Sweetwater, Texas

Sweetwater, Texas is a small town located East of Abilene. Sweetwater reminded me of Ojai in the since that everyone knows everyone no matter where one is. It's a town you don't need to use your blinkers in because everyone knows where your heading. The people who live in Sweetwater are so kind and generous, which I'm learning is typical of Texans. We were fortunate enough to spend some time catching up with Betty, who is Tom's mom, and we hadn't visited with her since she was in Ojai. Betty had just got back from a two week vacation in Tanzania, Africa. Hearing the stories of her travels were told with such vivid emotion and description it was as though we were there. She is an amazingly captivating story teller. While we were in Sweetwater, Tom took us on the 'Tom Tour' which involved seeing the places he got in trouble as a youth. It was fun to finally put a place with all the stories we had heard over the past four years of friendship. In addition, he pulled out his f-me red '67 Impala and we took that for a spin. Which is such a fun car to drive. Even Susy got to drive a three on the tree car for her first time and she did a great job with a manual car.
In Sweetwater, we began the BBQ tour. We began our tour of Texan Brisket at Bucks and then the next day we savored Big Boy's Bar-B-Q. Of the two places we ate at it was interesting to taste not only the difference between how each place cooked their meat, but even the taste of the BBQ sauce at each place was distinct. If ever near Sweetwater though, I would recommend eating at Big Boy's, their brisket was a bit more tender although their ribs were slightly overcooked. As a whole experience, Sweetwater was a great place to visit and I look forward to returning for the infamous Rattlesnake Round-up. The Rattlesnake Round-up is a Sweetwater tradition that has been going on since 1958 and is the world's largest round-up of rattler's. The round-up consists of BBQ competition, pageantry, and the snake pits. Check it out at:
http://www.2camels.com/festival190.php3