Repacking and planning for our next trips...LA and southern California for Feb., then New York and eastern seaboard for three weeks in April/May. Jim needs at least a week for his research in NY so we decided to rent an apartment. We're really pleased with what we ended up with and looking forward to taking advantage of the food markets that are in the Spring in our area and, of course, all the other wonderful things about NY.

Back home and in the midst of repacking already for LA. Had some aligator in a Houston airport restaurant. Very much like chicken. Also had some wonderful oysters with crab and hollandaise sauce...ymmm. Here are some pix of the Texas trip.


Our B & B in Austin


Downtown Austin...6th Street has some very nice heritage buildings


The Alamo in San Antonio


Waiter making an avocado salad at a restaurant on the SA riverwalk


Rather liked this "statue" in SA


Gulf of Mexico, Galveston beach area


Statue commenorating the victims in the big hurricane around 1900


The beautiful boulevard in Houston where nobody walks!


Houston's new fancy light transit...too bad there isn't more of this kind of thing.
Just thinking of all those cars and freeway loops makes me dizzy...

Huston is getting all ready for the Super Bowl...quite a bit of hype about it and everyone's hoping to make a killing. Saw a news report where someone was renting a house (more like a mansion) for $150,000 US for the week. Also, someone with a small bungalow was hoping to get $1300 a night for his house, plus charging $100 a song for playing the piano! Ah well, best of luck to them. Glad we're not going to be here.

Seems they''re very short of teachers in Texas and have a program to certify people without degrees and counting life experience. Read this as part of a course description for people thinking of becoming teachers. The course focuses on certification and also giving a balanced view of teaching and not just the horror stories. Any of my retired friends interesting in a new career in Texas? No takers....gee, what a surprise!

Well, that post seemed to work. I'll back up a bit to our time in Austin. We spent quite a lot of time at our B & B sipping tequila and Rebel Yell bourbon while on our loveseat swing on the veranda and listening to the rain. It was cosy though because it was warmer than usual so sitting outside was fine. Our hosts, Sandra and Herb, were just terrific. Jim had a very successful research time in Austin and made some important discoveries so it was really worth the trip.

We went to San Antonio after Austin for a night. At the B & B we met two young women who were training as linguists in the military (one for Chinese and the other Arabic) who mentioned we'd be seeing lots of blue uniforms in SA as all airforce basic training takes place there and a group was finishing. Most of the young men we saw didn't look more than 15 years old...hope they don't see action soon. We made quite a faux pas in a restaurant by referring to an empty bottle of wine as a "dead soldier". This is such a common idiom for us but insensitive here...we'll definitely make a point of not using that again! We hit the perfect day to do the River Walk and boat ride in SA...in the high 70's and sunny. Saw the Alamo too, of course.

Then on to Galveston as we wanted to see the Gulf of Mexico and our B & B hosts warned us off Corpus Christi. We enjoyed Galveston...beautiful beaches and seawall and we lucked into a reasonable room right on the ocean. The downtown has been nicely restored and there are a lot of restored Victorian homes, some right beside shacks...gives a rather raffish quality to the neighbourhoods.
Had the "Crab Feast" at Landry's on the waterfront.

Made quite a long post the other day and lost it...getting used to Jim's laptop. Nice to have high speed internet in our suite at the Hilton. Great apartment and wonderful location for the university, museum district, and on the brand new above ground light transit. Very spiffy trains that even have whistles like real trains. What a deal public transit is here...$2 for a 24 hr unlimited day pass for all buses and transit. Went downtown today but not an awful lot except office buildings, restaurants, a few stores. Guess everything is out in the burbs like most American cities. They seem to be wanting to revitalize downtown and developing a number of loft apartment places...at $475, 000 US for a two bedroom it seems pretty pricey for having street people as your neighbours.

Our room here looks out over the university playing fields and a beautiful residential area...very quiet. And we're very close to the big medical complex. Certainly a car culture, though. Yesterday I walked back from the Museum of Fine Arts (fabulous impressionist stuff among many other things) along this gorgeous treed boulevard. I was the only person walking except for two joggers and a team of 9 people picking up litter. Didn't seem to be doing a very effective job although there wasnt' much litter to begin with. Think I'll post this now before I lose it.

Back at the Deli and listening to someone trying to convince someone that they faked the moon landing. Generally a lot of support for Bush's plan for space. We continue to meet very friendly people. On the airplane coming down the pilot suggested we introduce ourselves to our neighbour...never heard that before. On the buses (many which are free and the rest only 50 cents) the students seem to always thank the driver when they leave. A rather neat custom.

At our B & B we've got quite a selection of people. A very nice family with a little boy of five from Grenada, Spain. He's in Math and has a year's appointment at the university for the year. The common language for us was French so that was good to be able to communicate. Also, a very nice family from Milwawki (How do you spell that...!) dropping off their daughter who is finishing off her degree this term. Very interesting family as they spent time in Guatamala. Got some good local knowledge...esp. that students are returning for term beginning next week and 6th street bars and restaurants will be loaded with drunken students. Think we'll go to an old heritage hotel called the Driskill here for dinner instead of doing that scene...has a piano bar apparently too. A little more our style, I think.

People waiting for the computer.

Hello from Austin, Texas. I'm on a complimentary computer terminal at Schlotzdky's Deli. Just had a terrific "original" sandwich...smoked meats, ham, cheese, olives, lettuce, tomatoes, onions on toasted sourdough...yummy! Browsing some restaurants on 6th Street for tonight. About 100 venues here have live music. Think I'll go to the Friday morning tour of the studios of Austin City Limits. Saw "pork shanks" done ossu buco style...also whole crayfish...so many choices so little time. BTW, Jim's sweating it out in the library.

We've been very favourably impressed with Texas. People are wonderfully friendly, especially that state trooper who pulled Jim over for speeding 15 minutes after we left the airport. He gave him a warning and almost apologized. Guess who's been doing the speed limit since! We ended up with this rather hot looking car (only one available when we went to pick up our rental...well, the other was a mini van) so I think the guy expected to see some kids when he pulled us over. I think he took pity on us when he saw we were a couple of jet lagged old fogeys.

Our B & B in Austen is terrific. Beautiful old house with porches all around. Our room enters onto our own little private part with a wooden swing for two. Seems almost all the houses around here have at least a small porch complete with wooden swing and often rocking chairs. The B & B is a rather grand house but there are lots of small bungalows that look like mini Arts & Craft houses. Seems some developer in the early 1900's made a point of making these lots available for the "working man or woman"...the advertising pitch was "Have a house for the price of two beers a day". People built their own for the most part so there's quite an interesting variety.

Weather's great...sunny and in the 70's.

Bye for now.

Off to Vancouver today then flying to Texas tomorrow! Really looking forward to all new tourist territory for me and Jim has lots of interesting research to do. Weather forecast in the 70's so should be pretty warm. Perhaps my next post will be from the Alamo....

I've really enjoyed reading the two books Jim gave me in the Virago Modern Classics series

One is two novellas by Vita Sackville-West "Seducers in Ecuador & The Heir". Both quite charming and amusing in their way. And currently enjoying discovering a completely new author to me, Catherine Carswell, a Scottish lady who published the book I'm reading in 1922. It's called "The Camomile" which is a novel of letters and journals somewhat autobiographical. Quite an interesting person in that she became a dramatic and literary critic for the Glasgow Herald...a very unusual thing for a woman to be doing in 1906! She was a friend of D. H. Lawrence who had admiration for her writing and she for his. After nine years of writing for the Herald she was fired for writing a favourable review of "The Rainbow"...very scandalous for the times. The review was only published because she managed to smuggle the piece to the printer without the editor's approval. Seems like she would have been an interesting person to know.

Looking forward to being introduced to more women writers from this press.

How delightful not to have to make our ways to work today! Very cosy looking out at the snow. Hearing a lot of rain now so I guess we'll soon see flowers blooming and the snow all gone.

Quite a dump of snow on Friday night. Very cold air front so not much melting. Don't see this kind of picture around here very much!

Happy New Year everyone!

Taking the day to clean out files before we begin our marathon travelling over the next six months. Came across this note on a telephoning session to parents about student absences...just in case I forgot why I retired!

Student 1: Father seemed surprised. Father has been sick. Felt son was reliable.
Student 2: Talked to Mom and Dad. Both seemed surprised.
Student 3: Guardian unaware of absences
Student 4: no answer
Student 5: Talked to mother. Has been sick the past 2 days but not before.
Student 6: Parents at wit's end. Refer to counsellor