![\"Ain't](\"http:\/\/www.biguglymandoll.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/02\/dreamalnd-300x225.jpg\" "\\"Ain't")
<\/a>Ain't Nothin Like 'Em Nowhere<\/p><\/div>\n
Next stop, following meetings, was Dreamland<\/a> \u2013 Ain\u2019t Nothin Like \u2018Em Nowhere.\u00a0 And it\u2019s good.\u00a0 It\u2019s very good.\u00a0 I had pulled pig at Dreamland for dinner.\u00a0 And lunch the next day.\u00a0 For dinner the next night \u2013 whoops, the cohorts wanted to go to Dreamland, where I decided that one must leave one\u2019s comfort zone in the name of scientific discovery, and I had the ribs.\u00a0 The ribs are good, but not great.\u00a0 Since my cohorts (most of them) had been to Dreamland before, the consensus was that they were uncharacteristically off their game that night.\u00a0 Also, we were travelling with one of the\u00a0team who is currently on a strict health diet regime and was running somewhere between \u201chigh-maintenance\u201d and \u201cfussy eater.\u201d\u00a0 Since she could only eat vegetables and meat cooked without<\/strong> most of the things you\u2019ll find meat cooked with<\/strong> at a BBQ joint, she eventually consumed 17 pounds of raw broccoli and a busboy, before she could be restrained and reminded that she wasn\u2019t in Arizona, where I guess that kind of thing is still legal.\u00a0 Presumably insurance will cover notifying his family, but it was still a hell of a dinner bill.<\/p>\n To make certain that I did not become too homesick in between meetings and eatings, I talked to the three lunatic children every day.\u00a0 Talking to Number One Son on the phone is an exercise in brevity.\u00a0 \u201cHi Dad!\u201d\u00a0 \u201cHi Big Man!\u201d\u00a0 \u201cBye Dad.\u201d\u00a0 \u201cOh, uh, bye!\u201d\u00a0 He\u2019s a man of few words.\u00a0 Plus, to ensure I had all the trappings and cheerful reminders of home, SOBUMD called me as I was going to sleep so that I, too, could hear the damn cat cleaning his testicles as loudly as he possibly could. \u201cThwoock.\u00a0 Thwoock.\u00a0\u00a0Thwoock.\u00a0 Thwoock.\u201d\u00a0 She had shooed him off the bed into the hallway, and we could still hear the furry little pervert.\u00a0<\/p>\n I\u2019ll tell you, there are days when I find myself in Huntsville Alabama in meetings discussing types of lubricants for air compressor maintenance, periodicity of how often those lubricants are utilized for their intended purpose, and the role of the person administering the lubricant in capturing the data concerning just how many thumbfuls of grease he or she has just applied to that air compressor, and I wonder where my life went wrong.\u00a0<\/p>\n But then I remember I\u2019m here for the food, and it\u2019s all good again.\u00a0 Driving back from my most recent meeting, I saw \u2013 and you cannot imagine my surprise \u2013 a BBQ joint.\u00a0 And not just any BBQ joint, but a member of the Gibson family!\u00a0 (Devout readers will recall the pilgrimage I made to Big Bob Gibson\u2019s in Decatur last time I was here<\/a>.)\u00a0 This was a shotgun shack just outside the gate from Redstone Arsenal called \u201cDavid Gibson Bar-B-Q<\/a>\u201d and looking about as much like a restaurant as my old gym locker.\u00a0 The sign was small, the place was tiny \u2013 a BBQ joint of dubious provenance if ever there was one.\u00a0 I remembered the need to throw myself into adventure \u2013 in the name of scientific discovery \u2013 and turned hard right into the path of least resistance, and pig.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n David Gibson's Pulled Pig<\/p><\/div>\n It\u2019s good pig.\u00a0 It doesn\u2019t<\/span> don\u2019t look like much, but they put the cole slaw on their pulled pig sandwich, and they have nice thick-tangy-spicy barbeque sauce, and they have white sauce, and they have a very nice vinegar hot sauce, and their slaw is what slaw next to pig ought to be.\u00a0 I asked the lady behind the counter if the David Gibson was in fact related to the Big Bob Gibson\u2019s that I\u2019d \u2013 and she pointed to the sign explaining their history before I could finish my question.\u00a0 I guess they get that a lot.\u00a0 It\u2019s run by Harold David Gibson, son of David S. Gibson and grandson of Big Bob.\u00a0 The place has been on that spot since 1960, and still uses hickory wood in man-made pits, just as the Gibsons have for the last 82 years.\u00a0 You can tell \u2013 this is BBQ made with smoke, time, and love.\u00a0<\/p>\n For dinner, which was not too far behind, and why should it be since we\u2019re here to eat, we mixed it up a bit.\u00a0 Huntsville has a long German tradition, being as how when it was Rocket City we \u201cimported\u201d quite a few German rocket scientists here to help us get to space \u2013 on my way to several meetings, I passed the Wernher Von Braun<\/a> center going up and coming down.\u00a0 We went to a place called the \u201cOl\u2019 Heidelberg<\/a>\u201d which lived up to its name by hanging multiple pictures of the bridge over the Rhine showing the ruins of the old Heidelberg castle in the background.\u00a0 The d\u00e9cor looked less like a German restaurant and more like an American restaurant trying hard to look German, and succeeding pretty damn well.\u00a0 The desserts in front were tempting, but our mouths didn\u2019t really start to water until the waitress \u2013 in full biergarten regalia \u2013 rattled off the beers on draft and mentioned Spaten Optimator.\u00a0 My cohort whispered, \u201cOptimator!\u201d \u00a0I looked at her and said, \u201cOptimator!\u201d and we high-fived.\u00a0 If you\u2019ve only had it in bottles, it\u2019s to die for on draft.\u00a0 \u00a0The rouladen was fantastic, served with cucumber salad, red cabbage, and spetzele \u2013 it was the best German meal in a restaurant I\u2019ve had since I left Germany.\u00a0 (My mother-in-law is German, and both she and her daughter SOBUMD can cook circles around my local fare.)\u00a0 \u00a0A fantastic meal.<\/p>\n![\"David](\"http:\/\/www.biguglymandoll.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/02\/Dave.jpg\" "\\"David")
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