The Sues were invited to play at the 42nd 2008 International Chili festival in Terlingua this year. It was a BLAST. The pictures are all here.

There are actually two chili festivals held next to each other on the same weekend. Both claim to be the original. One is called "Behind the Store" and the other is "CASI", the Chili Appreciation Society of America. I'm still not entirely sure of the story behind this, but the "Behind the Store" Tolbert/Fowler one is where we played at. Its smaller, but its the one with the highest musical pedigree. Any die hard fan of Texas Music would love to see the likes of Gary P Nunn, Jerry Jeff Walker, Mark David Manders (or us maybe) at this festival.

Its 600 miles from Dallas. A LONG trip. It took us 10 hours to get there (with a few stops). The landscape is beautiful. I wish I had more time to explore on my own. In the meantime, here is a good description of the area I dug up on the interwebs.

DPS was out in full force for the weekend. I was told (and let me tell you, the campground had no lack of storytellers) that 40% of the force was out on the roads. Another report was that all the rookies patrol the roads as training. In any case, they were doing a zero tolerance sweep of ANYBODY on the road. If you were as much as 1 mile over the limit you would get a ticket. We did see a lot of cops on the road. If the intent was to keep folks in the campgrounds.....it worked.

We rolled into camp at Dusk on Thursday and set up tents and Friday we took a road trip to Lajitas.

Most accounts of Lajitas up until a few years ago usually included words like "sleepy", "hole" and were told with a stinky expression. Its most notable figure, after the days of Pancho Villa, is the Mayor Clay Henry. Clay Henry is a goat...a beer drinking goat. For a while you could buy a 6 pack and throw down with the mayor.

Apparently things have changed because the town totally bought up in 2003 and turned into a resort. The sleepy town has been turned into what looks like a movie set.



These are actually luxury accommodations behind all of the facades.

Clay Henry was hidden away in "Rehab" as it was no longer politically correct to feed beer to goats. That and PETA threatened to sue.

We came back and mooched around the campground for samples of ribs, chicken, brisket and beans. Those were the competitions for Friday. Plenty of food was provided by the "fire in the hole" boys camping on the "hill". The Cowboy Breakfast was stellar.

The gig with the Tejas Brothers went well. The crowd danced and yelled and had a great time. It was Halloween night too, so several folks were in costume.

Saturday was the Chili competition. Cooks were up at the crack of dawn a chopping and a cooking. Turn in was at noon.



After turn in, you wander around all the campsites and sample the chili. There is also a presentation aspect to this with all kinds of wacky booths.


Here is Mark David Manders in some kinda zen/chili pose. He had actually asked for a shot of tequila, but got a bowl of red instead.

One thing I noticed was that many folks had custom painted gas stoves.



This distinctive style is painted by Wendell Rankin. I saw at least a dozen stoves across the campground that he had painted. I suppose its the chili equivalent of a rodeo belt buckle.

We were hoping to take a trip to Boquillas. Its a small border town whose economy was dependent on tourists. To get there, you paid a guy to canoe you across the Rio (a 40 ft trip) and then you got a donkey ride into town. It was a good stop for float trips too. Now its pretty much shut down due to heightened security.

Instead, I took a quick trip to the Terlingua ghost town too and checked out the cemetery. The week before, some friends had a skull decorating party. Seemed a fitting place to leave one behind as the next day was the Day of the Dead.



Sat night I played with Mark David Manders and pretty much crashed straight to sleep when we were done. It was nice to hear all the laughing, music and campground noise throughout the night.

Sunday we packed up and faced the long drive home. We had lunch at the Edelweiss Brewery in Alpine, Texas. Surprisingly, I didn't try the beer. Had a long drive ahead so Ill have to revisit that sometime. The burgers were excellent.

The rest of the band decided to take 67 on the way home. Its a more direct way home, but is potentially slower. The most interesting parts start well past San Angelo and it would be dark by the time I got to that, so I opted to take 20. Besides, on the way down I saw some interesting things in Coyanosa that I wanted to revisit.

I suppose interesting to me is Cotton fields, Chili fields, Pumpkin patches and a fruit stand all in one "no stop light" town. I had never seen chilies growing in a field before. I love growing them, but my plants were never as productive as these. The cotton was all over the place. You know its cotton season when the roads are lined with loose cotton.

The fruit stand had the strangest gourds I have ever seen. To bad nobody was tending the stand. I would have bought one of these. I did stock up on a half dozen topo chicos next door to drink on the way home.



West Texas...looks like this for miles and miles.

I made a quick stop in Midland too. Its a strange city in the middle of nowhere. On the weekend it looks like a ghost town (kinda like Downtown dallas). Nothing was open as far as I could tell downtown. Creepy. I did stop at a drive through Paleta store that was located close to the freeway.

Dallas needs this:



Good times. The Sues plan on going next year....playing or not.