Did Someone Say Spring?

Because I think you were bullshitting me.

Taken about 20 minutes ago.  Boo!  Hiss!  I have too much to do for this nonsense.

Strange Things

The weather is beautiful right now, and has been since we returned from vacation.  (Ironic.)  We've been taking advantage of these nice days by strolling down the county roads where we live.  

My darling weirdos enjoying the gorgeous weather.  They spend most of the time on these walks in shoving matches and rock kicking contests.  I like to hang back and watch.

The rest of the time, Taylor likes to distance herself from her parents.  I'm pretty sure we embarass her.  It's like my superpower or something.  I don't even have to work at it, it just comes naturally, this embarassment thing.  

Occasionally, something really bizarre crops up.  Like this dessicated turkey with a fork in it. Stuck to a fence post for additional impact.  We've been having fun speculating on what exactly someone was trying to say when they did this.  Thanksgiving sucks!  Or, this turkey is like our marriage, stick a fork in it, it's done!  Thanks, random person, for giving us so much to talk about. 

Whee, the end of the road trip: a wrap up.

Friday:

The weather was unrelentingly sucky, so we drove out of Port Lavaca to Victoria, TX.  We were on the hunt for seafood, and here's what we found.

We ate fried alligator.  It tastes like chicken, only chewier.  Also, I had a fried oyster Po Boy.  It was not bad at all, and I don't even like fried oysters.  I was simply feeling adventurous.

Adam ate a buttload of seafood for cheeeeeeaaaap.  Taylor had a cheeseburger because she is indifferent to seafood.  She did eat the alligator, though.  

After we ate, we tried our hand at thrift shopping in Victoria.  This was not very successful, and so we turned North and West towards San Marcos, TX and outlet mall shopping.  The weather was crap, and there were trucks mating on the side of the road.  There was really nothing else to do.

We reached San Marcos, and we needed coffee STAT.  Do you think we could find a Starbucks or anything familiar?  Hell, no.  At last, though, when we had reached the end of our collective ropes and had actually resorted to whining out loud, we found a coffee shop.  It seems like this is Texas' answer to Starbucks.  Whatever.  It was a godsend.  

Adam and Taylor stopped their bickering for five minutes and enjoyed a cuppa together.  It was bliss.

After coffee, we took Taylor to the ginormous outlet mall madness and let her shop to her little heart's content.  I feel like we deserve gold stars in our parenting notebooks for this.

Many things were purchased.  Invader Zim is popular in this house.

We decided that San Marcos had given it up for us, but we were done, so we headed to Austin. The weather was crap.  Cold, wet, windy.  We can get this stuff at home for free!

 

On the outskirts of Austin, we found this place.  Naturally, we had to stop.

We ate dinner at the Cabela's Superstore.  Buffalo burgers with fried jalepenos and chipotle mayonaise.  I refuse to acknowledge the burning sensations in various parts of my body.  I am on vacation, dammit.  I am invincible.

After dinner, we wandered around, looking at all the dead things.  It seems like we think this is fun.  Also, it is very cheap.  It costs absolutely nothing to go and gawk at all the dead stuff. Sweet!

The dead mule deer were spectacular.  

The dead white tails were also impressive.

This moose was as big as a quarterhorse.  It could feed a whole town.  Amazing.

Eventually, we tired of all the dead animals, and went and found a hotel.  This was a non-smoking room.  With an ashtray.  An ashtray with a no-smoking sticker on it.  Somehow, things weren't adding up.  Also, there were drug dealers on the floor below.  We were careful when locking our doors.  We decided that we would leave Austin the next morning and go to Marble Falls, TX.  A much smaller town, and supposedly beautiful.

Saturday:

We drove to Marble Falls.

The weather was still spectacularly crappy and the flu I had been trying to fight off decided to hit me full force.  We found a hotel and I promptly went into a Nyquil coma for 8 hours.  I ate dinner that Adam brought to me, and then I went back to bed.  The next morning we ate breakfast and came home.  We drove from Marble Falls alllllllllllllllllllll the way home in one day.  It was a very long drive, and I am a master of understatement.

It was a good trip, we all enjoyed it and we're all glad to be home.

Road Trip, Day 8

We slept late today, since we paid for two nights and didn't have to hustle to load all our crap back into the van.  That's always pleasant.  Unfortunately, when I woke up I had that off feeling I get when I'm trying to get sick.  I took some vitamin C and ignored the feeling.

We left the hotel and fueled up.  We're loving the cheap gas prices.

Lunchtime, oh, yeah.  

Beef chimichanga FTW!

Magnolia Beach, TX.  On a good day it would be lovely.

This was not a good day.  In fact, it was at this point that I really started to feel crappy. Apparently sharing the roller coasters with 57 million other people exposed me to something nasty. Shocking, I know.

No huge loss, since the weather sucked like a Hoover.  We went back to the hotel, and I took more vitamin C, some Nyquil, and zonked for a few hours.  I'm still feeling a bit achey, so I'm going to take a hot bath w/ epsom salts and then more vitamin C and Nyquil and I'm going to call it a night.

Tomorrow will be better.  I'm mapping out thrift shops.

Road Trip, Days 6 and 7

On Day 6, we went to Sea World.

It was overcast and the temperature was perfect.  

We watched the Shamu show.  

Shamu got Adam wet.  REALLY wet, while Taylor and I remained almost completely dry. What's so funny here is that Adam hates, loathes and despises getting wet.  We were at the top of the splash zone, though, and that's what happens.

There were roller coasters at the park, and one of them completely hosed the date/time dealie on the camera.  (Adam had the camera in his pocket, and either the force of the ride or the magnetic energy did the trick.)  We can't seem to fix it, so now we're in 2012.  Oh, well.  Anyway, the Steel Eel is our all-time favorite roller coaster (so far).  We rode it 4 times. Screw the sea life, we can watch that on Discovery Channel! (I kid, I'm a kidder.)

We watched another show, and it was charming.  We learned the difference between seals and sea lions.  (It has to do w/ the ears and the pelvis.  Neat!)

Another show.  So long and thanks for all the fish!

We had dinner at an old favorite.  Nice.

I bought wine.  In a box!  I am a beer snob, not a wine snob.  Don't you judge me!

The next morning, Day 7, the temperature dropped and it was raining.  We used up all our good weather on the big theme parks, but that's okay.  We decided to head south to Corpus Christi.  I got to drive through some of the craziest interstate I've ever seen, which I enjoy, so that was fun. That Tomtom is worth its weight in gold.

We made it to Corpus and the weather was magically beautiful once more.

It's really, really hazy there.  I'm guessing it's a combination of humidity and pollution.  

I don't even want to know how polluted the water is.  You would not believe the scale of industry around here.  There are smoke stacks spewing stuff everywhere.  You could taste the air.  

Not even Mr. Pelican will eat that fish!  

We went for a walk, and found somewhere to refresh ourselves.

We were refreshed.  We ate shrimp-stuffed jalepenos and seafood-stuffed mushrooms.  It was delightful.  And then we decided we were done with Corpus Christi.  We turned North and East and followed the coast to Port O'Connor.  There was a wildfire, and also no where for us to stay, so now we're in Port Lavaca.  It's overcast and breezy.  Adam is searching for the perfect place to eat seafood, and then we're going to wander around on the beach.  Our room is huge, and we're just chillaxing here for today.  I have no idea what we're going to do tomorrow, and that's the way I like it.

Days 4 and 5...they're starting to run together!

So, it's Day 4, and we've just woken up after driving half the night.  Apparently at some point we entered Texas Hill Country and we're no longer in the Boring Desert of Doom.  This is a good thing. Also, it's Springtime.

At long last, something green that won't stab you if you touch it.

This is much better.  Hills, trees, tiny microscopic deer!  Huzzah!

We ate breakfast.  Beer and enchiladas.  It totally doesn't get any better than that.

We arrived at the outskirts of San Antonio and saw this place, so we made our way off the interstate to it.  It's like Heaven for the Outdoorsman.  There were people fishing in the parking lot, with real fish and everything. Crazypants.

You would not believe the scale of this place.  Some lady was giving a fishing demonstration inside.  She used a bunch of different lures and you could watch the fish's reaction to them.  It was fascinating in a way that fishing has never been fascinating before.  I felt myself being lured to the Dark Side.  A couple of hours in this place and I would be drinking beer from a can and spending my life's savings on a party barge.  

There were taxidermied animals everywhere.  EVERYWHERE.  They had one of  everything. Baboons, skunks, wolves, turkeys, ducks, squirrels, fish, snakes, cows, zebras, lions and tigers and bears, oh, my!

It was like a zoo, only everything was dead.  It certainly makes taking photos easier.  

Eventually, we wore out on all those dead animals, so we went and found a motel.  I guess they had recently done a remodel, so we were all fancypants.  Not too bad for $42 a night and 5 minutes from Six Flags.  

After some wifi drama that required a room change, we took a nap.  

We're still running on Colorado/pre-time change time, so we wound up eating around 10pm.

The next morning, we went here.  

This is really the only photo of a roller coaster I took.  I didn't take my camera into the park, because our focus is on riding the roller coasters, and ride them we did.  We rode all the big rides, most of them twice.  We rode our favorite one four times, which was awesome.  It was the perfect day.  Not too hot, not many people, no waiting for the rides.  We had so, so much fun.  

On the slate for today:  Sea World.