THE THREE STATES OF BBQ

A few weeks back, alright it was  November 2015 actually, I took an epic road trip to nowhere in particular that saw me pass through 11 states in 9 days. Roughly the path you see in that image to the right.

Now I'm not going to drive through 11 states and not stop and eat some BBQ somewhere. However it will take me almost two years to finally sit down and write about it, and actually since I'm going to be basing this on some notes I've kept on my phone, which I'm about to upgrade, so I figured I'd better write this before I lose the notes and photos, this will be mostly pictorial.... Which is probably good as discombobulated as that explanation was.

06/06 ON ROUTE 66

Near Sapupla Oklahoma But Appeared Closed

364 days prior to June 6th, 2015 found Judge #2 and I on our Seminole to Sallisaw run. The Seminole to Sallisaw run was the first tme I'd made a run with other local BBQ fanatics and we had a great time.

Judge #2 is also a big fan of Route 66 and we had discussed making this Route 66 run on the trip a year earlier.

Originally Judges #1 and #3 had planned on coming along and we were going to start at The Boundary near Luther, Oklahoma. But they were unable to make it and Judge #2 and I had already been there. So we looked at the long list of places we had on our list and decided to start in Wellston at The Butcher BBQ Stand.

IT'S BBQ OR BUST IN THE SOUTHWEST OKLAHOMA BBQ BADLANDS

Traders didn't appear to still be in business
but they still had a really nice looking
offset stick burner setup near
the west end of the building

One of the first things I learned making BBQ road trips is to be prepared for Q-raunts to either no longer be in business or to have quite possibly never even have existed despite showing up on Google Map.

So what you do is pick a couple you are sure about and cross your fingers about the rest.

When Judge #1, from the OKC Broken Rib Tour, and I took off from my house at 9:30 in the morning. We had 7 Q-raunts ready to be crossed off our list.

Since we had 7 potential Q-raunts on the list I made my first rookie mistake of the day. At about 8:00 AM, and suffering from allergies, I decided all I would have for breakfast was a Mucinex to save room for all the Q I was about to eat.

WE TOOK THE Q-TRAIN FROM SEMINOLE TO SALLISAW AND A FEW POINTS IN BETWEEN

One look at the number of Q-raunts I've blogged about in the Central Oklahoma area is pretty much a dead giveaway about what part of Oklahoma I live in. It's easy to hop in the car at lunch or dinner and go find some Q to write about.

I've finally reached that point where to continue this project. I'm going to have to move out of Central Oklahoma and that means road trips. Even a Q-holic like me has a hard time justifying a 1+ hour drive to just eat at one Q-raunt.

I'm pretty excited about this phase of the project but it doesn't come without it's perils.

While I can usually  count on some of the tried and true Q-raunts that have been around for decades actually being there when I get there (unless they've gone on vacation). Sometimes you get there and you only find traces of a Q-raunts past like these first two pictures I snapped in Checotah, OK.

SOMETIME TWO OUT OF THREE'S NOT BAD

What does a self-professed BBQ addict do when they have too much free time on their hands?

GO ON A ROAD TRIP!!!

So I hopped on the intarweb and start charting a path. First stop is going to be the BBQ Barn in Minco, Oklahoma.

LET ME TELL YOU WHAT I LIKE ABOUT TEXAS

So my wife tells me that our friend from California is going to be in San Marcos for a couple of  weeks and asks if I'm interested in going to see him. Now all I really heard was San Marcos. That was all I really needed to hear and the next words out of my mouth were "Can we go on a BBQ road trip? Can we?? Can we??? CAN WE?!?!?".

So over several long weeks of anticipation. I put together a BBQ dream trip... Snow's, Zimmerhanzel's, Luling BBQ & Luling City Market, Southside Market & BBQ and a few others if we have the time and the appetite... 200 and some odd miles and over 5 hours of driving though central Texas to eat BBQ.