more observations

Interstate 95 doesn't have much in the way of frontage roads (access roads, service roads). In Texas, on IH-35, one could travel next to the highway, on the frontage road, through most of the state, except a few places where there's rivers and such.

Of course, for "alternate route" I95 has always had Route 1. A lot of people, especially in the west, would think "Route 66" if one asked them what the all-American road was. But people on the east coast have always known it's Route 1. Since I lived in Boston and learned to drive there, I always tend to think of it as the Boston Post Road, even in places where it's named something else.

There are a lot fewer Jesus fish on cars here. And although there's those "God Bless America" and "God Bless Our Troops" ribbon stickers, I have, thankfully, seen none of the bumper stickers in the way of "Jesus is Lord Over Austin" and the like.

The appointment of a new conductor for the symphony orchestra rated the front page of the daily paper.

The Howard County library system rocks!

Iced tea: a rambling discourse

I lived in Texas for 24 years, before moving to Maryland last month. I grew up in New York, and lived in Boston for 10 years, before moving to Texas. I've been drinking tea all my life - almost entirely hot tea, until I moved to Texas. I had iced tea, with free refills, at a Luby's cafeteria, the first evening I was in Austin, and was hooked. ( grumble, grumble )

But lately, there's been a different spread, and I don't like it. "Sweet tea" - disgustingly over-sweetened iced tea - has heretofore been a southeastern thing - Georgia, places like that. But over the past 2 years, it's been spreading - into Texas, for example. Where Luby's used to serve plain tea and assume that you were capable of stirring in a package of sweetener yourself, now they offer sweet and unsweet tea, and one has to specify rather forcefully that one wants unsweet. And outside of Texas, in places where the whole iced tea business is newer and less entrenched, some places are ONLY offering sweet tea. You ask for iced tea and you get sweet tea, UGH!! This particular virus is spreading like wildfire, and I DON'T LIKE IT. I would rather have hot tea in the middle of August, than have presweetened tea. Even my Spousal Unit, who is Texas born and bred, would rather have hot tea than presweetened, SU deeming itself perfectly capable of opening a packet of sweetener (and being able to choose which kind, at that) and stir it, without help. What will it take to stop this disgusting trend, and to get restaurants that have only one tea urn to go back to offering unsweet as their one iced tea, rather than sweet tea as their only iced tea????