I was on the way home from a weekend in Fort Worth where my wife and I enjoyed touring and exploring the Fort Worth Stockyards. We decided to take 35W to Waco and then travel through God’s country (TAMU) as our route back home. We stopped in Waco to have lunch on Sunday at a place named Buzzard Billy’s.
Buzzard Billy’s is located on the Mighty Muddy Brazos river. The Brazos is not so muddy this far north. If you were to see the Brazos at say, where I-10 crosses it, the river is very muddy. It’s orangey brown from all the silt it’s picked up through the Brazos valley upstream.
I always take with me a small laptop that I attach a portable GPS unit to to help me navigate. It’s a Garmin unit and has served me very well over the years. The GPS just provides telemetry data to the laptop. You need mapping software to be able to navigate with. Garmin has a product called nRoute. NRoute is the software to display the map information — roads, rivers, etc. Garmin also sells the mapping data that is used by the software. I have MetroGuide North America. It provides a database of retail services, places of interest and other similar locations on your map. It comes in handy at times. I used it to locate where the Whataburger was in Alvarado so I could get a drink earlier in the day. We used it to find the location of Buzzard Billy’s.
When we decided to eat an early lunch in Waco I used my BlackBerry to search Google for “Waco Dining”. Buzzard Billy’s was on top of the list. I used nRoute for the location. It took me to a spot downtown on the Brazos river. This was the FORMER location. So much for modern technology. We followed the directions on the front of the former location to find the new location.
Buzzard Billy’s in right on the Brazos. It is probably more accurate to say it is partially in the Brazos. We got a table on the upper deck near the right side. As we were waiting for our server I looked over the railing and spied a turtle. I told my wife to take a peek. She got up and came around the table and looked over the railing at the turtle I was looking at. We enjoyed the moment of capturing a turtle coming up for air before dunking again to the bottom.
As my wife was returning to her seat she went to the front of the deck and looked over the railing there. She told me to come look at the turtle she found. Imagine my surprise when I saw the 50 to 60 turtles shown in the photograph below.
They were not going anywhere. They were swimming against the slow current to keep position in front of the restaurant. We pondered and concluded that they probably were there for handouts along with the ducks.
I went to the truck to get my camera so I could share this with you.
