Ever since our Big Bend finale dinner at the Gage Hotel, it’s been one shitstorm after another.

Some of these costly irritations and guffaws are because of our own stupidity, some are just because it’s the nature of living in a rolling home. And of course, it all comes crashing down at tax time, you gotta love the Universe’s sense of humor. Sure, it could be worse, at least we’re not stuffed and mounted to a wall, right?

Tonight, I just want to reflect on the amazing culinary experience we had at the upscale Gage Hotel in Marathon. We’ve been dreaming about it for two years. Last time we were in town, we had zero money to spend on a fancy pants night out, so we ate nachos in the bar and watched diners chow down on the patio. We felt like two puppydogs in the window, it was pathetic.

However this year when we knew we were returning, we set aside $150 in our dining out budget so we could eat there. The last time we spent so much on a dinner was about two years ago! Yeah, I’m that cheap. We eat out at a variety of inexpensive places throughout the month, but we never spend that much all at once.

As two vegetarians, there wasn’t much for us on the amazing carnivore menu, but the dinner salads and sides sure had a lot to offer so we ordered THREE: a Tex-Mex shrimp cocktail, a beet and goat cheese salad and a seared scallop salad. They were AWESOME.

Of course our lean choices left plenty of room for dessert; a warm chocolate molten cake and homemade flan.

The Gage is such an obscure little hotel, it’s the kind of first-class oasis you’d never expect to find in the middle of nowhere. Our experience there was a dinner for the history books and well worth the splurge.

I’m so glad we went, because there’s no way I would have been OK with this frivolity had I known about the events that were going to transpire as soon as we arrived in the Hill Country.  Now when I feel a panic attack coming on, I’ll do my best to breathe deeply and think back to that one delicious night at the Gage Hotel.