Fun in the Sun

[walbourn]

cuddlyeconomist and I have been having a great visit down in Texas with the Rhyser. We got into Austin late Saturday evening, and stayed with a friend of Margo's down south. Sunday we had brunch at Trudy's to get my migas fix and visited with a pair of one friends, one Margo's and one mine. Alas onyxlynxx and hdan were both out of town when we were around Sunday, so we'll have to wait for a future trip. Sunday evening we drove out to meet up with M's dad and step-mom who were bringing R with them from Houston. We made it to the R/V park down on the Guadalupe ahead of them, and it turned out they had a flat tire on their new-to-them trailer. We headed back out to help and made it there about the same time as AAA did. We got back late in the evening, but other than some frayed nerves, tired adults, and chigger-bites on R's legs they were none-the-less for wear.

Monday we spent the whole day at Schlitterbahn. The Pacfic Northwest is not known for waterparks, so along with Tex-Mex (and potentially the Texas Ren Faire) they are highlights of any trip. The weather was hot (it really has to be to want to put your bum and other cold-sensitive parts into spring-fed river water), but not so bad as to be brutalizing. Much fun was had. M finally got her pony she keeps asking for from R, at least in the form of a stuffie.

Today we were going to raft down the Guadalupe, but Texas t-storms brought a fair amount of rain and chill to those ideas. So instead, we drove out to San Antonio to visit my mom and dad. Mom has been stable for a while, but she's not excercising enough so she's not really getting much better after her surgery last year in terms of physical fitness. Dad was in Alaska all last week--he has developed a real love/fixation on Alaska--, and just got back in early this morning, so it was pretty good timing. We managed a meal at Blanco Cafe and a nice evening's visiting.

Tomorrow we will head back to the R/V and try to do that river run, and then drive to Austin later in the day. Probably means no time to try to make dinner plans with people before we have to catch our flight, but the whole point of this trip was to have R, M, her Dad and step-mom having time together on the river so that's the priority for the trip.

It's been a rough and busy few weeks with Koshka's passing, M finishing up the quarter, buliding the fence, and getting the June 2010 DirectX SDK release out at work, so the vacation was well-timed. Texas is a lot more fun to visit than to live here, although I think M and I are reminded how much we just don't like the heat. Crazy things are melting in the car even in the dark recesses of the trunk, and I just nearly got bit by a scorpian while sitting at my parent's computer--I think I distrubed it trying to blow the dust off the machine. Returning to soft nature and the generally gentle warmth of the Seattle summer is defintely something worth looking forward to.

Update: Change of plans again... The river is flooding, so M's dad and step-mom had to pack up and abandon their camping in the middle of the night. So, we are going to head back to Austin a bit more leasurly and bring R for a visit with M's god-nephews for a bit. Ah, Texas weather.

Update 2: It looks like we were really lucky on our Texas trip. The flooding on the Comal and Guadalupae river was really bad the day we went to visit my folks in San Antonio. They closed Schlitterban down and then only partially reopened it for cleanup, so it was good we went when we did.

Local news story [www.foxsanantonio.com]. The campground they highlight is Second Crossing where we were camping.