Back from vacation

Yes, indeed, back safely from a week of driving across Texas and visiting with friends and family. Not what we have typically thought of when we think of the term "vacation," but, hey, these days are strange ones.

Spent a few days in Killeen visiting an old friend of my wife. Oddly enough, the second day we were there was the 30th anniversary of the night that my wife and I met, AND on that night, my wife was with this very same friend. The two of them were out having a drink at a bar, and in walks yours truly. The rest is, as they say, herstory.

During this leg of the trip, we went to visit The Vineyard at Florence, which is noted here, but here's another pic.


My wife and her friend love to go to thrift shops, so we made plenty of time for that. While they were out getting all excited about 50 cent clothes (hey, we scored big on this trip), I was most-calmly sitting in the backyard, reading a book and being kept company by the constant cooing of mourning doves and other birds.


Her backyard does remind one of Sanford and Son.


Good coffee, a good book, peace and quiet, now THIS is more like vacation.


All things must end, and we eventually drove west and south into Marble Falls to visit an old college chum of mine. He's now one of the golf pros at Horseshoe Bay, which is just a gorgeous place on the south side of Lake LBJ.


The hill country of Central Texas is always a nice change of pace from Houston's pancakeland. My favorite golf pro took us on a tour of part of the three golf courses at Horseshoe Bay in golf carts, which, incidentally, would do very well in urban settings when your typical ride would be under five miles. Oops, wrong post.

We even took some time to play some miniature golf. Not exactly Putt-Putt, but an actual golf course layout, without the windmills and marauding pirates, but in miniature. You only putt. No irons, no woods, just putters. It was a hoot.

Here are a coupla pics from the "Whitewater" course.


Do I have to say that my favorite golf pro beat the two of us handily?


We stayed at a bed-and-breakfast, the Wallace Guest House, in downtown Marble Falls. Very nice place. Damn comfortable bed.


When I was making the reservation, they told me that, when I arrived, the key would be in the door. Say what? The key to the room will be in the door. Ok. Oh, yeah, Marble Falls is a small town. We don't really do things like that in Houston anymore.


Sure enough, the key was in the door when we arrived. And when we left, we left the key inside the room. We never even saw the proprietors. A little odd. And breakfast was a coupon good for two at the Blue Bonnet Cafe, a couple of blocks away. Hey, no problem, it was awesome. Haven't had bacon like that in a restaurant in years.

They had a few odd things on the walls, including some odd grammar. Is it me? Or them?


But the clock keeps ticking, and eventually we had to get to Austin.

Hey, a word of warning. If you have even a little tendency towards carsickness or vertigo, do not, I repeat, do NOT EVER take FM 1431 from Marble Falls east into Austin, Texas. My favorite golf pro told me it was the "scenic" route. Oh Lord, I have never been on such a roller coaster in my life. Up, down, up, down, right bank up, left bank down, tilt, roll, hang on! The wife had to close her eyes for most of the trip. I was nauseous and I have an iron stomach.

In Austin we had dinner with a guy and his wife that I had not seen since 1969. The guy, that is. He married her in 1979. We used to live back-to-back growing up in East Texas, and he was one of, if not my best friend. Oh, the whiffleball games we played. For some reason, I totally lost track of him after we moved. Just never kept in touch. I wish I hadn't done that, but it's a little late now. It was great catching up, but we only really had the time of one dinner, so I hope we can get together again and spend more time next time.

Out of all of the things that we regret in our lives, and everybody probably has a few, I regret losing touch with everyone I grew up with in East Texas. There's simply no good reason for it.

Spent the night in Austin at a Marriott. Hey, nicely done on the breakfast Marriott, with free wi-fi too, as it should be. Any hotel that still wants to charge you for internet service, fuck 'em! You hear that sis in Minnesota?

After Austin, it was a short drive down south to San Marcos to visit our two nephews, who are attending school there at Texas State University at San Marcos, nee Southwest Texas State University when I went there in the 1970's. It's twice the size now as it was then.

We were going to hit the outlet malls in San Marcos before getting back home, but we suddenly decided to skip that and hightail it back to Houston. This way, we'd get two full days to recuperate, unpack and unwind before getting back to work. And fortunately, we still have good jobs to get back to. Even better, our new irrigation system for the garden worked great while we were gone! But that's another post.

Here's hoping that America pulls its head out of its ass real soon, prosecutes the Bush Gang, restores the economy, revives peace, solves the energy crisis and builds sex hotels in space. Can't help it! I'm feeling optimistic (today).