“Never
ask a man if he's from Texas. If he is, he'll tell you on his own.
If
he ain't, no need to embarrass him.”
So, last weekend Randy and I got to go to Texas. He had a
safety conference and I went along to see our son, Jesse, and his wife Amanda. We
flew into San Antonio on Saturday evening and drove up to Austin to their
apartment. The four of us decided to go and get something to eat. We ended up
eating at a place (Gourdoughs) that has huge unsweetened donuts in all the
dishes. It was really good. Randy had a
hamburger and the potato chips that came with it were unbelievable – they were homemade,
were thick and unsalted. Jesse, Amanda and I had desserts – donuts with fruit
toppings and whipped cream. They were so big and so good! We stayed at their
place for the night.
Sunday morning real early Jesse had to go to work, and
around 10am Amanda had roller derby practice. Randy and I went to the local
church meeting from 9-12. It’s wonderful to be able to go to a Mormon church anywhere
in the world and the meetings and doctrine are all the same. The people there were
wonderful. We all got back to the apartment a little after noon. We drove to
one of the national parks there and walked around for awhile. One of the trails
led to a couple of small waterfalls. At one point we saw a bunch of turtles lying
in the sun. Then we drove around downtown, past the Capitol building (it was
closed) and the University there. When we got back to their apartment Jesse
made omelets for everyone for dinner. They were great. After some more visiting,
Randy and I headed back to San Antonio.
We checked into our hotel that evening, the Valencia. It was
downtown and just a few blocks from the River Walk. It was very nice – but everything
was so dark! The lobby was dark and there was a waterfall that was so loud that
we could hardly understand the person at the check-in desk. The hallways were
not lit well, and the lights in our room were all low. I couldn’t tell if they
were just trying to set a mood, they were trying to save on the electric bill, or
if it was so old they didn’t want anyone looking too close! Pictures on the web
aren’t dark at all!
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| Our room |
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| Online picture |
Randy was going to work on a Habitat for Humanity house on
Monday morning with other guys from the safety conference, but they were
driving everyone in a bus there and he didn’t think he could get back in time
to drive me to the airport, so he didn’t go. Instead, we worked out in the
exercise room for an hour, showered and then walked along the River Walk for
awhile. After that we went and got some lunch. Then Randy drove me to the
airport and I flew home. He will fly home on Wednesday afternoon after the
conference is over.
It was nice to get away for a couple of days, great to see
family, and wonderful to be warm and soak up some vitamin D from the sun!
