Jen and I try to get away for a weekend trip at least once a year without the children. We are fortunate enough to have family members nearby that enjoy taking care of and then giving back our children. This year we planned a getaway weekend to Austin and invited some of our best friends, Terry and Mary to join us. On a Thursday, we all loaded up in the Suburban and headed northwest to Austin.
We all started to get hungry once we left I-10 and made the turn onto Highway 71. I remembered eating at a good Mexican food place somewhere between LaGrange and Bastrop. As we were clipping along at or about the speed limit, I saw the sign for La Cabana and asked everyone if Mexican food sounded good. No one had an opinion, so Mexican food it was. I put the Suburban into a controlled power slide, made a quick u-turn and landed safely in the La Cabana parking lot.
To enter the restaurant, there are two doors. We selected the door on the right. We entered into a small rectangular shaped room with a few tables and booths. Upon entering, everyone inside looked toward the door, which seemed normal for a restaurant. We did not see a hostess stand, nor a sign that said "seat yourself". So, we stood around for a minute, and then one of the many kind waitresses approached us. In a strong country slang that was barely discernible as English, she asked if we wanted to sit in the smoking section, which was to our left and approximately the size of a large barn, or the small non-smoking section which we were currently standing in. We chose a booth in the non-cancer causing section.
A different waitress came to our table and in as friendly a way as possible, took our drink orders and then fetched us some of the best chips and salsa that we had ever eaten. A few minutes after we sat down, the door opened again and children began walking in. Not 1, not 2, not Jon and Kate + 8 either, but a bunch of kids followed by what appeared to be grandma and dad came in and sat down at a nearby table. I think I heard grandma call the kids Ricky, Dale, Jeff, Ernie, and Jimmy. Like true southerners, the kids were named after Dad's favorite NASCAR drivers. At least they were not called the #8, #24, #88, or Bud, Dupont, or Mountain Dew.
The rest of dinner was uneventful, except we ate at least 10 baskets of chips and 20 bowls of salsa, good stuff I tell you. We went up to the register to pay and that was when we all received confirmation of what we had been feeling the entire time. Everyone in the place was watching our every move. At least three of the waitresses along with almost all of the patrons eating in the cancer barn section of the restaurant were just openly staring at us as we paid our check. Now I realize that the four of us are all good looking people. But this was not the "wow, he/she is hot" quick look and then casually glance back a few times. This was "WOW, I have never seen a one-eyed, bearded, 8 foot tall lady with three arms and 4 legs" STARE! It actually made me self conscious, which is incredibly hard to do. I began to wonder if something was amiss, I began the mental checklist: hair/nose/teeth/is my pistol showing/zipper. I did a quick check and everything was fine. I checked the others and they all were in order. Then it hit me, we are city folk, outsiders, non-locals. I would venture to guess that everyone in the restaurant knew everyone else's name except for ours.
The experience instantly reminded me of going to the zoo.
Everyone crowds around the lion exhibit when they are active to see what they are going to do. Why? Because we do not live in the semi-arid plains and Savannah grasslands within the southern areas of the African continent where the lions live naturally. We do not see lions on a day to day basis. So, at the zoo we press our noses to the scarred plexiglas and watch.
In Smithville, the home of La Cabana, they do not see big city dwellers daily. So, when city folk stop in town, everyone stops to watch.
Photo courtesy of Valerie Renee on Flickr
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