San Antonio Zoo

We had a low key 4th of July weekend and stayed mostly local, but we decided to make a little excursion down to San Antonio to visit their zoo. Nicholas loves anything animal these days (with accompanying sound effects), and since Austin's "zoo" leaves much to be desired, we thought this might be the perfect little day trip. We hit the road early and made it to the zoo by about 9:30am to meet up with some friends in the area.   

Many of the larger animals were snoozing in the summer heat, but the bear was up and cruising around his caged area. Nicholas was a big fan.

Look at that face! He's saying "Ooooooh!"

He also loved the colorful flamingos, the ducks, and the fish. (Not coincidentally, bird, duck, and fish noises/gestures are some of his favorites.)

And, for this relatively new walker, one of the highlights was that we let him (mostly) just run around. It was nice that the zoo wasn't too crowded, so we felt comfortable letting him wander a few feet away from us to check out a bird (or flower, or rock) that struck his fancy.

The zoo was the perfect size for a not-quite-year-and-a-half-year old-- big enough to see all his favorite animals in about two hours. Once the heat started getting to us, we headed off to fill our bellies with a delicious Mexican lunch at Paloma Blanca. And then a long nap during the car ride home, of course. Definitely a fun day for all of us.

Oregon Family Visit

I'm a little late in posting this, but wanted to share some photos of our trip to Oregon last month. Nicholas and I flew solo back to Portland so he could meet all four of his great grandparents. We flew Southwest to avoid any baggage charges (which was key since it looked like I was moving home instead of visiting for a week), but unfortunately there have never been any direct flights between Austin and Portland.* As a result, I was torn between booking a two-segment flight with a several hour layover or a three-segment flight with essentially no layovers because we just touched down briefly to pick up more passengers. I ended up going with the three-segment flight... I know, I know. But the overall travel time was shorter, so I figured it was the lesser of two evils. And Nicholas actually did great. I came armed with multiple bottles and a pacifier to help pop his ears with all the take-offs and landings, but he was barely fazed by all of the altitude changes. By the time we hit Boise (the third leg), he was pretty fussy, but fortunately it was only a quick 45 minute flight to Portland from there. We managed to eek out the 7 hour flight(s) with no major screaming fits.

My mom's garden... gorgeous

After relaxing at my parents' house for an evening, we packed up the next morning and hit the road for the 5 hour drive down to Coos Bay, a small town on the southern Oregon coast where my mom's parents live. Because I moved away for college and haven't since lived in Oregon as an adult, this was my first trip back to Coos Bay since my senior year in high school. (I've seen my grandparents every year, but it's always been in Portland during the summer or over the holidays.) The drive was more scenic than I remember it, but I'm sure it didn't hurt that it was mid-May and all the rhododendrons and azaleas were in full bloom. And coming from Texas, everything in Oregon just seems so lush and green.

My grandparents were thrilled to meet their first great grandchild.** We spent the evening relaxing at their house, and then the next day we got up and met some old family friends for lunch at a little seafood restaurant on a small inlet of Coos Bay.

The weather was gorgeous. Later we took a scenic drive up to Sunset Beach and Nicholas dipped his toes in the Pacific for the first time.

A balmy May evening on Cottonwood

The next day, we hit the road back to Portland. Back home, my mom arranged a family dinner, and Nicholas met Uncle Geoff, Aunt Brooke, and Uncle Mike for the first time. 

Uncle Geoff, Aunt Brooke (with Nicholas), Aunt Laura, and Uncle Mike

Uncle Geoff and Aunt Brooke made sure that Nicholas will be well outfitted for football season.

Go Ducks!

Later in the week, we visited my dad's parents in Portland. Nicholas is the first great grandchild on this side of the family as well, and they were excited to spend the afternoon with him.

He also met great uncle Scott and aunt Mary, great aunt Ann, and cousin Grace, but unfortunately I didn't get pictures with them.

Grandpa and Nicholas

On the way back to Austin, we had  a two-leg flight, with an hour and a half layover in Las Vegas. The total travel time was a little longer, but after comparing both options I think fewer flights is better just because he was able to stretch out and move around a little on a blanket on the floor in the Vegas airport during the layover (yes, we thoroughly scrubbed everything once we got home.) The travel each way was long and exhausting, but it was so worth it to get a chance to introduce Nicholas to his great grandparents and so many other relatives-- and now I know that when Jason and I travel back to the Northwest together in a month, it will be a piece of cake by comparison.

*Southwest just started up a non-stop flight between Portland and Austin, and after nearly three years of 7 hour travel days to get home, I could not be more excited.
**Just barely! Nicholas can't wait to meet his second cousin Blaine, who arrived earlier this month.

Holiday Gruene-ery

That (bad) pun won't make much sense to anyone outside of central Texas... for the rest of you, Gruene (pronounced Green-- haha, get it??) is a tiny, scenic town about an hour south of Austin whose motto reads, "gently resisting change since 1872." True to this statement, the town looks like it's straight out of an old west movie set, with a general store, a few saloons and restaurants, numerous antique shops, and Gruene Hall, the oldest dance hall in Texas. And around the holidays, Gruene oozes charm.

This past weekend, we were invited down for the night to celebrate my friend Cassie's birthday with three other b-school couples. We bunked up in cabins at the Gruene Mansion Inn, strolled the festively lit streets checking out boutique after candy shop after boutique, enjoyed a delicious birthday meal at the Gristmill River Restaurant & Bar, and capped off the evening with lots of pool and live country music at Gruene Hall. I love exploring the little historic towns that make each region unique, and this was no exception. We had a great time.

The birthday girl, and her husband, Dan

The girls goofing around outside the dance hall

Cory Morrow on stage at Gruene Hall

Serious fans

Dan and Alle shootin' pool

J and I enjoying the show

Charlotte and Charleston

Last weekend, I flew back east to visit J in Charlotte. He'd only been gone a week, but since we had a 3 day weekend (and the office closed early on Friday), it just worked better to schedule a visit when I could take advantage of that extra time for travel.

Friday night we had dinner at a surprisingly good Indian restaurant, Maharani. When I think of North Carolina, really authentic Indian food isn't the first thing that comes to mind. But it was delicious... definitely one of the top 10 Indian places I've ever been to. Then J showed me around the town a little bit and we hit the hay early.

Saturday we got up and started our weekend adventure down to Charleston, South Carolina. Neither J or I has spent much time in the Southeast, and it turns out that Charlotte is perfectly situated to drive to many of the top destinations in both of the Carolinas and Georgia in 4 hours or less. Because it was only 3 hours away, we picked Charleston for our first little road trip, and off we went!

We stopped for lunch in Columbia, SC, to try out some South Carolina "Midlands" style barbecue. South Carolina barbeque's unique element is that its sauce is made from a mustard base instead of the traditional tomato base. It was interesting... not amazing, but since we seem to be getting a pretty thorough education in regional BBQ styles, I was glad I tried it. But, it was a buffet style restaurant, and the best item by far was the fried chicken. Mmmm.

We arrived in Charleston on Saturday afternoon, got settled in, and then took a carriage ride to get oriented to the city. What amazing architecture and history! It was one stunning mansion after another, all with gorgeous secret gardens and courtyards peeking out in between. Such a romantic city. It reminded me a little of Venice... the water, the huge mansions, and the ancient patina on everything. Charleston has a rule that nothing over 70 years old can be fixed or updated. It can be restored to its original look or it has to be left as is, so lots of buildings look like they're kind of decaying a little bit, but in a very charming way. We capped off Saturday evening with an awesome dinner at High Cotton, where I had my very first shrimp and grits experience.

On Sunday we woke up and decided to walk down to the South of Broad neighborhood that we had toured by carriage so that we could get a better look at everything. We also toured the Calhoun House, which is a huge mansion, restored to its full 1870s glory. It is said that the original owner of the house was a Civil War blockade runner and the inspiration for the character of Rhett Butler in Gone With The Wind.

We spent the rest of the afternoon browsing shops on King Street, followed by a nice long nap. For dinner, we ventured out to Hank's Seafood Restaurant, which J's boss had recommended. I had an amazing roasted flounder on a bed of sweet corn, shrimp, and lobster risotto. Delicious. After that we rolled ourselves over to a nearby bar where we sipped drinks on a rooftop deck until the big fireworks show over Charleston's harbor.

On our final day, Monday, we got up early and headed about 30 minutes outside of Charleston to tour the Boone Hall Plantation-- as a total history dork (who was obsessed with both the book and film versions of Gone With The Wind from ages 12-16), this was my favorite activity of the weekend. Boone Hall is the oldest working plantation in the United States. It was founded in the late 1600s, and they still grow numerous crops, including pecans, berries, pumpkins, onions, etc. They drove us all around the property recounting its history, and then we were free to tour the old slave cabins, which now house numerous interactive exhibits on African American history. Finally, we toured the plantation house-- the exterior of which was used as Allie's parents' home in The Notebook. (The interior of the Calhoun House I mentioned earlier was also filmed as part of Allie's parents' house.)

Finally, we drove back to Charlotte and had some real North Carolina barbecue at Mac's Speed Shop. North Carolina barbecue with its more traditional sauce and mouth watering pulled pork is definitely more my taste that its mustardy cousin in South Carolina, but it was fun to try both out. (I have to say though, I'm becoming more and more of a Texas girl everyday and would still pick Texas BBQ over anything in the Carolinas. You just can't beat the Salt Lick!)

Our last stop was the airport, where Jason dropped me off for my trip back to Austin. It was a fantastic weekend, and a very memorable fourth of July. I'm hoping I'll be able to make another trip out there in a few weeks to explore a little more of the Southeast. I hope you all had a fantastic 4th as well!

Road trip recap, part 3

The final leg of our trip took us south into New Mexico and deep into the southwest. After Mesa Verde, we set out for Santa Fe. Driving through southern Colorado and northern New Mexico was spectacular-- beautiful rolling green hills, pine forests, and jagged rock formations. Unfortunately we rolled into Santa Fe a little later than we had hoped, so we didn't have much time to sight see there, and I didn't get any pictures. But we had a nice pasta dinner and wine at a delicious Italian trattoria in the old town, followed by a romantic stroll past some of the old churches (many built in the early 1600s!), quaint courtyards, and town square.

The next morning we headed back into the town center in search of a quick breakfast. On a whim, we ended up bypassing Starbucks and buying homemade steak and chicken fajitas grilled on the corner by a street vendor at 10:30am. We ate them on benches in the shade of the tall trees in the town square. Unexpected, but delicious. Afterward, we drove south through New Mexico and down to Roswell. We stopped for a Blizzard at the local DQ and of course we had to visit the International UFO Museum and Research Center. It was in an old movie theater, and it laid out all the evidence for the famous Roswell UFO crash back in the late 1940s. Some of it was pretty convincing, some of it was definitely debatable, but it was entertaining all around. This is J observing the alien autopsy, and then the front of the museum.


Next, we drove down to the very southern part of New Mexico to stay in Carlsbad for the night. Unfortunately, I don't have many positive things to report about this town, but the fact that we felt unsafe hanging out in our hotel room that evening prompted us to go find something to do and we wound up repacking all of our belongings back into our car and seeing "The Hangover" at a drive in movie theater, which was a blast. I hadn't seen a movie at a drive-in since 1983 when I saw "Return of the Jedi" with my family as a very small child. Neither of us had seen previews (where they usually show you all the funny parts), so we laughed like crazy.

The final stop on our road trip was Carlsbad Caverns National Park the next morning. Unlike the town of Carlsbad, the caverns were really interesting and well maintained. The main "room" of the caverns is the largest single cave room in the entire western hemisphere.


An hour southeast of Carlsbad, we crossed our final state line:


We continued east on I-10 for about 6 hours and arrived in San Antonio, where we spent the night with one of my best friends from college, Anne, and recuperated over some delicious Tex Mex. The next day, we made the short trek from San Antonio into Austin. During our road trip. we saw so many beautiful, funny, and uniquely American things, but, after 8 days of driving, we were so happy to have finally arrived, and we celebrated that night with dinner at Austin's legendary BBQ establishment, The Salt Lick. We're looking forward to many more adventures ahead as we explore Austin, settle in, and meet new people.

Road trip recap, part 2

Picking up with my last post, day 3 concluded with about 6 or 7 hours of tearing down I-15 through Utah. We spent the night in a shady, and extremely hot hotel room in Price, Utah. Things didn't improve much the next morning when we drove around for 30 minutes looking for a cup of coffee. No dice in this small town. I'm going to reveal our stereotypical Seattle coffee snobbery here when I say that in a moment of desperation we pulled into the McDonald's drive-through lane to procure said cup of coffee. If we would have gone with the straight drip coffee, I'm sure it would have been fine, but, being that it was 100 degrees out, we opted for the iced coffee instead. Big mistake. Our iced "coffees" were literally white with cream (as in not even remotely lightly tan colored), and we had specifically asked them to go easy on the cream. So we had about one sip each and then tossed them in the nearest trash. But I digress...

The rest of the day in eastern Utah was splendid. First we checked out Canyonlands National Park, which is essentially like the Grand Canyon, except that there is no one there, and there are no guard rails. So you can wander right up to the edge of these plunging red rock canyons and peer down to your potential death several thousand feet below. Amazing. We took some great pictures there, but both J and I started to get that nervous roller coaster feeling in our stomach any time we looked over the edge, so we didn't get too close. It was also about 105 degrees there in the blazing sun, so short half mile excursions out of our air conditioned car left us sweating like we'd just run a marathon and panting for water.

Next up was Arches National Park, which is just 30 miles down the road from Canyonlands. I had expected to like Arches better, and although the huge red rock formations were extremely cool, I think Canyonlands won out for the sheer drama of the scenery. However, we checked out some of the famous arches and took a bunch of shots and I'm very happy to have had the opportunity to see both parks.

Back in our car and relishing in the blissful AC, we drove through Moab, Utah, where we stopped at a cafe for an ice cream (me) and an iced coffee (J) that was called "Wake'n'Bake." Classy. And kind of unexpected for Utah. Moving on...

We spent that night in Durango, Colorado, which is a fun little western town. It definitely has relaxed, outdoorsy ski town vibe and, more importantly, it offers an array of dining choices, which we were extremely excited about. After several days of Subway and other quick, side of the road food, we were in the mood for something different and made a b-line for the Durango's Indian restaurant. It did not disappoint.

We finished off our stint in Colorado the next morning with a trip to Mesa Verde National Park, which is home to a collection of Native American dwellings that were built into the sides of cliffs around 1200 AD. They are really well preserved, and you can actually walk through some of them. A very cool and unique experience.

Next up is Santa Fe, Roswell, Carlsbad Caverns, and then, finally, the great state of Texas.