This kid wearing a Cowboys No. 11 jersey, along with a whiteCowboys hat

Tag : traveling hat

But Barstow? I mean, come on, Barstow, Calif., at the western edgeof the Mohave Desert, named after William Barstow Strong, once thepresident of the Santa Fe Railroad, which put the town of now24,600 strong on the map hauling first ore then borax. This is inthe middle of nearly nowhere, halfway between Vegas and LosAngeles, where our Cowboys Bus should land Monday evening inOxnard, forerunners to Thursday's start to the Dallas Cowboys'arrival for training camp.
Look, attention in Texas is expected. Cowboys fans litter the statein all directions. Even getting swarmed in New Mexico, whilehumbling, was not all that surprising judging from the amount ofemails we get from the bordering state.
But this, I'm telling you, this innocent stop for lunch took thecake. Not necessarily from the amount of people the bus attractedbut that we would unearth curiosity seekers in Eastern California,with Cowboys fans not only running from home over to the bus - ofcourse swarming Big E, our esteemed bus driver Emory Tyler - butone guy rushing out of surgery to repair a broken wrist to drivehis Cowboys-fan wife to the scene.
Amazingly humbling.
These Cowboys fans are everywhere. They never ceased to amaze us.
This Monday started off innocently enough. We left Las Vegas in themorning kind of late, somewhat because we finally got a goodnight's sleep but also because Big E needed to buy a new GPSdevice. And while we were heading through the desert, my good buddyLance emails me, reminding me of the little Italian restaurant inBarstow he told me about. He and a friend know the owners. He saidwe should stop, that he'd call and tell them, Sandy and NickDiNapoli, we'd be coming.
Me, Italian food? Bill, food, period? Emory, Italian and food? Wewere there. So we plugged in the address to DiNapoli's Firehouse,right off Main Street, which yes, used to be old Route 66, astopping off place for immigrants heading into the state back atthe turn of the century. After all, there was a railroad there, andthat meant jobs.
An innocent stop, right?
Right.
We parked the bus behind the restaurant, located at the end of astrip mall right off Main Street around 2:00 p.m. (PDT). Bill and Iwent in first just to make sure they were open for lunch. Weimmediately met Sandy, the gracious host. And we waited and waitedfor Emory. And waited.
So I go around back, and there he is, the Pied Piper across thestreet in front of the San Bernardino County Social Services Officesigning autographs. And signing and signing. More he signed themore people came out of the building.
"Come on All-Star," I yelled at him. "We're starving."
As he was returning to the bus for more pictures he told me to goahead. Then I remembered, "Wait, we're working," and ran for mycamera. He still was there signing, more priceless pictures beforeheading inside, where Bill and I ordered some calamari and Chianti.Emory would just have to catch up.
Well Sandy and her staff, Tammy, Kristin, Sara and the cook, Jesus,couldn't have been nicer. The food couldn't have been better. Mostrestaurants can't make lasagna as good as me, so that's mybarometer. Seriously. No sense ordering something you can doyourself.
This was at least as good. Maybe better.
Then it started.
This kid wearing a Cowboys No. 11 jersey, along with a whiteCowboys hat, quietly walks up to our table. He's Phillip, fromBarstow. He wanted a couple of autographs. Evidently friends of hiseating at the restaurant told him the bus was at DiNapoli's.
"So I came running over to see what was going on," said Phillip,with no intention of eating.
We sort of laughed.
Sandy was apologetic. Hey, no problem. After what we'd been throughon this four-day trip, we were glad to oblige.
Then another guy stopped by, Andre. He walked in with his youngson. Cowboys fans, both of them. Just to prove so, Andre took outhis wallet. The black leather was ingrained with a Cowboys star.Unbelievable. That was just the start.
Then the people eating at the adjacent table, who had been quietlyobserving, finished. The guy came over to show me his driver'slicense. His name was Wade Wilson. Swear.
We all laughed.
Sandy wasn't laughing. She was worried. People were clogging up herentrance, waiting for us to leave. We told her to tell 'em to comein and eat. They said they could afford like one dinner for 10 ofthem. We told her not to worry, we've been through this.
She asked if we wanted to leave out the kitchen, as if we were some rock stars, or gosh forbid, players. Naw, not to worry.So we took a few group pictures with Sandy and her wonderful staff.If we could, we would have stayed at the restaurant long enough toeat dinner, too.
Emory led the way, but quickly came back. There were like 50 peoplenow surrounding the bus. He quickly made friends with the ladies atthe optometry office next door. They let us cut through to exit theback door, which at least got us to the bus. Emory was swarmedagain.
So there, I take a picture of a guy with a Cowboys star tattooed tohis left bicep, the same arm on which he was wearing a cast fromhis hand to just below his elbow. Eddie was his name. He had justcome out of wrist surgery. A friend called his awaiting wife totell her about the bus.
"I told him he had to take me here," she said.
Come on, what's a little wrist surgery?
We signed and signed, until Emory had run out of pictures . . .again.
"Has everyone been taken care of?" Emory asked.
Surprisingly, they had, so I hopped on the bus while Emory posedfor a few more pics until I honked the bus' fog horn. Gotta go.
But after this, for sure, no longer will we ever be surprisedagain. This bus is a people-rod, for sure.
Along the way, one of the first things we saw in tiny Winslow,Ariz., was a white pickup truck sporting a Cowboys' blue staremblazoned upon the hood.
At a truck stop somewhere between Laughlin, Nev., and Vegas, we metTonya, the trucker from Phoenix, a Cowboys fan because