March so soon? One month later...

Wow, I have been away from this Blog for over a month. So what have I been up to? Not skiing, I have to confess. The weather has been more or less miserable; very cold (nothing new there) with some sunny days and absolutely no useful snow (for skiing that is). At least the days are drawing out and there are signs that the local birds are thinking 'Spring'.

The main news is that Uma and I helped her elder daughter, Tara, move to Austin TX. She had been living in Cleveland and longing to get away to better climes. Then she got a job with a computer graphics group in Austin and the race was on to get her moved. Uma and I drove over to Cleveland on a Sunday three weeks back. We had thought that she would be pretty well packed up but, as it turned out, there was quite a bit of work still to be done before we had her car and Uma's Murano all packed up and ourselves ready to leave around noon on the next day. That evening had us just outside Nashville. We drove just to the northwest of a storm system, in and out of snow storms most of the way down through Ohio and Kentucky. From Nashville almost to Dallas on the Tuesday saw much better weather but we drove through some miles of blown down trees alongside the road with work gangs clearing away the debris. We were relieved that this was all as a tornado alert had been current just to the southeast of our route.

After winding down out of the Alleghenies, crossing the Mississippi at Memphis had us suddenly in the prairie terrain. What a difference this makes to the country. Two thirds of the US lies to the west of this river and there is hardly a mountain until one comes up against the Rockies. On the Wednesday, it was a relatively short drive to Austin. We crossed into Texas from Arkansas at a town called Texarkana and stopped for lunch at a real Texas bar and grill. I had the most delicious ribs and some wonderful beer. Texans are very friendly, I decided.

After this long drive, we were glad indeed to locate Tara's apartment and settle to the task of unloading. On the Thursday, we spent a lot of time at the local Ikea. On Friday, I was dismissed and took the bus into downtown Austin (no cost for seniors) and checked out the local art gallery, the History of Texas Museum, the Capitol Building (largest state legislature building of the 48 mainland states...they do everything big in Texas!) and finally, an excellent English Pub called The Dog and Duck (there is another of this name in London). Here I had 'bangers and mash' (sausages and mashed potatoes for the non-British) and two of the 50 or so beers on tap. I must say that the bangers and mash were almost as good as this dish cooked by my son Andrew, who must make the best bangers and mash in the world.

If ever you are in Austin, you must do The Dog and Duck. I ended up with three drinking companions and was glad to accept the offer of a ride home from one of them; I do admit to beinga little the worse for wear! Also, don't miss the Museum of Texas History and take the guided tour of the State Capitol.

Yes, they do it big in Texas and not the least are the amazing highway interchanges...these are four to five tiers of intersecting highways lacing over each other and rising up to two hundred feet high. Texas has a unique history having been under the French, ceded to Mexico, admitted to the Union, ceded with the Confederacy, was in limbo for five years following the Civil War and then was readmitted to the Union in 1970. No wonder the Texans think their state is special!

I would love to show you pictures of this trip but, having later upgraded the firmware on my phone I was dismayed to discover this destroys all the data on the phone...boohoo.

The trip home took two days. The one highlight was to visit the Clinton Presidential Library at Little Rock mid-afternoon on the Saturday. We were very happy to fall into bed around midnight Sunday. Foolishly, the next day I cooked up some mushrooms that I would have done much better to discard and made myself very sick for a day or so. More boohoos! It took the rest of the week to recover.

So that was Texas and back. America is surely a big country and filled with interesting places. Austin is quite the nice city but becoming burdened with traffic as its newest suburbia burgeons. Downtown is a little like Adelaide, my home city, with beautiful parks, nice old buildings, and the University at the edge of downtown. Like Adelaide, it has a passion for tennis (but no cricket). The locals are very friendly and many like to drink , it seems. My sort of town!

I do like the weather in Austin; it was already Spring and it seems the climate is a little like Darwin's during the Summer (hot and humid). Never mind they had heavy snow storms after we left. After that warm weather it was more than a little hard to return the ice and snow of Corning, NY.