Good morning, Texas… or good–fill in whatever time of day you’re reading this.
Craig and Kaylan are on vacation. We left bright and early yesterday morning heading for the river, with a short pit stop in Caldwell to help Clint with our hotel – uh, trailer. We arrived in Yogi Bear’s Jellystone Park in Canyon Lake yesterday afternoon. After getting the trailer all set up, we were ready for some beer and fun… so off to the river we go.
It’s our first time to tube the river and they don’t quite prepare you for the chilly water. Who knew river water would be chilly this time of year, the lake wasn’t that cold a week ago in Granbury! Once you get used to the water and you’re in the sun, everything is perfect. The trees droop just over the water with their long limbs with bright green leaves, their roots look like many fingers as they reach into the water for a drink, and the day is fine with relaxation. No work, no bills, just you and lots of other people tubing down the river.
We are at a place in the river that makes a horseshoe in town. So you get in at one bridge and get out at the next. Then you start the process all over again. But since we were here in the afternoon, we only took one drift around the bend. Then we came back to the trailer and got ready for dinner.
We had dinner at the Gristmill in Gruene, such a cute little town. I didn’t snap any pictures last night, but I will when we go back for Gruene Hall.
After such a long and event full day, we slept great… until this morning.
Craig and I are sleep in the top bunk in the back of the trailer when it feels like someone took out the back right side of the trailer, BOOM. Craig and I sit straight up and say “what was that?” Crickets, chirp, chirp… Carole didn’t know what happened and Blue and Clint aren’t in side. After a few scary moments in the top bunk, not knowing if we should move, we found out the legs that were holding us up in the back had shifted and were not longer flat on the ground.
Not to worry, right? We still have six tires holding us up! So it’s out of the trailer, as slowly as possible, so we can check out the damage and help put it right again. Now, I’m inside blogging while the trailer is being leveled… I’m helping tell them which way we are leaning!
But the day has just begun… it looks like it’s going to rain, but we’re off to Austin to swim in Barton Creek. We are poised to have another great day of fun in the sun, with a little rain in the mix.
Stay tuned for more family vacation fun as the trip continues.
Tuesday, June 30, 2009
Friday, June 26, 2009
My Elvis
Michael Jackson, my Elvis Presley, is dead at 50.As a four year old girl living in Dallas, I wore a sparkly glove and carried a magazine with his face gracing the cover. I went every where with my glove and magazine. I knew all the songs. I tried to dance like him. I loved Michael Jackson.
My first memory of a tape was Michael’s music. I was in the car with one of my parents and we were going fast down the freeway. I kept trying to hold the tape out of the window and they told me not to; that I would let go and lose it forever. Like a silly girl, I held the tape out the window. Sure enough, my little hands couldn’t hold on against the whipping wind… my parents were right.
For months, when we would travel that section of the freeway, I would look for my tape. I would see the sparkly ribbon scattered around the shoulder. I wished I could string the tape back together in its hard case and listen again. I was sad I couldn’t do this… I had lost his music.
Many, many years later, I bought his greatest hits cd. Now, that same cd is stored digitally on my iPod.
Michael Jackson’s musical influence impacted me in ways I can’t put into words. He might have been a crazy guy, had some strange things happen to him, and transformed in many sad ways but after 28 years of life, he’s the one musical constant from my childhood. His songs never get old to me.
Selfishly, I don’t want him to be gone, but I’m happy that he’s no longer suffering on Earth.
So, here’s to Michael… May his music live on in the hearts of fans like me forever.
Have you been impacted by him as much as me? Tell me your story so we can keep him in our memory.
Friday, June 12, 2009
A Marvelous Monstrosity
I’m not feeling much in the writing mood today. As a matter of fact, I started, stopped, erased, and restarted this blog about 5 times before deciding I didn’t have much to say.I’ll let the pictures speak for themselves. Click here.
This afternoon, I attended a luncheon at the New Cowboys Stadium. I’ll admit the only reason I went was to see the inside. And what an inside it is to see.
Everything done to the nines, everything shines and sparkles, everything is beautiful. To be honest, I didn’t want it to be so lovely. I mean its football for crying out loud; meant to be played in the cold, dirty muck that is the field after rain and snow.
I didn’t want it to be so ravishingly stunning.
I didn’t want it to be better than Rangers Ballpark.
In my heart it will never top what I see when I come to work everyday. But Jerry out did himself with the new stadium. It’s absolutely beautiful, elegant, and timeless.
I hope you have as good a Friday as I have.
Cheers.
Everything done to the nines, everything shines and sparkles, everything is beautiful. To be honest, I didn’t want it to be so lovely. I mean its football for crying out loud; meant to be played in the cold, dirty muck that is the field after rain and snow.
I didn’t want it to be so ravishingly stunning.
I didn’t want it to be better than Rangers Ballpark.
In my heart it will never top what I see when I come to work everyday. But Jerry out did himself with the new stadium. It’s absolutely beautiful, elegant, and timeless.
I hope you have as good a Friday as I have.
Cheers.
Tuesday, June 2, 2009
Welcome to the Jungle
Yesterday, June 1, was my birthday and I learned a couple of very valuable lessons. It’s a long post, so grab a coffee or soda and enjoy the story. I’m sure you’ll laugh about it when you read on.
Craig and I both took off work for my birthday. I decided that all I wanted to do yesterday was hang out and go geocaching. That morning, we started our research on where we would go, but knowing that Craig likes the tricky, multi-location caches, there wasn’t too much around that would suffice.
Then, I remembered a location that I’ve wanted to try and it had two good multi caches to boot. Trouble is, neither one of us had ever been in that area nor were we really prepared for what we were getting into.
The location: Hwy. 360 & Trinity (in the very wooded area on the east side of 360)
Upon arrival, we noticed some no trespassing signs around the train station were we parked. So we drove around a bit before we decided that was the best and most secure place for my car. Plus, it was a great way into the wooded area after you went under the bridge for the train tracks. Now I know you’re thinking; we were caught trespassing. Nope, we were never spotted.
Craig and I make our way into the jungle. We start on a dirt bike/four-wheeler path that’s clear. No bushwhacking necessary. But when we see on our gps that we’re even with the location, but still 350 feet away, we think it’s a good time to turn into the jungle. We thought we would come across a path of some sort, but wasn’t too concerned when we didn’t. I mean, that’s half the fun, creating your own path.
The jungle is very thick with lots of prickly briars, knee-high weeds, and dead trees that have fallen (I wonder if they made a sound?!?) Anyway, as we traverse this section of the jungle, we come across a big tree that has fallen, but not quite made it to the ground all the way. Craig takes two steps to get over it and opens up a huge ant colony. He isn’t able to see this since he has already crossed the downed log and is continuing on about 5 feet in front of me. So I go a few paces down to cross the log, whew, I made it. But then, I feel a bug bite on my forehead. “Ouch, I’ve been bitten” I say. Craig swats something off his neck, too. Then the swarm hits.
Craig and I are attacked by a swarm of bees. Craig yells at me to run, but you have to remember, we’re in a jungle… lots of trees, briars, and tall weeds, oh my! I didn’t really have a great place to run. I’m screaming and Craig’s calling out to me to go where he is, all while bees are flying around us. It felt like it took me forever to reach Craig, but adrenalin kicks in and you just do what you have to in order to survive.
I finally reach him and we’re swatting the air, jumping around, and screaming. If there had been a camera, we would win America’s funniest home videos, hands down. I’m sure we looked even more ridiculous when Craig thought like MacGyver and sprayed us down with sunscreen. See, we didn’t think about bug spray, but happened to bring a can of continuous spray sunscreen. It worked like a charm, except for the bee that was stuck in my hair.
Craig thinks I’m delirious at this point. From his perspective, he can see that the swarm of 40 to 50 bees is gone, but he can’t hear the one that’s buzzing in my hair. I’m still acting crazy when he finally realizes that ones stuck. He takes off his hat and whacks me up side the head with it. Gentlemanly, huh? After about 30 seconds of many licks to the head, we can’t seem to get the bee out. Finally, I pull myself together and whack my own head with my hand about 5 times. Craig is in shock that I’ve done this, but I killed the bee!
We get out of that area, picking bee parts out of my hair and move along to a more open trail about 50 yards to our east. If only we’d known that trail was there. Arg! But the fun doesn’t stop here. Craig lost his Oakley sunglasses in the battle of the bees. So we backtracked to the lions den to see if we could find them. Bug spray, I mean sunscreen in hand; we cautiously search for the glasses. Luckily we found them after searching for a few minutes, but we high tailed it out of there.
All of this adventure and we haven’t even found a geocache yet. We regroup, and decide to leave that geocache behind and move on to the next one. We found it without having to bushwhack or fight bees. After this one, we started the trek to the next one, but decided we were still too freaked out and should go home.
We walk on the path back to the car, the path we should have been on the whole time, and make it back without any other encounters of the jungle kind.
Lessons learned:
1. Do not geocache in the jungle or other remote locations this time of year.
2. Craig and I are not allergic to bees.
We had a really good laugh about the day’s adventures over a nice sushi dinner. Craig kept saying it was my “BEE-Day.” I guess the bee’s got that memo and wanted to wish me a special birthday wish. Nice.
Total bee stings:
Craig – 3
Kaylan – 2 small stings and 1 very large
All I can say, is I’m another year older and another year wiser.
To all of you that made it through our story, I hope you enjoy a laugh at our expense, and I hope you have a happy BEE-day, when ever yours might BEE.
Us in the jungle, post-bee stings.
Craig and I both took off work for my birthday. I decided that all I wanted to do yesterday was hang out and go geocaching. That morning, we started our research on where we would go, but knowing that Craig likes the tricky, multi-location caches, there wasn’t too much around that would suffice.
Then, I remembered a location that I’ve wanted to try and it had two good multi caches to boot. Trouble is, neither one of us had ever been in that area nor were we really prepared for what we were getting into.
The location: Hwy. 360 & Trinity (in the very wooded area on the east side of 360)
Upon arrival, we noticed some no trespassing signs around the train station were we parked. So we drove around a bit before we decided that was the best and most secure place for my car. Plus, it was a great way into the wooded area after you went under the bridge for the train tracks. Now I know you’re thinking; we were caught trespassing. Nope, we were never spotted.
Craig and I make our way into the jungle. We start on a dirt bike/four-wheeler path that’s clear. No bushwhacking necessary. But when we see on our gps that we’re even with the location, but still 350 feet away, we think it’s a good time to turn into the jungle. We thought we would come across a path of some sort, but wasn’t too concerned when we didn’t. I mean, that’s half the fun, creating your own path.
The jungle is very thick with lots of prickly briars, knee-high weeds, and dead trees that have fallen (I wonder if they made a sound?!?) Anyway, as we traverse this section of the jungle, we come across a big tree that has fallen, but not quite made it to the ground all the way. Craig takes two steps to get over it and opens up a huge ant colony. He isn’t able to see this since he has already crossed the downed log and is continuing on about 5 feet in front of me. So I go a few paces down to cross the log, whew, I made it. But then, I feel a bug bite on my forehead. “Ouch, I’ve been bitten” I say. Craig swats something off his neck, too. Then the swarm hits.
Craig and I are attacked by a swarm of bees. Craig yells at me to run, but you have to remember, we’re in a jungle… lots of trees, briars, and tall weeds, oh my! I didn’t really have a great place to run. I’m screaming and Craig’s calling out to me to go where he is, all while bees are flying around us. It felt like it took me forever to reach Craig, but adrenalin kicks in and you just do what you have to in order to survive.
I finally reach him and we’re swatting the air, jumping around, and screaming. If there had been a camera, we would win America’s funniest home videos, hands down. I’m sure we looked even more ridiculous when Craig thought like MacGyver and sprayed us down with sunscreen. See, we didn’t think about bug spray, but happened to bring a can of continuous spray sunscreen. It worked like a charm, except for the bee that was stuck in my hair.
Craig thinks I’m delirious at this point. From his perspective, he can see that the swarm of 40 to 50 bees is gone, but he can’t hear the one that’s buzzing in my hair. I’m still acting crazy when he finally realizes that ones stuck. He takes off his hat and whacks me up side the head with it. Gentlemanly, huh? After about 30 seconds of many licks to the head, we can’t seem to get the bee out. Finally, I pull myself together and whack my own head with my hand about 5 times. Craig is in shock that I’ve done this, but I killed the bee!
We get out of that area, picking bee parts out of my hair and move along to a more open trail about 50 yards to our east. If only we’d known that trail was there. Arg! But the fun doesn’t stop here. Craig lost his Oakley sunglasses in the battle of the bees. So we backtracked to the lions den to see if we could find them. Bug spray, I mean sunscreen in hand; we cautiously search for the glasses. Luckily we found them after searching for a few minutes, but we high tailed it out of there.
All of this adventure and we haven’t even found a geocache yet. We regroup, and decide to leave that geocache behind and move on to the next one. We found it without having to bushwhack or fight bees. After this one, we started the trek to the next one, but decided we were still too freaked out and should go home.
We walk on the path back to the car, the path we should have been on the whole time, and make it back without any other encounters of the jungle kind.
Lessons learned:
1. Do not geocache in the jungle or other remote locations this time of year.
2. Craig and I are not allergic to bees.
We had a really good laugh about the day’s adventures over a nice sushi dinner. Craig kept saying it was my “BEE-Day.” I guess the bee’s got that memo and wanted to wish me a special birthday wish. Nice.
Total bee stings:
Craig – 3
Kaylan – 2 small stings and 1 very large
All I can say, is I’m another year older and another year wiser.
To all of you that made it through our story, I hope you enjoy a laugh at our expense, and I hope you have a happy BEE-day, when ever yours might BEE.
Us in the jungle, post-bee stings.
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