Dallas

Somewhere north of Dallas, about four-and-a-half hours away from here, there’s an A-frame house nestled on the side of a country road, surrounded by sycamore, pecan and walnut trees. Inside live my cousin and her husband. Their three grown kids have headed out to their respective urban pastures, but the kids’ personalities bound throughout the home with so much liveliness, you’d think they still live there! And that’s wonderful, because Callaghan and I missed them when we went up to spend the weekend.

We spent a perfect fall weekend with my cousins at their home in the country just north of Dallas.

So that is where we went when we took off early on Saturday morning, and where we stayed until late Sunday afternoon, and that is why this post is a day late – because of all the pictures! I took over 200, and it was revealed after the fact that somehow, the image file size setting in my camera had gotten bumped up to 16mgs, which made re-sizing them rather time-consuming. Add to that the usual selection process and some errands to run, and, well, here we are on Tuesday with Monday’s post. (Sorry about that.)

In addition to re-connecting with my cousins, the weekend involved fossil-hunting in their creek-bed (there’s a creek and a bridge on their property), a go-kart spin on their road, a visit to Ray Roberts Lake, a visit to my cousin’s daughter’s house (which was excellent, because we got to meet their new son-in-law, though their daughter couldn’t be there), and a visit to the University of North Texas, where my cousin’s husband works. Most importantly, there was lots of conversation over great food. (Note to Self: ask cousin for the recipe for her delicious vegetable curry!) It all made for an interesting and fun and totally unique time that we wished could have gone on longer. We hope it isn’t too long before we can see them again.

With that, here’s a slew of photos, which fail to convey the splendid and unexpected fall magic that is fossil-hunting in northern Texas. Imagine going apple-picking for the rarest of apples in a privately-owned orchard! Honestly, though, I think the company we were in had everything to do with the marvelous time we had. There is nothing like family.

Fall is lovely in the country north of Dallas. This is my cousins’ bridge. The creek lies beneath.

A fossil amongst the fallen leaves in the creek-bed

Look what we found!

Fossil finds

Turning the bend

A perfect little fossilized shell!

I can smell the fragrance of the country fall air just looking at this picture.

Stories in the stones

Fossil finds

The part of the creek that had water in it in spite of the drought….

Fossil finds

In the creek-bed

Fossil finds

Callaghan and me (with an ancient snail)

Hidden corners…

The treasures we found!

Our collected fossils

Saturday night…

The Christmas lights they leave up year-round make the place even more magical!

A little décor near the front door. LOVE IT.

Sunday morning…

Callaghan on the go-kart!

My turn

Pile on!

The four of us

And in the afternoon:

Overlooking the beach at Ray Roberts Lake

I realized that ever since I decided to post here on Tuesdays and Fridays, I’ve been posting on Wednesdays and Fridays… this is the fifth Wednesday in a row. Not a Tuesday in sight on the recent calendar. Somehow, despite my efforts for Tuesday, Wednesday is just when it happens. Maybe I’ll try to start posting on Mondays, as well, to make it a 3x/week affair.

Saturday evening, we went downtown to meet a friend at Champion’s, and he took us for a stroll onto Rainey Street in pursuit of some local flavor. I kept expecting to find Casey Moore’s cozying up to the old houses lining the street. I wonder when the look-out in the back of my mind will stop automatically using my old Phoenix metro stomping grounds as a cultural point of reference for Austin? Austin is a very unique place with a distinct character of its own, but without wanting to, I’m finding Arizona corollaries for many places we encounter here, as well as many of the same businesses. Some of the Austin neighborhoods appear to have twins in The Valley (Greater Phoenix Metro Area), especially around Arizona State University.

University towns. I like them. Austin being a university town was one of its selling points. The live music scene in Austin is bigger than it is in Phoenix – hell, it’s the “Live Music Capital of the World” – but in my opinion, Phoenix has more of a hard rock vibe, if you can apply a genre of music to a place to describe its general ambience. Phoenix is Alice Cooper’s town. Alice is a big sports fan, and his establishment is a popular pre- and post-game watering hole and eatery in downtown Phoenix. (My girl Stevie Nicks is in Phoenix, too.)

That brings me to this one thing about Austin: there are no major professional sports teams. This is not a source of distress, mind you… it’s just different from what I’m used to. The Greater Phoenix Metro Area has the Suns (NBA basketball), the Diamondbacks (MLB baseball), the Cardinals (NFL football) and the Coyotes (NHL ice hockey). The Ironman Arizona Triathlon is there, and there’s pro fighting. Golf is also big in The Valley of the Sun; the WM Phoenix Open is the largest professional golf tournament on the PGA TOUR. The Super Bowl was hosted at Sun Devil Stadium in 1996 (Cowboys vs. Steelers). There are also two college bowl games hosted in the Phoenix metro area (the Fiesta Bowl and the Buffalo Wild Wings Bowl), and MLB Spring Training takes place there annually. Phoenix is a huge sports town by anyone’s standards.

Here, the major professional sports situation is this: San Antonio’s 1.5 hours away, which actually isn’t that far… it’s the home of the Spurs (NBA basketball). Drive to Houston (3 hours), and there are the Rockets (NBA basketball). And Dallas – 4.5 hours away – has the Mavericks (NBA basketball), the Cowboys (NFL football) and the Dallas Stars (NHL ice hockey). Also in the Dallas area, you’ve got the Texas Rangers (MLB baseball). So the teams are here in Texas, for sure. Just not here in Austin, which is perhaps a good thing, because it’s already bad enough that we’re tempted by live music opportunities every which way we turn.

It’s not like I went running off to sporting events all the time when I lived in Arizona. I didn’t. But I do enjoy the energy of a sports town, and there was the occasional game or boxing bout.

The most memorable one was on May 9, 1993; it was Game 5 of the Suns vs. Lakers NBA Western Conference play-offs. That was some basketball! The Lakers were in the house, and my boyfriend and I decided to go at the very last minute. We went downtown, bought tickets from a scalper and folded ourselves into the madness, because isn’t that what any sane college student would do when she has a final exam the next morning? I had my priorities straight. There were memories to be made. We had a feeling that the game would be phenomenal, and holy crap, our instincts did not fail us. About 500 mini heart attacks later (or maybe it was just one big long heart attack – yep, pretty sure I’m remembering that correctly), the Suns won 112-104 in an astounding over-time upset. That win constituted the biggest upset I’ve ever seen live, in person. Actually, it may have been the biggest upset I’ve ever seen, period.

I was there!

That was Jerry Colangelo’s Suns, with the likes of Charles Barkley; Dan Majerle; Cedric Ceballos; Danny Ainge; Kevin Johnson; Oliver Miller and Mark West on the roster. Remember that team, Suns fans? I was unabashedly obsessed. I was working part-time as a barista and found myself ridiculously flustered early one Saturday morning when coach Paul Westphal came in an ordered a latte. I don’t think I breathed at all while I was making his drink, and I was embarrassed because I thought he could see my hands shaking. At least it wasn’t KJ standing there before me. I would have passed out.

Needless to say, I’m a Spurs fan now!

But I’ll always be a Suns fan. And a Sun Devil.

One very exciting thing Austin does have, though, is Formula 1 racing. This is enormous, and it’s a relatively new development.

At any rate, I’m sure I’ll get to a point where I’m not looking around seeing Phoenix everywhere we go in Austin. We haven’t even been here two months yet. There’s a lot of discovery yet to happen, and we’re really loving it here so far!

Here are some pics from Saturday: