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.