristy wonder of the Stockyards. I can’t help feeling like it’s cowboy cosplay, but it’s charming and the kids love it. We had a helluva steak dinner, some terrific ice cream, and finally some pleasant time to unwind here in our room. We have all day tomorrow to explore the rest of the Stockyards before we cap it off with a rodeo in the evening.

Meanwhile, the forecast for Monday’s eclipse is still kinda terrible. At the very least it seems like it’ll be mostly cloudy. We’re still making our way to Clarksville (more on the way home than the original plan of Ennis) the morning of to take our chances, but we’re prepared to make an earlier departure if it looks bad so we have time for a more relaxed dinner in Memphis on the way back.

Fingers crossed!

My family hit the road this morning at 6:30, Eastern Daylight Time. We’re on our way to Texas in order to, ultimately, watch the total solar eclipse on April 8th, weather permitting. It has been a loooooooooong day, and we made it to my stretch goal of Memphis, Tennessee, after about 13.25 hours of travel time, door-to-door. I’m pretty exhausted, and not exactly behaving like my best self when the kids (bored and full of pent-up energy) snark at me right now.

I need a back rub. I need sleep. I need to watch the latest episode of Shōgun on the laptop before I turn in, and maybe I’ll finally start reading Dune before my eyes give up.

Tomorrow we’ll leave early again and I’ll drive across the Mississippi River for the first time as we enter Arkansas. As long as nothing goes wrong, we’ll reach Fort Worth late in the afternoon. I’m pretty good at long drives, but I’m also ready to be finished with this one.

Uh…so as of today I have ridden over 2000 miles in the first quarter of 2024. Pretty dang pleased with that!

Sweet fancy Moses! LEGO now has a tool on their website which lets you customize your own minifig!

Sometimes you get to share some of your favorite stuff with one of your kids, and everybody wins.

Last night, while my younger child was at school for some fun activity, I suggested to my wife that we take our older one out to dinner at her choice of restaurant. She wanted to go to Slurp! Ramen in Church Hill having never been, so off we went. A little time for her to get her parents to herself, to visit a fun restaurant and have delicious food. We all loved dinner, but since the night was young after we finished, I suggested we head next door to The Emerald Lounge - one of Richmond’s finest cocktail bars. This isn’t typically a place to take a kid, but it was reasonably early in the evening and they have several excellent non-alcoholic options available.

Our daughter is ten years old and seems to be just old enough to appreciate what it means to have a night out at one of the local “cool” spots. So my wife and I were able to enjoy some magnificent cocktails at one of our favorite places, but the kid got to feel extra special with her fancy mocktails, too. “It feels like my birthday!” she said several times.

What a great night!

Never would have guessed that, in the year of our Grob Gob Glob Grod 2024, my 10 year old would be teaching The Macarena to my 7 year old.

Really amused by what appears to be a minor backlash against all the stupid poured-epoxy slab tables on YouTube.