October 08, 2003 8:25 pm

Vacation and Home

I am home from vacation and home is very pleasant. I have a beautiful home and I'm glad it is in South Austin. I saw some beautiful sights on vacation and it is heartwarming and encouraging to come home and realize how beautiful and warm my own house is. The backyard looks very "Austin-y" with its big oak trees and bushes and the gentle rain sprinkling through the branches. I sometimes overlook it.

The cats are very happy I am home. They are especially glad I brought home big paper sacks and lots of tissue paper. They have strewn the paper throughout the living room and have found plenty of time to hide in the big sacks and then SPRING on the other cat with a load cat "boo!"

The quick recap of the vacation (and probably the only one I'll get to): Sister and I went to the Whole Mind fair (or whatever New Age name it had) and got a reading from Kramer (astrofish.net) for our first stop. First time she had met him and she was very impressed. It was fun to get a reading in that situation from him for me and to see him really working in his normal setting (normal? Kramer?). He told me good things about my future and Mark's future. All looks peachy except for a rough time around Dec. 1. You heard it hear first. You'll read all about it later.

A Sandy's frozen custard cone and we were on the road. Stopped for the night in Wimberly. Cute little log cabin motel by the creek. My friend the sometime creepy photographer called to see what I was doing. I told him we were spending the night in Wimberly. Why? he says... "it's, like, ten minutes from your house!" Okay, an exaggeration, but the point of a vacation is not distance on a map, it is distance in your mind and I was a long, long way from home.

Cool rock shop on our first morning of exploring (after a night of almost NO SLEEP--- I finished an entire book from start to finish before I could fall asleep at 4 a.m.). Coffee and a cookie and then on the road toward Comfort.

Stopped at the Sisterdale winery and had a very nice tasting. Bought many bottles, including a reserve that she said we should put aside until 2005. I am no wine connosieurre (or a speller either, ha) so I probably won't know a difference in 2005, but I have put it away with a warning written on the label.

Much of this trip was recreating my honeymoon. I would have much preferred to recreate it with Mark. I missed him a bunch, especially in Comfort. We stayed there on our honeymoon and again about five Christmases ago. The rooms we had stayed in before at the Comfort Common are no longer rentable rooms, so Sister and I stayed in the Karger. There wasn't anyplace to eat in the late afternoon in Comfort so we went down to the Po-Po Restaurant in Welfare, TX. Weird name but fabulous, all-you-can-eat shrimp (fried and boiled), chicken, and catfish, meal.

We went on down the road and drove through Boerne, but, as most small towns do, it was shut down for the evening. We drove on back to Comfort and watched TV and drank the wine from our winery visit.

Fabulous breakfast at the Comfort Common (on previous visits they didn't serve breakfast this way, so this was really fun). A little shopping in Comfort and then on down the road to Medina (yes, I bought apples), Vanderpool, Leakey (where the best chocolate malt in the world is available at the drugstore, but we bypassed it this time), a sandwich (bought in Medina) overlooking the Frio River from up on high at a scenic overlook, on around a different way to come back to Lost Maples and a quick hike there between rainstorms. Beautiful place but the leaves aren't at their peak yet. I hope to go back in November.

On the road again back through Medina and up to Kerrville (a beautiful wind-y drive) and to Fredericksburg. So many choices of lodging in F'burg, but this time we stayed in a more typcial motel, but it was very nice to have a huge bed, carpeted floors, big bathroom and sink, etc. Amenities rule. We ate dinner at a huge German restaurant on the other side of town.

This morning was our last vacation morning. Older nephew had been sick the entire time we were on this trip and had missed school each day so Sister was ready to get back on home to him. I didn't blame her. I was ready to get home too. We went to the Rather Sweet bakery in Fredericksburg upon several recommendations and got some pastries to take home and then went to the five and dime store I'd read about called Dooley's. What fun! It was like going to the Perry's variety store in Eastland where my grandparents lived. Or the Moses in my hometown of Canyon, or the Duckwall's in Colorado Springs where I grew up some. Lots of memories and I bought lots of fun things--new plastic glasses and an ice tea pitcher, dishtowels, handkerchiefs for Mark, bath powder and other silly things.

We made one stop on the trip home at the fruit and vegetable stand I like with the good jalapeno pickles. Fun proprietor to talk to. He makes the pickles and does all the baking. How does he have the time? Bought lots of veggies and a pumpkin.

Well, that was not the brief recap I planned on. So glad to be home again. I guess I'll even be ready to go back on the air tomorrow, rested and relaxed. Ha. I'd need a couple more weeks for that. My sister was sweet and determined that I would stay away from home the entire vacation so that I wouldn't worry about "home" stuff. She had a point. Within an hour of being back home I was folding a bed-full of laundry Mark had done, feeding the dogs and the cats, washing the dishes and checking on the bills. Yep, I'm home again.

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Book Club - Tuesday, Jan. 28, 2014
A Good Saturday Ahead - Saturday, Jan. 18, 2014
Back to Work - Monday, Jan. 06, 2014
The New Year Arrives - Wednesday, Jan. 01, 2014
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