Well We are all back at our homes now after the Texas leg of the Legends and Champions Pool Tour. We had a great time in TX and everyone we met was awesome to us and all in all the whole of TX had nice people willing to help us feel comfortable. Obviously the Hurricane situation didn't help us run as smoothly as we would have liked, but our tour running smoothly compaired to the poor people in South TX who lost everything and still don't have power means less than nothing and created shockwaves throughout TX and our hearts go out to all affected.
So we began in Dallas at Cape Buffalo and we had a great turn out for the exhibition and everyone had alot of fun. We were there for 3 nights and as some of you know we were on the hunt for good Texas BBQ. By the time we got finished with the exhibition or the pool schools it was around 9.30pm and guess what time EVERYTHING closes in that area? you are right 9.30. Everynight we were starving and drove around for half an hour to an hour hoping to catch somewhere open. One night we ended up at KFC waited in line at the drive through and when it came to getting our order The order taker went through her greeting and asked what we would like. Remember by this time we are ready to kill someone for food so we had all got our orders memorized Johnny started with A 3 piece original and the gal said "Ok, but we have no chicken" WHAT???? We went through all the possible options that could work, "You got any pot pies?" "No" "So what can we get?" "Slaw, mashed taters, beans". Anyway, on our last day in Dallas we got done early and went to a BBQ place called Dickies, this was great food and wished we had been able to get there everyday as it was just over the street from our hotel.
We left Dallas after eating heading for Austin around 9.30pm, now what we usually do and have never had a problem with is find the next pool room then find the nearest low cost hotel in the area and check in. This time it was different, after the three hour drive we arrive in Austin and head to the hotel and the guy at the counters said "sorry we are all booked up tonight". Oh well no problem we can see about 6 hotels from where we are parked but it is 12.30 and we have been working all day and just need to get our head down as we had a pool school at 11.00am the next day. So we try the next hotel same thing full and the next, full, by this time we are begining to wonder what is going on until the next hotel the lady says "you won't find a room in Austin tonight as all the people from Houston have left due to IKE. She said you should drive north 10 miles and try up there. We all looked at at each other as if to say "oh we may be in trouble here" We kept positive and drove 10 mile back toward Dallas stopping at every set of roadside hotels on the way with no luck. So we decided to go another 10 miles and another 10 miles until we are 80 miles away from Austin and it is now 2.30 am.
I was waiting for it coming and finally with eveyone at their witts end I hear Earl in a tired yet loud voice "T-Wheels why don't we have a hotel to go to?, thats your job" Johnny echoed his sentements. They are right it was my job to make sure we had somewhere to go. I explained "we have never had this problem before and it is due to a Fing hurricane and if I ever get to the point that I can forsee the future or I can control hurricanes with all due respect I won't be on the road in the middle of the night" Still It was my job and I hear about it from the guys and some of the language was not very christian lets say. Anyway I called the pool room where we were going to do the exhibition and it turned out that a friend of Jeremy Jones could put us up. These were another set of great people who were kind enough to let us use their home and he is also a AZER and I won't mention any names as I don't know if they would be ok with it but they know who they are. Jeremy also joined the group a couple of days later and attended our exhibition. So we drove all the way back to Austin, it is now around 3.30 and we had to meet the Manager at the pool room to get all the info we needed. As we walk up to the Fast Eddies there is a group of 11 or 12 pool players stood outside with their cues over their shoulder waiting for a taxi I think and the room had just closed. As we check to see if the door is open and begin to knock, one of the guys says "hey they are closed now" I told him that they were expecting us. This guy comes back with some smart asses comment about "oh you thing you are special" or something like that. Then one of them slowly says "thats Johnny Archer" and another says " And Earl Strickland". The guy with the mouth lets his cue case drop and eyes wide says "Holy F&*k" "Can I get a picture with you guys?" Earl gave him one of those looks that only Earl could give someone at 3.30 am after running 5 miles and doing 8 hours of pool schools and traveling from Dallas to Austin almost twice. I wish I could replicate that look but I am sure you can all see it in your minds eye. Just a testament to both Johnny and Earl they took the picture with him.
Now I knew that San Antonio was closer to Houston than Austin and hotels would probably be booked up. Staying at peoples homes that we don't know is not something we usually do as it can sometimes be awkward as you can imagine, but we had had a very nice offer from one of the Azers on here that his friend had lots of room and that his friend a was a good guy and this was verified by a number of people.
We ended up staying there and moving the Houston pool school students to San Antonio so we were there for about 5 days. This not only helped us out with the hotel situation but obviously saved us money. The man and his wife that we were staying with were pool fans and most of their close friends were pool fans and they had a very nice table in their game room upstairs and so Johhny Earl and myself had one day off while we were there and asked them if they would like to get their pool friends together and have a BBQ and that Johnny and Earl would do a private mini exhibition for them to try and repay them in some special way for their kindness.
Johnny has always claimed that he could give me the 5 when it comes to BBQ ing. So we went to the store and got all the meat sides etc ready for the evening. When it came time to start the grill Johnny found out that it was a charcoal grill and not a gas grill. This is when I found out that although he makes a great marinade he has NO clue on Charcoal cooking. Between us we spent about 30 mins trying to light the charcoal and ended up with someone else taking over the lighting to get it going. Once we had the fire going Johnny did do a good job with the cooking but he couldn't give me the 5. If anyone would like to attend the Legends and Champions cook off please let me know
Anyway we all had a great time with the AZer who helped us get in touch with these guys and their friends.
So on we go to Corpus Christi, No Problems there Paradise Billiards is a great pool room and Harrison (HT) the owner was awesome and had everything under control. Before introducing Earl at the exhibition he wanted everyone to watch a quick video clip. It was an old one of Earl playing The Miz and Earl making the first ever televised Jump Shot. If you get a chance to see thise clip (*I have no idea where you can find it but ESPN owns the rights) Please check it out.
Thats where my story ends for now but I do want to thank Summer Bowen at fast Eddies in Austin and San Antonio, Justin at the Grand in Austin, Sam Holiday and the APA league operators for their support, Bill, Cathy and everyone at Cape Buffalo in Dallas, and Paradise Billiards in Corpus. Also ATEX Billiards who supplied all the balls for the events and of course Cuestix International (Scorpion Cues) Johnnys Long time sponsor, and all the people who have helped us on the way you all know who you are and we know who you are. These people have gone out of their way to support us and the pool and billiards community in general.
Finally I am working now on our next leg that will be at the beginning of November (no set dates yet) in the mid west. We hope to visit Detroit, Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Iowa, Missouri and Oklahoma. Once we have these dates set I will be contaction one of the people from a different thread who suggested this area as i had promised for a free pool school I will draw the name again once we have the schedule set. Thanks again to all.
So we began in Dallas at Cape Buffalo and we had a great turn out for the exhibition and everyone had alot of fun. We were there for 3 nights and as some of you know we were on the hunt for good Texas BBQ. By the time we got finished with the exhibition or the pool schools it was around 9.30pm and guess what time EVERYTHING closes in that area? you are right 9.30. Everynight we were starving and drove around for half an hour to an hour hoping to catch somewhere open. One night we ended up at KFC waited in line at the drive through and when it came to getting our order The order taker went through her greeting and asked what we would like. Remember by this time we are ready to kill someone for food so we had all got our orders memorized Johnny started with A 3 piece original and the gal said "Ok, but we have no chicken" WHAT???? We went through all the possible options that could work, "You got any pot pies?" "No" "So what can we get?" "Slaw, mashed taters, beans". Anyway, on our last day in Dallas we got done early and went to a BBQ place called Dickies, this was great food and wished we had been able to get there everyday as it was just over the street from our hotel.
We left Dallas after eating heading for Austin around 9.30pm, now what we usually do and have never had a problem with is find the next pool room then find the nearest low cost hotel in the area and check in. This time it was different, after the three hour drive we arrive in Austin and head to the hotel and the guy at the counters said "sorry we are all booked up tonight". Oh well no problem we can see about 6 hotels from where we are parked but it is 12.30 and we have been working all day and just need to get our head down as we had a pool school at 11.00am the next day. So we try the next hotel same thing full and the next, full, by this time we are begining to wonder what is going on until the next hotel the lady says "you won't find a room in Austin tonight as all the people from Houston have left due to IKE. She said you should drive north 10 miles and try up there. We all looked at at each other as if to say "oh we may be in trouble here" We kept positive and drove 10 mile back toward Dallas stopping at every set of roadside hotels on the way with no luck. So we decided to go another 10 miles and another 10 miles until we are 80 miles away from Austin and it is now 2.30 am.
I was waiting for it coming and finally with eveyone at their witts end I hear Earl in a tired yet loud voice "T-Wheels why don't we have a hotel to go to?, thats your job" Johnny echoed his sentements. They are right it was my job to make sure we had somewhere to go. I explained "we have never had this problem before and it is due to a Fing hurricane and if I ever get to the point that I can forsee the future or I can control hurricanes with all due respect I won't be on the road in the middle of the night" Still It was my job and I hear about it from the guys and some of the language was not very christian lets say. Anyway I called the pool room where we were going to do the exhibition and it turned out that a friend of Jeremy Jones could put us up. These were another set of great people who were kind enough to let us use their home and he is also a AZER and I won't mention any names as I don't know if they would be ok with it but they know who they are. Jeremy also joined the group a couple of days later and attended our exhibition. So we drove all the way back to Austin, it is now around 3.30 and we had to meet the Manager at the pool room to get all the info we needed. As we walk up to the Fast Eddies there is a group of 11 or 12 pool players stood outside with their cues over their shoulder waiting for a taxi I think and the room had just closed. As we check to see if the door is open and begin to knock, one of the guys says "hey they are closed now" I told him that they were expecting us. This guy comes back with some smart asses comment about "oh you thing you are special" or something like that. Then one of them slowly says "thats Johnny Archer" and another says " And Earl Strickland". The guy with the mouth lets his cue case drop and eyes wide says "Holy F&*k" "Can I get a picture with you guys?" Earl gave him one of those looks that only Earl could give someone at 3.30 am after running 5 miles and doing 8 hours of pool schools and traveling from Dallas to Austin almost twice. I wish I could replicate that look but I am sure you can all see it in your minds eye. Just a testament to both Johnny and Earl they took the picture with him.
Now I knew that San Antonio was closer to Houston than Austin and hotels would probably be booked up. Staying at peoples homes that we don't know is not something we usually do as it can sometimes be awkward as you can imagine, but we had had a very nice offer from one of the Azers on here that his friend had lots of room and that his friend a was a good guy and this was verified by a number of people.
We ended up staying there and moving the Houston pool school students to San Antonio so we were there for about 5 days. This not only helped us out with the hotel situation but obviously saved us money. The man and his wife that we were staying with were pool fans and most of their close friends were pool fans and they had a very nice table in their game room upstairs and so Johhny Earl and myself had one day off while we were there and asked them if they would like to get their pool friends together and have a BBQ and that Johnny and Earl would do a private mini exhibition for them to try and repay them in some special way for their kindness.
Johnny has always claimed that he could give me the 5 when it comes to BBQ ing. So we went to the store and got all the meat sides etc ready for the evening. When it came time to start the grill Johnny found out that it was a charcoal grill and not a gas grill. This is when I found out that although he makes a great marinade he has NO clue on Charcoal cooking. Between us we spent about 30 mins trying to light the charcoal and ended up with someone else taking over the lighting to get it going. Once we had the fire going Johnny did do a good job with the cooking but he couldn't give me the 5. If anyone would like to attend the Legends and Champions cook off please let me know
Anyway we all had a great time with the AZer who helped us get in touch with these guys and their friends. So on we go to Corpus Christi, No Problems there Paradise Billiards is a great pool room and Harrison (HT) the owner was awesome and had everything under control. Before introducing Earl at the exhibition he wanted everyone to watch a quick video clip. It was an old one of Earl playing The Miz and Earl making the first ever televised Jump Shot. If you get a chance to see thise clip (*I have no idea where you can find it but ESPN owns the rights) Please check it out.
Thats where my story ends for now but I do want to thank Summer Bowen at fast Eddies in Austin and San Antonio, Justin at the Grand in Austin, Sam Holiday and the APA league operators for their support, Bill, Cathy and everyone at Cape Buffalo in Dallas, and Paradise Billiards in Corpus. Also ATEX Billiards who supplied all the balls for the events and of course Cuestix International (Scorpion Cues) Johnnys Long time sponsor, and all the people who have helped us on the way you all know who you are and we know who you are. These people have gone out of their way to support us and the pool and billiards community in general.
Finally I am working now on our next leg that will be at the beginning of November (no set dates yet) in the mid west. We hope to visit Detroit, Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Iowa, Missouri and Oklahoma. Once we have these dates set I will be contaction one of the people from a different thread who suggested this area as i had promised for a free pool school I will draw the name again once we have the schedule set. Thanks again to all.
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