Runnin' and rockin'

Last weekend we had a close encounter with the San Antonio Rock-N-Roll Marathon.

[If anyone thinks that means we ran in it, don't be daft! Although, to be fair to my athletic spouse, he has run some 10K's in his youth.]

Friends from Houston came to town to watch their daughter run in the ½ version, and we decided to get up early Sunday morning to go out and see her, too.

Unfortunately, I didn't get any pictures of Emily, because I was in full cross-country-mom cheering mode the instant we saw her! And as I learned when embarrassing encouraging our daughter along at the weekly meets in high school, you can't really take pictures while you're screaming "You go, girl!" I was rather amazed at how easily the old habits just kicked back in!

We were pleased to learn, though, that Emily didn't get caught by the train (see the story linked above) and made her projected time pretty much smack on the nose.

But we did get to see lots of runners at the northernmost point on the route, which was just a few minutes from our house. I was most impressed by the wheelchair athletes like the one I snapped above on the left. I can't even imagine the upper body strength needed to do this!

Pretty soon after we arrived at our viewpoint, we started seeing a few runners come by...

...then some big crowds! Over 30,000 runners signed up for the race, making it a very big deal for our somewhat out-of-the-way little city.

There were all kinds of people running, it looked like, and some seemed more interested in costuming than covering ground. But, then, there were some folks really zipping along:


As you can probably tell from the backgrounds of these photos, our viewpoint was in a really neat old S.A. neighborhood, full of gorgeous old houses. (We weren't particularly interested in the musical aspects of the race, so didn't mind that there weren't any stages nearby.) Our spot was right across the street from San Antonio Academy, a private boys' school. Our kids went to their great [coed] summer programs all through the '90's, so we're pretty familiar with the campus. My favorite building is this old house, which the school has fortunately kept for offices:

It was a pleasant, though earlier than usual for us, Sunday morning, and the weather was perfect. And I'd much rather watch people on their way to running 13 or 26 miles than have to do it myself!

Wordless Wednesday: Pink Sky @ Night

A Texas by-way

After our 2-day, 15 mile paddle down the Colorado River, since we had very little to eat during that time [this is definitely a joke—see my previous post], we were famished and sought out a recommended Mexican restaurant in beautiful downtown Bastrop, Texas.

It was Ramos' original location, on Chestnut Street, and the food there was really good. Or, at least it tasted really good after two days of hard paddling, but I think it would have been yummy in normal circumstances, too.

I really need to get into the habit of snapping photos interesting food, but unfortunately my stuffed avocado was half gone before I thought about doing this. (The first Urban Spoon review on the link above, at least when I saw the website, praised this dish as well.)

A bonus treat in addition to the great food was the restaurant's location. I have driven through the Bastrop area before, and admired its lovely pine woods, but I don't think I'd ever been to its charming downtown.

Here's a somewhat panoramic view:

And then a closer-up look at one of the more attractive old buildings:


Henry and I walked off some of our extra Tex-Mex calories taking in the 4 or 5 or so square blocks of downtown Bastrop. We noted that it was originally built on the old Camino Real (see plaque on the right) but were unaware of any more of its interesting history. Which I read about later in the incomparable resource, the Handbook of Texas, which is now online and searchable. If you're interested in Texas history at all, take a look at the link to the Handbook's article on the town and you'll see what I mean.

Being somewhat connoisseurs of courthouse buildings [and who wouldn't be, when there are so many of them in your home state, most of which are eminently photogenic] we were happy to find the Bastrop County seat just a block from the restaurant.

It has this terrific (though non-functional) clock tower atop the structure. [I wonder if lightning struck the clock at 5:40 sometime in the past; I couldn't help thinking of Back to the Future when I saw that the clock wasn't right.]

And here is a view of more of the building. Not quite in the same league as the handsome tower, but attractive nonetheless. The obelisk in the foreground is a confederate soldier memorial. It probably surprises yankee visitors to find so many of these memorials in a state not well-known for Civil War battlefields.


Although it's not quite as old a building as the courthouse, the jail next door is also an interesting structure:


An altogether pleasant post-paddle outing: great food, good company, some Texas history, and a late afternoon stroll on a beautiful fall day. It doesn't get much better than that.

More on the Lazy River

Our trip last weekend really wasn't that lazy for us. When a river is lazy and doesn't move along too quickly, the paddlers have to work a lot harder to make any headway.

But although our shoulder muscles got a workout, it was still lots of fun. We floated on a nice 15-mile chunk of the Colorado River, downstream from Austin. We had great weather (after the cold morning starts) and very congenial companions. So we really didn't mind the extra work.

We were particularly lucky because we had all three kids along. The picture above was taken from Henry and Sally's canoe, looking over at me, Hal and Carey. Note the large amount of gear strapped to my kayak. [Another note: if you click on the photo and see a larger version, you'll notice some amateurish photoshopping, made necessary by Henry's finger covering the whole upper left-hand corner of the frame! I don't think I'll let him forget that anytime soon!]

This was the first time I'd ever kayaked on an overnight camping trip. Although my boat didn't steer as easily as I'm used to, the river was so gentle that wasn't really an issue. So it was overall a very enjoyable trip. Sort of like back-packing, except that the boat and the river do the hauling for you.

Another thing you might notice in the photo is how bundled up we were. This was also another first for me: boating in sub-60° weather. For the first hour or so, it was very sub-60°. Here's a shot of our put-in point, under the FM Road 969 bridge near the town of Utley. Notice the thick mist as the (slightly) warmer water interacts with the mid-30's air.

Fortunately, my extravagant husband had earlier made cold-weather paddling gear a series of birthday and Christmas presents for me, so I was pretty toasty. And it did warm up quickly as the sun got higher.

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Sally and Henry had an interesting little adventure not long after we started the trip. They were unable to avoid sliding under some overhanging tree branches, where they picked up this very photogenic hitchhiker:


He became great friends with Sally, and got to see much more of the countryside than most of his relatives, we're sure. Sally and Henry eventually gently put him ashore, worrying that he might dry out, or get hungry, if he just rode with us all the way to our campsite, which he seemed quite willing to do.

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The scenery isn't spectacular along this river, but it's very peaceful and lovely in its own way. Here's a late afternoon shot looking back upstream from our campsite, on "Boy Scout Island."

And another, looking the same way, the next morning:

The mist was back, and it was pretty cold again. But this time we had warm sleeping bags to snuggle in for a while, then a hot breakfast and a roaring fire to take the chill off the morning.

Here's a campfire scene with children from the night before. The morning fire was almost as impressive a blaze. What fun it is to sit and look at a fire! Who needs TV?

Nope, we lacked for neither entertainment nor sustenance. In fact, we ate much too well. Trip leader Bill and camp cook extraordinaire Michael were not only very well organized but turned out five-star fare for all of our meals. Including some rather surprising campsite menu items.

In the picture below, if you're thinking that the wooden bucket on my right looks like an ice-cream maker, you're right! We had apple cobbler and homemade ice cream for dessert Saturday night. Not exactly roughing it! [Thanks to Bill for the following 3 photos of me and my family.]

that's Doug, another one of our companions, in the background, waiting for Henry to stop mugging for the camera so he can get his ice cream!

Sally coming back for seconds

isn't this a great picture of son and lovely daughter-in-law?!

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Even given all the great food we had on the trip, we were still hungry enough to support the local Bastrop economy and had great Tex-Mex lunch/dinner after getting off the river.

More on our brief visit to Bastrop's picturesque downtown in the next post.

Wordless Wednesday: Lazy River

Wordless Wednesday: study buddy

Let's hear it for sanity!

Our little Saturday satellite sanity rally [how's that for super alliteration?] didn't draw the crowds I was happy to see at the parent rally in D.C.

But there was a pretty big crowd at the Texas capitol building, with lots of sanity-seekers enjoying the great weather, watching both local and national speakers and musicians, and displaying clever sign-making skills. In the picture below, you can see the jumbotron upon which we were able to see the on-site speakers better as well as the Washington folks for extended periods. Technology is amazin', is it not?

The Austin American-Statesman quoted the rally leaders, who said they counted more than 5700 people there, noting that it was the biggest turnout for a capitol grounds rally since 1984. [We tried to think what might have been protested or supported that year, that would have attracted such a gathering, but couldn't come up with anything. Any ideas?]

We took a city bus from my son and daughter-in-law's house to the capitol grounds, and were pleased to share the bus stop with another group of rally-goers. Solidarity! Fortunately the bus detours in place due to the UT football game later in the day didn't interfere with us arriving downtown just as the speakers were getting warmed up.

It became apparent early on that rally-goers' signs were a highlight of the whole confab, and Hal and I both took lots of pictures of them. There were some professional-looking messages (like the one up on the right touting the "Coffee Party Austin" answer to the tea party and the one on the left supporting medical marijuana) but the most entertaining ones were home-made (like the others in the left-hand shot: "Paved Roads are Socialism" and "It's OK to be Smart.")

Here are some more of my favorites:

2 generations of tie-died who are "Almost Sane" (plus a girl with mouse ears?)

the one in between the two you can read has something to do with "dogs and cats, living together...."

"Real Patriots Can Handle a Difference of Opinion" and "Governing > Winning" (although, of course, you have to win in order to govern, but it's a laudable sentiment)

there were some that were just too creative for me, but Star Wars references always resonate

Here was my favorite (with another good one in the background that you might not be able to read: "Volume + Repetition ≠ Truth"):

And I thought it was kind of neat to see this cannon fulfilling the much more desirable function of bike rack, than what it was originally made for. "Park bikes, not war"?

I'm not naive enough to expect sanity to suddenly break out across the land, but was encouraged by the turnouts, the variety of generations represented, and the politeness. They ran out of kolaches, but no one rioted.