The Visible Woman...April 18, 2003

cloudy excursion

I wake up in time to go to the club and do my workout and still get ready by the time of the excursion to Fredricksburg at eight. But I don't get up. I get up in time to get ready before Dad arrives (early). He's wearing his hearing aids. Good sign, I think.

SuRu walks over and drives Dad and me to South Austin where we meet Gayle in the Central Market parking lot. And we are off.

We hope to have a kind of 'good old boy' breakfast somewhere with a waitress seeing to us, pencil pushed into her hair, calling us sweetie. The best we find is Hamburger Hill in Dripping Springs where we have to order at a corner and fetch our own coffee. (Even if the coffee is in those thick putty-colored mugs.) There is a collection jar for some kid taking her horses to some far away show and there is a table where there are straw cowboy hats and a least one sombrero. Looks like everyone is wearing tennis shoes, though.

I have a bacon, egg and cheese sandwich which is OK but I don't usually eat at this time of day (9:30). My stomach is a little grouchy.

We push on toward Johnson City. We have a discussion about the best way to get to the Willow City Loop without going by feedlots. We don't succeed, I don't think. We see a number of critters: cows, a longhorn, goats, horses, miniature horses, buzzards, deer, and what appears to be a feed lot for sheep and one for cows. Dad sees a llama but no one else does. Later we see buffaloes, butterflies and hummingbirds.

We have been informed that the Willow City Loop is disappointing this year. I've never seen the drive, though, and the vistas are spectacular and the small 'scenes' (flowers and cactus) nice indeed.

We take a wrong turn and end up in Llano. So we go back and drive by Enchanted Rock and on to Fredricksburg. We are just driving, seeing what's to be seen.

In Fredricksburg we treat SuRu to a yard art place and Gayle to a fine art gallery. Then we go to the Fredricksburg Herb Farm. There is a long wait for lunch but we wait, looking at flowers and herbs and gift shop stuff. The meal is worth it, everything redolent with the freshness of herbs and edible flowers and stuff they grew. I have a cup of mushroom soup and a Caesar salad that has grilled tomatoes and herbed croutons and homemade dressing. All us gals have tea, a refreshing reddish herbal stuff with lemon and a Johnny-Jump-Up in it. We share some desserts and have some cookies Gayle brought in the car, too.

No one is eager to shop in Fredricksberg so we head to the Disneyland of wildflowers...Wild Seed Farm. It is acres of pretty perfect-looking settings with rows and rows of bluebonnets, crimson bonnets, larkspurs, daisies, poppies, all that. Everything is nicely-labelled. Weeds seem banished. While we don't see anyone working the fields, I'm sure there is a lot of hard work here to make this pristine view of 'wild' flowers.There is a Texas flag of flowers and there is a huge section of poppies and one of bluebonnets. Each of these has a small portion that is outside the ropes dividing flowers from people, where people can step in for picures. It seems to be cheating to me, but I take some pictures of the flowers anyway. A small boy frolics in the bluebonnets, trying to duck down below their height to hide from his mother. His parents, a large couple who seem not to have a camera, keep walking and he runs out of the field and hurls a handful of dirt in the air that is caught up in the wind and makes the only real natural blot on the view.

I walk quickly through the gift shops and food hall. There are plants and seeds and geegaws to get tourist dollars. If you have to go to a Disneyland-like place, this is as good as any.

I take over for driving home. It is when waiting in a line of cars to turn left on 290 out of this place that SuRu spots the hummingbirds.

We make our way down 290, past quite a few closed peach stands, simple or elaborate. There are no Stonewall peaches this year. The late freeze wiped out the crop. We pass a couple of wineries, too. Next time.

It doesn't seem to take too long to get home. I don't succumb to sleepiness but the others do a little. They ask me if I'm sleeping when I drift a little close to the shoulder. But I'm just drifting, not really asleep. I try to do better and drive us on in. Both Gayle and Dad complain about having to take their cars the rest of the way to their houses.

My stomach (well, my bowels) are a little upset when I get home. FFP is cooking some salmon for his supper but I'm still full. I change and go to the club. It is almost deserted in the fitness area on a Friday night. I do ten minutes on the bike and then my 'mostly lower body' workout. No one changes the settings are moves stuff as I got through my super sets. (Two sets of a group of exercises, done as a group.) I ride the bike fifteen or so minutes to finish up after skating on the full ab workout with my gastric upset as an excuse. (It could be worse. I could have used it as an excuse to not do any workout, I reason.)

Home again, I finish Larry McMurtry's Roads and wonder what book I might read next. I have a couple started but that doesn't mean they will win as the next 'read while exercising and such until fiinished.' The process of deciding what book to read has been kind of random. And every book suggests others, owned and not owned. Especially books like Mr. McMurtry's non-fiction. He is a prolific writer, a critic, a book scout, a book seller. Mentioning writers, books (his own and others) is what his non-fiction tends to be about when it's not about his poor plains family in Texas. But every book suggests other books. Books by the same author. Books by the people written about. Short story collections suggest reading other short story collections. Books that were made into movies suggest others similarly treated. Non-fiction books about a place, a war, a branch of study natually suggest other works. You can read in these tracks without ever having to break the chain. Or you can just pick up one around the house that attracts your eye.

I'm tired and a little weak from my diarrhea. I doze after the book is finished, reading a section of the newspaper and watching a Law and Order about a transsexual convicted of murder. We would have chosen CSI: Miami but it was a rerun and I'd seen it. I think I like CSI in Miami better than CSI in Las Vegas. Actually, there isn't any show right now that compels me to watch. There are just some I'll watch if they pop up when I'm in front of the TV. At the club, several news channels where obsessing over the arrest of some guy for murdering his wife. In California I think. Has the war gone on long enough to make murder in California worthy national news. I guess.

my adventure buddies...after checking out the yard art joint

"Love ends, life ends, but the flow of objects goes on forever."

Larry McMurtry, Roads

JUST TYPING
Seeing nature.
And poor imitations...on glasses and caps.
See Johnny Jumpups growing.
And in your tea.
A nice day.

			cloudy excursion I wake up in time to go to the club and do my workout and still get ready by the time of the excursion to Fredricksburg at eight. But I don't get up. I get up in time to get ready before Dad arrives (early). He's wearing his hearing aids. Good sign, I think. SuRu walks over and drives Dad and me to South Austin where we meet Gayle in the Central Market parking lot. And we are off. We hope to have a kind of 'good old boy' breakfast somewhere with a waitress seeing to us, pencil pushed into her hair, calling us sweetie. The best we find is Hamburger Hill in Dripping Springs where we have to order at a corner and fetch our own coffee. (Even if the coffee is in those thick putty-colored mugs.) There is a collection jar for some kid taking her horses to some far away show and there is a table where there are straw cowboy hats and a least one sombrero. Looks like everyone is wearing tennis shoes, though. I have a bacon, egg and cheese sandwich which is OK but I don't usually eat at this time of day (9:30). My stomach is a little grouchy. We push on toward Johnson City. We have a discussion about the best way to get to the Willow City Loop without going by feedlots. We don't succeed, I don't think. We see a number of critters: cows, a longhorn, goats, horses, miniature horses, buzzards, deer, and what appears to be a feed lot for sheep and one for cows. Dad sees a llama but no one else does. Later we see buffaloes, butterflies and hummingbirds. We have been informed that the Willow City Loop is disappointing this year. I've never seen the drive, though, and the vistas are spectacular and the small 'scenes' (flowers and cactus) nice indeed. We take a wrong turn and end up in Llano. So we go back and drive by Enchanted Rock and on to Fredricksburg. We are just driving, seeing what's to be seen. In Fredricksburg we treat SuRu to a yard art place and Gayle to a fine art gallery. Then we go to the Fredricksburg Herb Farm. There is a long wait for lunch but we wait, looking at flowers and herbs and gift shop stuff. The meal is worth it, everything redolent with the freshness of herbs and edible flowers and stuff they grew. I have a cup of mushroom soup and a Caesar salad that has grilled tomatoes and herbed croutons and homemade dressing. All us gals have tea, a refreshing reddish herbal stuff with lemon and a Johnny-Jump-Up in it. We share some desserts and have some cookies Gayle brought in the car, too. No one is eager to shop in Fredricksberg so we head to the Disneyland of wildflowers...Wild Seed Farm. It is acres of pretty perfect-looking settings with rows and rows of bluebonnets, crimson bonnets, larkspurs, daisies, poppies, all that. Everything is nicely-labelled. Weeds seem banished. While we don't see anyone working the fields, I'm sure there is a lot of hard work here to make this pristine view of 'wild' flowers.There is a Texas flag of flowers and there is a huge section of poppies and one of bluebonnets. Each of these has a small portion that is outside the ropes dividing flowers from people, where people can step in for picures. It seems to be cheating to me, but I take some pictures of the flowers anyway. A small boy frolics in the bluebonnets, trying to duck down below their height to hide from his mother. His parents, a large couple who seem not to have a camera, keep walking and he runs out of the field and hurls a handful of dirt in the air that is caught up in the wind and makes the only real natural blot on the view. I walk quickly through the gift shops and food hall. There are plants and seeds and geegaws to get tourist dollars. If you have to go to a Disneyland-like place, this is as good as any. I take over for driving home. It is when waiting in a line of cars to turn left on 290 out of this place that SuRu spots the hummingbirds. We make our way down 290, past quite a few closed peach stands, simple or elaborate. There are no Stonewall peaches this year. The late freeze wiped out the crop. We pass a couple of wineries, too. Next time. It doesn't seem to take too long to get home. I don't succumb to sleepiness but the others do a little. They ask me if I'm sleeping when I drift a little close to the shoulder. But I'm just drifting, not really asleep. I try to do better and drive us on in. Both Gayle and Dad complain about having to take their cars the rest of the way to their houses. My stomach (well, my bowels) are a little upset when I get home. FFP is cooking some salmon for his supper but I'm still full. I change and go to the club. It is almost deserted in the fitness area on a Friday night. I do ten minutes on the bike and then my 'mostly lower body' workout. No one changes the settings are moves stuff as I got through my super sets. (Two sets of a group of exercises, done as a group.) I ride the bike fifteen or so minutes to finish up after skating on the full ab workout with my gastric upset as an excuse. (It could be worse. I could have used it as an excuse to not do any workout, I reason.) Home again, I finish Larry McMurtry's Roads and wonder what book I might read next. I have a couple started but that doesn't mean they will win as the next 'read while exercising and such until fiinished.' The process of deciding what book to read has been kind of random. And every book suggests others, owned and not owned. Especially books like Mr. McMurtry's non-fiction. He is a prolific writer, a critic, a book scout, a book seller. Mentioning writers, books (his own and others) is what his non-fiction tends to be about when it's not about his poor plains family in Texas. But every book suggests other books. Books by the same author. Books by the people written about. Short story collections suggest reading other short story collections. Books that were made into movies suggest others similarly treated. Non-fiction books about a place, a war, a branch of study natually suggest other works. You can read in these tracks without ever having to break the chain. Or you can just pick up one around the house that attracts your eye. I'm tired and a little weak from my diarrhea. I doze after the book is finished, reading a section of the newspaper and watching a Law and Order about a transsexual convicted of murder. We would have chosen CSI: Miami but it was a rerun and I'd seen it. I think I like CSI in Miami better than CSI in Las Vegas. Actually, there isn't any show right now that compels me to watch. There are just some I'll watch if they pop up when I'm in front of the TV. At the club, several news channels where obsessing over the arrest of some guy for murdering his wife. In California I think. Has the war gone on long enough to make murder in California worthy national news. I guess.

	my adventure buddies...after checking out the yard art joint "Love ends, life ends, but the flow of objects goes on forever." Larry McMurtry, Roads
	JUST TYPING Seeing nature. And poor imitations...on glasses and caps. See Johnny Jumpups growing. And in your tea. A nice day.

Friday, April 18, 2003