Eatin' and Dancin' thru Texas

Jesse and I got home last night about 5:30 PM. We promptly fed animals and cleaned house. Jes made a great supper - something more on our diets than we have had the past several days. I feel like we ate our way through Austin and will need to do some serious dieting.
The first night in Austin, we ate at some place on Lake Travis. The food was only mediocre, but then people don't go there for the food. They go there for the atmosphere and view of the lake. Although the lake was way down, it was still a very cool place - especially with a live band and a bit of after dinner dancing.
The second night in Austin after a day of lazyin' around the pool and visiting with cousins, we went to The Iguana Grill. Once again this place was on the lake, and the food was only okay, but the music and atmosphere were great. We ate outside overlooking Lake Travis which was pitifully low. See the trees in this photo? That is where the water is normally. The singer at the Iguana was Malford Milligan, an excellent blues singer.Toby and my brother
Cousin Cindy and daughter
Younger cousins
Jesse and the music

Toby had to be in Houston on Monday so I drove him over on Sunday afternoon. We went through San Marcos and drove around Texas State - Toby's Alma mater. It has changed lots in the 32 years since we lived there in the married housing. We ate lunch at Grin's - like old times. Then we made a little shopping trip to the outlet mall to buy Toby some new "girl britches" or dress slacks as everyone else calls them. We eventually headed on to Houston. Since Monday was our 34th anniversary, Toby took me out to eat. He actually suggested eating at Luby's. I actually thought that would be okay, then I remembered it was my anniversary. I almost started crying, but that was probably just my hormones being weird. We ate at a French restaurant called Bistro Le Cep. It was excellent.

Monday Toby went to work in Houston and I went back to Austin. Once there, we packed up and went to Hamilton Pool. If you don't look up any of my other links, do look at that one - very cool place. We had a great time playing in the water and people watching. After way too much sun and fun, we hiked back up the trail and went back to the condo to clean up. My cousin's daughters who live in Austin, wanted to meet us at Stubbs Barbeque. My brother met us there too. The barbeque was good, but not the best I've ever had. Once again, it was all about atmosphere - crazy Austin stuff.

Tuesday morning, Jesse and I headed home. We stopped in Round Rock to pick up my DIL's mother - my good friend. She had been in Texas taking care of her elderly mother and needed a ride back to OK. It made it a very nice trip home to get to catch up with my friend and all that was happening in her life.

So the food and atmosphere were great in Austin, but the best part of being there was just seeing and visiting with my cousins. It had been over a year since I had seen them last. Jesse had seen Pam in Hawaii and stayed with her family, but it is not often that I get to see Pam. Cindy lives closer in Southern Louisiana, but still we don't get together often. I had seen some of them at my dad's funeral five years ago. Before that, it I had not seen them since their father's Ia Drang Valley Veteran's reunions in DC. They are definitely the fun cousins and this time was just as good. I also got to see my brother, but I missed seeing his beautiful wife by just a few days. She has been in Europe this summer teaching a class. I bet she was having fun too, and she will get to meet Pam and family before they leave for Hawaii.

A few side notes about our trip:
Texas and Oklahoma are about burnt up. It is dry, dry, dry and hot, hot, hot! We need some rain.

In Houston, Toby and I went into an HEB grocery store on Westheimer St. at about 9:00 PM. We were two of maybe five white people in the store - everyone else was black. As we stood in line to check out, the guy behind me said, "Excuse me" and reached for the divider thangie to put between our groceries. Just jokingly, I put my elbow down on his hand and pretended not to see him. He erupted in giggles - maybe he was surprised that a perfect stranger would do something like that. Of course it caused a little commotion, and Toby turned to see what trouble I had gotten myself into. He was not surprised to see me laughing with the guy in line behind me. The guy then remarked that he needed the grocery divider to "keep all right with the world." We all laughed. As I was leaving I told Toby that there had been more black people in that store than I had seen in all of OK in the past year - no exaggeration. How odd!

Traffic on a Sunday afternoon on I-10 was bumper to bumper. What's up with that? And Traffic in Austin was busy no matter where or what time of day. I could never live in a city again. It is good to be home on the Lazy B and have all my critters. More photos tomorrow.