Hello I have missed another two days! Now on the flight back home so let’s fill in the gap…
May 17, 2025
We begin our trip through Seguin, TX to visit Burnt Bean, ZDT’s Amusement Park to ride Switchback, the largest conbini in the world, and settle in in Kemah, TX.
We arrive at Burnt Bean Co. at about 10:15 in the morning. A decent number of people in line, but nothing particularly overwhelming. The group behind us had to leave as it was getting too late for them to make their appointment in time. Too bad…
For the ordinary stuff we picked up half pound of brisket, half pound of pork ribs, one slice of bacon, a baked sweet potato, mac and cheese with hot cheeto dust (I suppose this isn’t normal), and some corn pudding. Not ordinary stuff is the Korean beef rib and Moroccan pork ribs pictured on the left. Ordinary items were nice and above average; in particular I really liked the korean beef ribs. It has the sweetness that you would expect from Korean bbq sauce, yet crispy and smoky from being smoked. Normally if you have excess fat on the back of the bone it’s just gelatinous and sad, but here it rendered well and offered some crunch while eating it off the bone. Awesome! Morroccan ribs was just ok; I didn’t feel that the spices on top complimented the smoked ribs well but it was still decent.
For dessert my brother found this ‘taco’ peach cobbler item interesting. It’s sweet and goes well with the ‘crisp’, though you can’t actually eat it like a taco. I believe the ice cream was some dulce de leche / caramel flavor – good on its own but I don’t think it necessary complements each other.
We made our way to ZDT’ Amusement Park next – it’s a little family owned amusement area on a city block, and they added a small roller coaster a few years back. It’s actually the primary reason my brother wanted to visit as the owners of the park intend to retire in the near future, so the fate of this roller coaster is uncertain and he wanted to ride it before it gets dismantled 4eva. Normally, the park is supposed to be relatively quiet, but there were hordes of band children on field trip here again. A theme we will not seem to ever escape.
The ride is compact yet manages to deliver a lot of force. It’s a little rough in some spots, but the seats allow for you to move with it so it’s bearable. Of note is the switchback element – at the ‘end’ of the ride you go up at an 87 degree angle, then return backwards to the platform. Even after riding it a few times and memorizing the layout, the forces are still impactful as you brace to anticipate the turns going backward. I enjoyed the ride a lot and hopefully the ride will have a future somewhere else if the park closes.
Next we arrived at the biggest conbini in the world in Luling, TX. It’s quite excessive for a ‘gas station’ to be this big, but apparently it does serve a purpose in the Texas area for large field trips to dump 90+ kids all at once and be able to have facilities that can attend to all of their needs. They have their own barbecue station, bakery, jerky, dessert, and miscellaneous food preparation stations inside. I was really big on Wawa while I was visiting the east coast in 2022, but I think Buc-ee’s takes the cake…!
I’m a big fan of the exclusion of Coca=cola icee as the default flavor in favor of Dr. Pepper – I don’t normally drink Dr. Pepper if available, but this definitely slaps. I also picked up a few bags of Beaver Nuggets and their brisket sandwich – obviously it’s not as good as the brisket I’ve been eating at proper restaurants, but it can definitely stand on its own.
I’ve always been curious about the wages paid at Buc-ee’s. Yes, it is good, but apparently you have to work your tail off while you’re on the clock. No goofing off on your phone on the job or you get fired!
Made it to our hotel in Kemah, TX and crashed…
May 18, 2025
Today we are visiting the Houston Space Center and the Kemah Boardwalk.
Houston has been home to the Mission Control Center for NASA for managing all space related activities, most notable would be the Apollo 11 moon landing (in during it never happened). We took a tour of the actual mission control room, a replica space shuttle, the astronaut training facility, and got to see some rockets. For the control room tour, they replay the Apollo 11 moon landing and President Nixon’s telephone call to the astronauts Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin. Now I know where the sound sample “in the hsitory of man… all the people on this are truly one” comes from (from IIDX16 Empress Programmed World). Separately in the main exhibit halls there are actually a moon and Mars rock available for touching, apparently one of very few in the world available for the public to feel up.. We got to touch it and …. yup, they’re rocks…
I do appreciate that th overarching theme of the space center is to try to inspire kids to be interested in space to pursue a career in aeronautics – whether or not it actually works is a different question as most kids probably want to be youtubers or influencers these days, but it’s a noble cause!
Got a quick bite at Tookie’s burger – nice burger, relatively cheap prices. Not much to say.
Next we visited the Kemah Boardwalk to ride the Boardwalk Bullet. I really want to like this ride – it’s aggressive and has strong laterals, but the ride is too rough for me as it hurts when I get slammed into the sides of the seat. I tried riding in the front and riding by myself, but still had the same issues. It’s a good ride if it doesn’t hurt for you, but it’s difficult for me to enjoy the ride while bracing for and anticipating pain.
Rest of the park area has some flat rides; a particular interesting ride was a boat ride where you travel at high speeds and get splashed with water, but there’s an upcharge of $25.00 per person for that attraction. Too much for me…
May 19, 2025
Our last day in Texas! We start off in the Galveston Naval Museum to see the USS Cavalla (SS-244) and USS Stewart (DE-238).
Having been through a few submarines already (Cod, whatever the one in San Diego is, whatever the one adjacent to the USS Intrepid is) there isn’t particularly anything new that I haven’t seen before, though the Cavalla is notable for having sunk IJN CV Shoukaku and IJN DD Shimotsuki (of the Akizuki class destroyers). There’s a few recollections of the events in 1944 in the submarine, but I always like it when the display rooms for the mess halls and officer/crew quarter are presented as it was lived in when the ship was on duty. Did you know Listerine used to be a toothpaste brand?
USS Stewart would be the first destroyer we’ve visited. So far it’s just been BBs (Iowa/New Jersey) and CVs (Hornet, Intrepid, Midway), so by comparison this would be a relatively ‘small’ ship. The interior isn’t particularly any different from the other ships we’ve visited as far as the crew/officer quarters go. Main difference would be the types of armaments on display (smaller x inch guns and small AA guns) which are very obviously smaller than the 16 in. guns we see on Iowa class BBs. I don’t think it’s WWII tech, but they later armed destroyers with rocket clusters to be used for anti-submarine warfare, which would shoot into the water and only explode on impact with a submarine. Technology is so cool!
Next we ate at the Rainforest Cafe at Galveston. Overall the chain is understood to be overpriced for the decorations and less than stellar food. I ordered the grilled meat loaf, which came with sides of mashed potatoes, some fried onion things and carrots. It’s not out of the world, but I enjoyed it. For $30.00, relatively speaking, it’s not as expensive as the bbq we’ve been paing for… so I think it’s fine. Though for the actual reason we’re here… there’s a water ride at this Rainforest Cafe!
I don’t actually have pictures of it… you can think of it it as one of those Disney water rides with animatronics, though themed to the rainforest with zoo animals. It’s cute and I would say worth the $10.00 admission as long as you know what you’re getting into and like these kinds of dark rides.
Nearby is the Galveston Pleasure Pier – it actually costs $12.00 to enter the pleasure pier, which I personally feel is a little manipulative (I’m not aware of other amusement piers doing this)… but we’re here already, so fuck it. Unfortunately for my brother, the roller coaster he wanted to ride, Iron Shark, is currently down for maintenance, but he wanted to take a look anyway. I think the most interesting thing second to the Iron shark roller coaster would be the fact that they have a log flume ride on a pier. There’s already water below in the ocean… do you really need a water ride on a pier?
For our last supper, we arrive at The Pit Room. Since we can bring our leftovers home, we agreed to go overboard and picked up a lb of brisket, lb of ribs, 1.5 lbs of a dino beef rib, and .5 lb of pulled pork. The items overall are good, though they don’t particularly stand out against the rest of the bbq items we’ve had over the course of the trip. This isn’t to say it’s necessarily bad, it’s still good! Our favorite was the beef rib, there was so much intramuscular fat in it that made it almost as soft and melty as the best brisket points I’ve had, yet with the flavor found in ribs. Awesome!
Since my brother happened to pass by the Madame Tussaud’s wax museum in San Antonio and saw an Icee machien with Big Red (soda) as a flavor, we stopped by a 7-11 and QuikSTop to try to find it… and found it at the QuikStop we stopped at for gas to top off the rental. It’s nice and tastes exactly like Big Red, but since it wasn’t an Icee ™ machine and an offbrand freezoni the consistency of the ice/liquid was off and was difficult to drink about half-way through, where you have to shake and stir the drink to be able to drink it again.
Two days ago I actually broke one of the onaholes I brought… left it in the hotel trash. The other got flagged by TSA and the guy checking my luggage poked it to check what it was and was like oh…. ok… and moved on. Haha. I will need to remember to leave it in my checked luggage next time.
Not much else left to recap, so some self-reflection. I had fun! Probably be at least two years if I were to come back. Looking forward to possibly revisting Toronto for Canada’s Wonderland and Sandusky, OH for Cedar point next year to see the new rides there (AlpenFury, Top Thrill 2 and Siren’s Curse for those parks, respectively). Though Comiket 107 this winter comes first, so I shouldn’t get ahead of myself just yet.
When I returnm, to work on working out and walking, practicing nihongo and tile game – usual stuff, just actually doing it and not being glued to the etenral X (formerly Twitter), Discord, whatever the fuck refresh. Good luck!