Palmetto State Park

So this weekend we went to Palmetto State Park, which is an unusual park due to the fact that it has lots of palms and swamps, not usually seen this far north and west.

Here is the view from the viewpoint on the way into the park. Please remember this is Texas, where being any more than about 50 feet higher than anything else counts as a hill.

I was a bit spooked by the sign below, but luckily we didn't see any snakes (I didn't see much else, because I spent most of the time staring at the ground!)

On the way home we stopped at Lockhart, the BBQ capital of Texas, for some dinner. This is ONE beef rib (I did let Rich have some too).

More Silly Photos!

I know you love these! This is the back of someone's car, on the trip to pick up Rich from work. As you may or may not be able to read, they are celebrating the life of The King of Pop. Americans seem to love writing stuff on the windows of their car with this white stuff - I presume it washes off? Mostly used by people looking to sell their vehicles, or graduating students. This is the first time I have seen it used as an obituary.

And another supermarket, another chance to take a photo of an advert for cheese. Rich insisted I take this as he thought it was funny - I just think it is true.

Inks Lake State Park - swimming around

Another weekend, another state park! On Sunday we got up early and drove about 2 hours north and west to the north of the lakes surrounding Austin. We went for a hike and discovered that the dragonflies were not interested in us in the slightest, they couldn't even be bothered to fly away when we got close! They were, however, beautiful, and ENORMOUS!! I was very glad of them, eating up the annoying mozzies, therefore no bites on me that day.
This is about as high as it gets in the Hill Country:


Then we went for a swim at Devil's Waterhole, which had some cool cliffs over the water to jump from. No photos of this - sorry! We were having too much fun playing in the water.

We had a picnic once we had cooled off, and by then it was time to head back, through various small towns, each with their own water tower. We took this pic especially for Ross.


ps I don't know when the Oatmeal Festival is, but how many types of porridge do you think you can eat? I think I preferred the ice cream one!

Ice Cream Festival

On Saturday it was unsurprisingly another scorcher. We headed up to Chinatown first to check out the Asian supermarket and pick up some supplies. Rich reckons this might be the equivalent of Japanese Buckie - I'll let you make up your own minds!!

Then we headed to an ice cream festival in the centre of town - the winner in the homemade ice cream competition was Maple and Bacon. Mmmm! Unfortunately, we didn't arrive in time to taste it, and had to sample some more ordinary flavours, like double chocolate.

Rich bought a new hat:

which was needed to keep off the heat, although I think this dog had a better idea of how to cool off.

There was a petting zoo, which included a kangaroo! Helen, I went to see it for you, but to be honest I was a bit concerned by the cramped surroundings. But they did have miniature ponies, although I couldn't take any more photos as they were crowded by young children and I thought that might look a bit odd!

Inner Space Cavern and The Oasis

That first photo is unrelated, I just like it!!

This weekend we went to Inner Space Cavern - a HUMUNGOUS cavern they found in the 1960s when they were building the highway that goes north from Austin. It is a lovely 72 degrees all the time - so it was pretty busy in the hottest month of the year - and had cool stalactites and stalacmites. Some pictures:




Then we headed out to the Oasis, which is the 3rd largest restauarant in the US, apparently. It is next to Lake Travis, the biggest lake out west from Austin, and has a pretty good view of the sunset (along with seating for over 2000 people, although not all get a sunset view!).

Too Hot!!

Ugh - it reached 107 degrees yesterday. That's all I have to say - too exhausted to write any more. And there are no photos - how do you photograph the heat? I suppose I could take a photo of an ice cream melting, but that would be a waste, and as I said, too exhausted. We are hoping for some rain soon!!

Pedernales Falls aka not enough rain

We went to Pedernales Falls State Park again this weekend - it is so vast we had only seen a tiny bit of it last time we visited, and hadn't gotten to the falls. Rich wanted to check if it was runnable, but as you can see, it quite clearly isn't!


They prohibit swimming here because of the risk of flash floods - apparently the whole river bank can fill within 5 minutes if that happens. We wish! No chance of that at the moment, this year there have been a record 39 days of temperatures reaching more than 100 degrees fahrenheit, and the long range forecast is another hot and dry month through August.
Luckily they do let you swim further downstream, and we lazed around in the river for a while to cool off before heading home. The kids in the river were closely watching a snake by the bank, which scared me witless, although it didn't stop Rich going back up the bank to collect his sunglasses he had left behind. Much screaming by the kids ensued - I reckon the snake was bound to be more scared than any of us!

We have been told the ship with our stuff was due to reach Philadelphia last week, so we are hoping to get a delivery soon. We bought a book this week about mountain biking near Austin and San Antonio, so can't wait for the bikes so we can put it to good use! We found a great part of the greenbelt that winds about 7 miles from the centre of town out south and west - its called the hill of life, and looks like the kind of challenge on a bike that we would expect in Scotland. Finally - not just forest track! Keep an eye out for pics of that soon!

Another Silly Photo!

Sorry, but I just had to embarrass Rich by getting the camera out in the supermarket AGAIN! The idea of easy cheese (that's cheese in an aerosol can) is bad enough - but the tag line - A Little Way to Show Your Love - ????!!!!

To make up for the silly photo, here is a nice one of a pretty amazing cloud I spotted while driving into town the other day.

My Birthday - Dinner at Uchi

Its not very often that anyone gets dressed up in Austin, and I guess we have even less of an excuse than most. But we did for my birthday, which meant it was worth a photo!



Some of you may know that Griogair and Kirsty gave us a very cool wedding present - a voucher for one of the best restaurants in Austin. We decided to use it on my birthday, and had an amazing dinner there. Its called Uchi, and it is a Japanse restaurant, which specialises in sushi. It is in a cool area of the city just south of downtown, and not that far from where we live.

We forgot to take any pictures of the outside - so keen were we to get in and start eating - but here is a picture of the cool view out the window of the bar, where we sat while waiting for a table.
We went for the 9 course chef's tasting menu, which unfortunately means I don't really know what anything was, just that it was delicious. Here are some photos for you to drool over.

I remember that this one had foie gras in it, and had the most amazing velvety texture.


And we washed it down with sake - I didn't really know that sake was cloudy, or that it came in a box! But it tasted great.
The last course was a rather amazing chocolate and wasabi cake with pistachio ice-cream. The cake was amazing - the wasabi was a bit intense after a while, but that was probably a good thing, or else I would have been asking for seconds!

So thanks very much to Kirsty and Griogair, this really made my birthday!

Cool Restaurant Walking Distance From Our Apartment!

This is the last of the photos from the dump of the last few weeks, but look away if you are squeamish!
We have seen this restaurant a couple of times while walking/running past, and it is just down the road from our apartment. Walking distance, although on the basis that there are no pavements up the road I'm not sure how often we would do that - we drove for this visit!

It is a cool Tex-Mex restaurant with a large patio area outside, where a band was playing as it was a Saturday night. It has a funky kind of 1970s vibe about the mis-matched garden furniture and wipe clean tablecloths, and the food was good.

Unfortunately, we went at dusk, and were outside next to lots of trees. And we didn't think to take any bug repellant. Oops! Once we realised the critters were biting we borrowed some from the barman, but the beasties had beaten us to it.

Exhibit A for those who can bear to look - I could barely walk that day my foot was so swollen. Forgetting the bug repellant is a bit like having a big night out drinking - once you are in the midst of the after-effects, you swear you will never do it again. But you always do.

What you can't see very well from here (lucky you) is the blister on my fourth toe - it was a monster, and stopped me bending the toe at all. MUST REMEMBER BUG REPELLANT AT ALL TIMES!

4th July Fireworks

Yes, the wonder that is 4th July continues - they really love this holiday here! We got back to Austin in time to head into town to see the fireworks. Apparently about 100,000 people were watching them, although as the park we were watching from is so huge, we didn't feel that crowded. We headed down to Town Lake about 6ish with Lorraine and Boyd and had a picnic first.
It was a pretty hot day (again) definitely in the 100s, and by the time it got dark (back of 8) it was only just into the 90s. The symphony orchestra played the 1812 overture (unfortunately not when the fireworks were on) and generally it was a great night. As my camera has a fireworks mode, I went into photographer overdrive - luckily for you there is only room to post a few pictures on this.

4th July Parade

We stayed in Fredericksburg on the morning of the 4th to see their parade, and boy are we glad we did! It was quite an event, the whole town came out for it, no doubt because it was a Saturday, and a great way to understand a bit about the psyche of these Yanks. Best to describe it by pictures I think, you can take what you will from them!

Pipes and guns, always go together over here:
Luckily they separated the Republican and Democrat floats, but I reckon the Republicans would have won in a fight, they had a lot more support!


More guns, but I presume this one isn't in working order?
The Gillespie County Farm Bureau Beauty Queens 2009:

A father and son tractor combo:

A true German/Texas goodbye - "Das ist Alles, y'all!"