Note: This post comes from my Walking in Seattle blog.

Seward Park is a large park on a peninsula extending into Lake Washington in the southeast part of the city. The trail around the perimeter of the park is a great place for a lake-side stroll.


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We haven't been posting much on the blog recently because frankly, we haven't been doing much lately. Troy was sick with something last week and had a sore throat. And we haven't been able to walk as much or do much outdoors like hiking because of my plantar fasciitis. I'm looking forward to my foot healing completely so we can start our season of hiking soon.

Lately Troy has also been busy with church meetings and other things. This past Monday I went to hang out with Eric at his new house, which was cool. Friday we're going to our first Mariners game. We have been watching the Sounders games on TV lately. Too bad they haven't been playing that well.

It's hard to believe it's almost May, where did the first four months of the year go?

Note: This post comes from my Walking in Seattle blog.

People don't normally think of the industrial area in Georgetown as a good place to walk. An area with warehouses and other light industrial uses, it is criss-crossed by a grid of streets that are often traveled by large trucks and sometimes not served with sidewalks. However, if you know where to go, you can stay on the sidewalks and walk along some quiet residential streets and get a feel for this unique part of Seattle. Also, this time of year many cherry trees are blossoming, so let's go for a nice walk in the industrial (and residential) part of Georgetown.


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We had our best weather in 6 months this past Sunday, with a high near 70 and clear, sunny skies. The summer is just around the corner and I can't wait to go to some of the festivals in Seattle in a few weeks. The Cheese Festival at Pike Place Market and the U-District Street fair are both the weekend of May 15th. The Seattle International Film Festival (SIFF) runs from May 20th-June 13th. And the Northwest Folklife Festival is Memorial Day weekend. I love going to festivals here because of all the good food, music, and having fun outside in the awesome weather here.

Troy and I celebrated our three year wedding anniversary on the 14th. We took the bus to eat dinner at La Carta de Oaxaca in Ballard. We both got margaritas and the carne asada plato. We shared guacamole and chips before the meal. It was all very tasty, but could have been hotter when they served it to us.

After that we went to have cupcakes at Cupcake Royale. I had a carrot cake cupcake and Troy had a vanilla coconut cupcake. We were both very full after dessert.

Troy gave me Up on DVD and a new body pillow that I've been wanting for a while. He also bought pretty flowers - yellow and purple tulips and purple irises. I gave him The Sting on DVD.

My parents gave us tickets to the Mariners-Rangers game on April 30th, so that will be fun to go to since I've been wanting to go to a game.

We went to see The Ghost Writer Saturday afternoon at the Harvard Exit theater on Capitol Hill. It was an entertaining thriller; definitely nice to see a movie in a theater since it had been so long since we last did that. It's been a good anniversary. Hard to believe we've already been married three years and been together almost nine.

Over the past few weeks I've been participating in a weekly Saturday morning walking group.

The church we attend has several community groups, including this one. Each Saturday, the group gathers at 8 am and splits up to do an hour-long walk or jog. I've really enjoyed having reason to walk in different parts of the city each week, including Washington Park, Myrtle Edwards Park, and Ballard. It's also been really nice to walk with and get to know other people.

Typically I've enjoyed sleeping in on the weekends and I never thought I'd enjoy waking up early on a Saturday, but participating in this group has been a worthwile and a great way to start my Saturdays.

Plantar fasciitis is a fancy term for pain in the heel of my foot. My left heel has been hurting for a couple of months now. I tried replacing my normal walking shoes and then I went even farther and got shoe inserts for more padding. I've been trying to stretch it when I wake up and before I go to bed every night, but it's hard to do that consistently. It hurts more if I'm on my feet for long periods of time, which makes it difficult to continue doing as much walking as we do. A coworker of mine gave me a small massage ball than I can use to try to massage the muscle/tissue there, but sometimes that seems to hurt more than help. I guess I'll eventually have to go to the doctor to get specific shoe inserts to make the pain stop.

I've been wanting a new cell phone for a few months and so I finally made a plan to go to T-Mobile and get one. My old Nokia phone is at least 3-4 years old, perhaps more. It's so old that it has an antenna sticking out of it. There wasn't really anything wrong with it, although sometimes the ring tone files would get corrupted and my phone wouldn't ring properly when I was receiving phone calls. It was as if it was on silent or something when it wasn't. Some of the outside was starting to peel off and look pretty bad.

I knew I wanted a slightly better phone than the free ones they offer you after you've had a 2 year contract (which we have). I was willing to pay more for something that had more memory and a better camera. So this past weekend we went to T-Mobile and I got a new cell phone, the Nokia 5130 Xpress Music. I love it so far! I like the red and black colors and it also has almost 2GB of memory that can store music, so it's a small MP3 player too. That works great for me since I only really listen to a few artists these days. Probably my favorite thing about it is that I can set any song I want as my ring tone. Right now it's the theme for Star Wars. Yes, I admit that's pretty nerdy. I just wish I could have a different song for the different people that call me. It can also record video and has a better camera.

While we were there, we also changed plans and pay $10 less a month. We actually get 50 more minutes with this new plan. There was no two year contract requirement, but the catch is that we have to pay full price for new cell phones. But over a two year period, saving $10 a month more than makes up for paying full price for my new phone. So, I'm happy with the deal we got and having a new phone to play with is pretty cool.

We spent this Saturday visiting the University District. Though farther from downtown than some of the neighborhoods we've visited previously like Capitol Hill, First Hill, and Lower Queen Anne, it's one of the oldest and densest neighborhoods in the city. The 1909 Alaska Yukon Pacific exhibition was held on the University of Washington campus.

We live a relatively short bus ride away from the University District and we started our day out with brunch at Ugly Mug Cafe. Lesley had a breakfast croissant and I had a California BLT, which was easily the best sandwich I've had in Seattle.

It was a sunny day but there was a cold morning wind. We headed north along University Way (known as "The Ave"). In addition to hosting the U District Street Fair that kicks off the summer festival season, the Ave is lined continuously with retail and restaurants. It's a mixing bowl of international foods, from Indian to Mediterranean to all types of Asian foods, mostly inexpensive enough to attract plenty of students.

We enjoyed strolling along the active street all the way through the U District, meandering through the U District Farmers Market, which is one of the best farmers markets in the city and had lots of food that we wanted to buy and take home with us. We then visited the Kirsten Gallery. This gallery was surprisingly large with a peaceful backyard garden and a variety of painted, printed, and sculpted art for sale at reasonable prices. This was one of several enjoyable places we stopped this day.

We continued on, past the towering and historic Blessed Sacrament Church to another historic building, the Seattle Public Library's Univeristy Branch, a Carnegie Library. We continued walking and realized that we were getting a bit hungry, so we stopped and shared a falafel.

We walked on the other side of the Ave for a while, stopping in several interesting shops. We stopped to look at wall posters, spooky gargoyles, some amusingly tacky crap, and some Asian imports. After this we decided to visit the University of Washington, enjoying the view of Mount Rainier and stopping to rest for a while at Drumheller Fountain.

We then grabbed some tea and stopped at a park (technically outside of the U District). The last thing we did was eat some very filling Indian food before heading back home.

The U District is a part of town that I often don't think about but is one of the more eclectic parts of the city. Despite being kind of a college neighborhood, after our visit I came away impressed and hope to spend more time there in the future.

Quick U District facts:

• Population: 16,355


• Population density per square mile: 9,844


• 2008 Median Home Price: $489,900


• 2008 Median Condo Sales Price: $400,000


• Cars per capita: 0.2


• 8th most walkable neighborhood in Seattle

Sources:
1. Seattle Metropolitan Real Estate
2. Walk Score: Seattle's Most Walkable Neighborhoods

I mentioned in my last post about work that I was working in a temporary department and there haven't been any changes since then. I had been taking on small projects for other departments, but that has mostly ended, except for one project.

For my one freelance project, I am developing an Excel-based tool that will be used by offices nationwide. I reviewed the existing spreadsheet, identifying its deficiencies on with feedback (complains/suggestions) from others. From there, I worked to improve the existing spreadsheet making sure to get regular feedback, which has been very positive. The tool has come a long way from where it was and is almost ready to be rolled out.

Overall, though, most of my time over the last several weeks has been focused on my temporary job, mainly on a single project. I've really enjoyed working diligently on getting the pieces of our project lined up, including working with our web development subcontractor, and coordinating the project. I've also learned more about the types of things that I don't enjoy as much.

I'm not sure how this temporary position will work out - whether it will become permanent, and then what kind of role I would have. I am looking for more chances to have ownership of projects and processes that will allow me to work with and lead others. I'm not sure whether I will fit best in a role in my current temporary department, another position in this company, or a position with another company, but I am looking forward to finding more career development and professional growth.

The baseball season started this past weekend and the first Mariners home game is next Monday. I'm looking forward to going to a few games this year. I'd like to see one of the inter-league games against San Diego and maybe a game against the Rangers. I've heard the Mariners are going to be even better this year than last year since they signed Cliff Lee who is a really good pitcher. Last year they finished as one of the most improved teams compared to the previous season.

I wish we still had cable so we could watch the games on TV. It was nice having the games on almost every night last summer. We didn't necessarily watch every pitch, but it was comforting to me to have them on since I grew up with baseball so much. It's ingrained in my personality. I wonder if one of my teams will win a World Series any time soon...

Early this morning while I was at work, I heard a big crash and thought it was thunder. It turned out to be the facade of the Icon Grill collapsing on the sidewalk. I can see Icon Grill right out my office windows and the whole sidewalk was a mess. The bricks came crashing down from the top of the building and injured 3 people. Thankfully no one was killed. There was rubble everywhere; it looked like we'd had an earthquake. Here's a good video about it on King 5 News: Icon Grill facade collapses

I wonder when Icon Grill will open again. I guess I didn't have any plans to go there any time soon. It's just crazy, I've walked in front of it so many times. That facade could have come down at any time.

I went to the doctor on Monday because the pain in my right chest was hurting so bad. It really hurts when I cough, which thankfully is less frequent now that I'm over the H1N1 flu. But it also hurts to simply breathe in deeply, when I laugh, and even when I get up and move around or stretch.

The doctor said I injured my ribs and cartilage from coughing so hard last week. He gave me anti-inflammatory pills for the swelling and codeine for the pain. I took one of the codeine that night and did I ever regret it the next day. My stomach didn't like it, even though I took it with food. It made me nauseous all morning and I had to go home from work at 10. The doctor said I should be feeling better in a week, but it will just take time for it to heal itself.

I just can't believe I coughed so hard I injured my ribs and cartilage. What will happen to me next? And when will I be well again? Being sick/injured the past 2 weeks has been terrible.

Note: This post follows Will we ever move back to TX?

As I mentioned previously, I don’t know if we’ll ever move back to Texas. We do have family in TX, so that's an important consideration, but it just doesn't seem that anywhere in TX could offer a comparable lifestyle of driving very little, walking a lot in the city, and hiking in nature.

But, who knows what the coming years will bring. If we were to move back, it would likely be to Dallas or Austin. While there are some nice things about living in Texas, there are several factors that currently make us wonder if we could be as happy in TX as we are here:

• The weather would keep us indoors - Weather in TX is much more extreme than in Seattle, especially in summer. While the wet weather here discourages us from hiking sometimes, it usually doesn't keep us inside. In TX, we'd have to forget about the Saturday afternoon summer hikes that we love. And actually, just forget about doing anything outdoors comfortably on a summer afternoon.


• 
  We'd have to drive more - We drive our one car 6,000 miles annually and don't have to drive to work or to many places we often go to. We might be able to overcome this if we lived in downtown of a Texas city and could walk or take a bus to work, but no urban area I'm aware of competes with the shopping and dining available in downtown Seattle and the nearby neighborhoods that we can walk or bus to.


• 
  We wouldn't be able to enjoy walking as much - While downtown areas in TX are walkable, they're more often surrounded by freeways and large arterials with limited places to cross. Sidewalks are often narrow and the buildings ignore the streetscape leaving nothing to look at but strips of grass and limestone walls. And, most areas outside of downtown areas just aren't really designed for walking unless you want to walk along a busy arterial road and walk across acres of parking lots to go into any retail store.
  
  While Seattle does not compare to world-class pedestrian cities like Melbourne or San Francisco, it's still a good place to walk. The signalling and siewalks are adequate and we can get around in most areas comfortably on foot.
  
  I'd be concerned about being limited in a Texas city to only having parts of downtown and small areas in a couple other parts of town that would be enjoyable to walk through. I don't want to have to go to a strip mall just to be able to walk somewhere other than a residential neighborhood or busy arterial street.


• There's less to do outdoors - There are fewer parks in Texas cities than here and much fewer places we could hike outside the city. While I'm sure there are some state parks and other areas in TX that we're not aware of, there are just so many excellent outdoor options within 60 miles of us right now.


• The natural beauty does not compare - It's not Texas' fault that the Pacific Northwest is so beautiful. Texas has its own, more subtle type of beauty, but it can't compete with the forest, mountains, and water near Seattle.


• 
  We don't want to see the air we breathe - Seattle's air isn't always pristine, especially on hot summer days, but the smog in Texas is considerably worse. I just don't like being able to see what I breathe.


• There's less to do nearby - While Seattle looks like one of the more isolated cities in the county on a map, there are actually lots of things to do nearby. Outdoor destinations like the three National Parks nearby, the Oregon coastline, and islands in Puget Sound are in a different league from attractions like Enchanted Rock and Inner Space Caverns in TX. And San Antonio and Houston just can't compete with the Northwest cities of Vancouver and Portland.


• 
  We'd have to readjust to the culture - An area's culture affects everything from what is eaten to what is said to whether car dealerships have 8 state flags and only 1 national flag. A culture is hard to explain, but is better understood through experiencing the myriad ways in which a culture is expressed in its environment. So, since it's hard to get into specifics without thoroughly explaining and potentially misrepresenting the respective cultures, I'll just say that the culture here fits us better.

As time goes on, our perceptions, preferences, and priorities will evolve, but right now these issues are all relevant to how we want to live our lives and they discourage us from wanting to move back to Texas.

The more time we spent with family in Texas last week, the more it felt like we had never left. Indeed, it's hard to believe that we've now lived in Seattle for more than two years. And, at times during our trip, it was hard to believe that we had lived in TX for the 24 years that we did.

Interestingly, I still knew things in TX really well. I keep up with the news for the most part and still know my way around the Metroplex really well. Texas is still my home, even if it just my home away from home.

Of course our families would love for us to move back to Fort Worth, or at least to somewhere within a few hours drive of them, and we're regularly peppered with questions about when or whether we'll return. I've given that a lot of thought, but still don't know how things will turn out.

We had our reasons for moving away in the first place, but of course when discussing important family issues like raising a family and things like that, there may be some reasons why we would consider moving back. But, while we do miss our families now, we are very happy with our lifestyle and have no plans to move back to TX. The bottom line is that we just don't know what will happen in the coming years as circumstances change. However, there are some significant reasons why it would be very difficult for us to ever move back to Texas, which I'll cover in a separate post.

I used to check the weather forecast often and used it to set my expectations for what the weather would be like. However, the forecast has been wrong so many times in Seattle that I've learned not to pay much attention to it anymore.

While the forecast in TX was often not accurate more than a few days ahead, sometimes the forecast for Seattle isn't accurate for the next day. Too many times I've been expecting nice weather and then have been disappointed with a day of rain.

The weather patterns here are complicated and are affected by the water and the mountains. Often there is a big difference in the weather between where we live and 20 miles in any direction.

So, because of all that, I think I'll be better off not paying too much attention to the weather forecast.

I've been sick with the flu for over a week. I caught it while I was in Texas last week and started to feel bad the Thursday of our trip. I had trouble breathing and was coughing a little, so I thought it might be allergies. I took a Claritin, but that didn't do anything for me. I woke up Friday and felt significantly worse. I started to get a high fever of almost 103 and I felt terrible.

I was sick the rest of the trip and the flight home was awful. It was easily the worst I've ever felt on a plane. My ears started to hurt so bad on the decent into Seattle, I thought my head would explode. It was difficult to sleep much at all. We took a cab home instead of riding the light rail, since a cab would be faster and easier.

I crashed on the bed and couch for three days. My entire body was sore and it hurt when I coughed. I continued to have a high fever until Monday, but I still felt miserable and was really dizzy and light-headed. I couldn't even go to work until Wednesday. Even then, I still probably should have taken Wednesday off. I felt so tired and weak and had no energy. I was coughing up stuff and had an awful headache. Thankfully I can just sit at my desk and do most of my stuff without much physical exertion.

I probably won't feel back to normal for several more days, as I continue to build my immunity back up and get my energy back. I'm still coughing too and don't have much appetite. This is definitely the worst I've felt in at least 5 years.

But the worst part about being sick was the timing. It couldn't have come at a worse time. I was really looking forward to spending time with my sister, her husband, and my niece on Friday. We were going to go to the mall and out to eat lunch, then back to her house to see Evie's room. I'm still upset I couldn't see her again and hold my niece one more time. It also would have been nice to be able to hug my other family members that came by to visit Friday night. And, I couldn't really do much with my parents either. We did a day's worth of stuff on Thursday right before I got sick, but that was it. The rest of the trip I laid on their couch and watched movies.

I don't normally get sick like this. I hardly ever get colds any more and I haven't had the flu in at least 10 years. It's just really disappointing that it ruined the rest of our trip. Hopefully I'll start to feel a lot better by this weekend.

Living so far away from our family, the time we get to spend together is limited by the cost of flying and the number of available vacation days we have. So it's even more important to take advantage of the time we do get to spend together.

To minimize cost, we typically visit for a full week, rather than making multiple shorter trips. But that usually uses 5 days of vacation time from work, so it's hard to make more than one visit per year.

There's also the consideration of what we'll actually do with our family. It's hard to find things to do that several people can participate in and enjoy that provide an opportunity to spend quality time together.

Eating together and playing games seem to be good activities. Trying to walk somewhere often doesn't work if we can't walk side-by-side and comfortably talk. Sitting and drinking tea and talking works well for a little while. Going to sporting events works okay, but it's hard for the people on the ends to be involved in a conversation. We have to come up with enough activities so that our visits don't become boring.

But, often it's hard to come up with a full day's worth of activities to spend with the same group of people. That's why in the past we'd split up days - we'd spend a couple hours with my parents, a couple hours with Lesley's parents, some time with my grandmother, some time with Lesley's sister, maybe all in one day. We'd go a full trip and stay at a different home every night. This helped to make the days more active so that we weren't just sitting around bored, but it also made the trips more hectic with all the travel and nightly relocation.

That's what prompted our idea to visit with my parents in Austin. Since we'd be on vacation in a different place, we'd have plenty to do over a solid few days, and much of what we did provided quality time with each other. And, once we got back, we had planned to visit Dallas with Lesley's parents and to break up our time with them by visiting my grandmother and Lesley's sister, so we thought that would work well.

Lesley being sick interrupted our plans somewhat, but overall it seems like this approach was less hectic and it feels like we got a more substantial amount of quality time with each set of parents.

So, we may try to do trips like this in the future. The main concern will be finding enough to do with one group of people over a solid period of a couple days. We won't always be able to visit another city with someone (though we'd be open to it) and finding two solid days of activities in Fort Worth with either of our parents might be difficult. Still, it might work out better than staggering our time with everyone so as to spread it out over the duration of our visit.

Maybe there's another way that we could be planning our visits that we're not thinking of. It's definitely a challenge to plan these trips, but each time we plan one we learn a few things to help us make the next trip more effective and more enjoyable.

After our time in Austin, we returned to Fort Worth for the second half of our week in Texas.

That afternoon, we went to visit my grandmother. We had some dessert and tea and talked for a couple hours. After that, Lesley's dad picked us up and we went to see Lesley's sister and her daughter. We got to spend a lot of time with them and Lesley really enjoyed holding her niece. I held her, too, which was kind of weird because I haven't held a baby since my brother was a baby. Lesley's mom made a nice lasagna dinner for us, too.

The next day we had another good Tex-Mex meal outside on the patio, this time with Lesley's parents at one of our favorite places, Uncle Julio's. We shared the fajitas, which are always excellent. We then went to Dallas and walked around White Rock Lake for a while. The air was fairly cool, but it got to feeling warm after a while in the sun. While the weather was pretty good, the trees were not yet ready for spring, as many of them had not yet started growing new leaves.

We had some time to kill before going to a Dallas Stars game that evening, so we drove around Uptown Dallas a little bit, which is one of the more trendy and walkable parts of Dallas, and then went to Victory plaza near the arena. Many of the restaurants there had gone out of business, but there were still people hanging around the plaza and watching some of the big outdoor screens.

Lesley's dad was able to get us some free food at the VIP lounge in the arena before the game. There was a buffet of salad, potatoes, and several kinds of meat. There were also several kinds of dessert, which we got to try. There was a lot of food to eat, so that was pretty cool, and the brownies were very good. The game itself was fairly entertaining, though the Stars let the Flyers come back to win after an early lead.

The next day, Lesley woke up feeling sick. Interestingly, my mom had started feeling sick on the way back from Austin, so we figured that my mom might have gotten the flu in Austin and that Lesley might have caught it from my mom in the car ride back to Fort Worth. The plan for the day was for Lesley to spend time with her sister and for me to visit with my grandmother again. But, since we weren't sure whether I might be sick and just not yet showing symptoms, we didn't want to get my grandmother sick, so I ended up hanging out with my dad and brother, who weren't sick.

My brother was getting a ride back to school north of Dallas. We stopped for Italian food on the way and then had to spend some time fixing an issue with my brother's computer. Around that time, my brother started feeling sick, too. Anyway, I knew traffic would get bad on the way to Fort Worth if we left too late, but fortunately we left in time to avoid having any traffic problems. Lesley had just watched The Dark Knight on her parents' new HDTV and when I got there we watched another movie. For dinner, we got Cousin's Barbeque, which is my favorite BBQ place in the universe. The brisket was extremely tender and flavorful and the okra was remarkable, as usual. That evening, some of Lesley's extended family decided to risk exposure to illness and stopped by to visit.

The next day was our last in TX on this trip. We watched Ferris Bueller's Day Off and hung out at Lesley's parents' house before heading to the airport. The weather outside was almost 40 degrees colder than the day before and about 30 degrees colder than the temperature in Seattle. Unfortunately, Lesley felt pretty sick that afternoon and was pretty miserable during the entire flight. I had been looking forward to taking light rail from the airport for the first time, but since Lesley wasn't feeling well we decided to take a taxi, which was much faster.

We had a good time in DFW. We all wish Lesley and my mom and brother hadn't gotten sick, but it was nice to get to hang out with everyone, to have good food, and spend time in Dallas. We'll likely be visiting again around Thanksgiving or Christmas.

We went down to Austin last week for the first time in a few years. Austin's about 3 hours away from where we grew up in Fort Worth so we thought it'd be fun to go there to spend time with friends and with my parents before returning to Fort Worth to spend time with other people in our family.

We got up at 3:55 am on Saturday to make our flight. Seattle's new light rail doesn't run that early, so we had to pay to take an airport shuttle. The freeway was pretty empty but the airport was surprisingly busy.

We flew into the Denver airport, which was very busy, where we grabbed a mediocre fast food lunch and caught our next flight into Austin. We arrived in Austin at around 2 in the afternoon and the weather was beautiful - clear skies and 70 degrees.

Our friends picked us up from the airport and then we walked around the University of Texas campus and went up to the UT Tower for a view of the city. We're all pretty laid back people, so we spent a good amount of time hanging out, playing a game called Wits & Wagers, reminiscing, and watching online videos.

The next day we went to Round Rock donuts, which was featured on a TV show because of a very large donut they sell. The regular-sized glazed donuts I had there were very good. We drove to Zilker Park afterward in some incredibly bad traffic. There was a city-wide garage sale going on, so we checked out some of the antiques and things in there, before heading to the park. Lesley wanted to stop on the way to eat at Schlotzsky's Deli since there are not any locations in Seattle. We rented canoes at the park, and though canoing was a little difficult, it was a lot of fun to do that for about an hour. Afterward, we rode a little train around the park to look at all the kites involved in the kite festival that was going on. Then, walking on our way back to the car, we stopped for some Tex-Mex and margaritas at Baby Acapulco's. It was our first Tex-Mex since July and it was a great Texas experience to sit and eat outside to have great Tex-Mex and margaritas. We had a really good time hanging out.

The next day, my parents and brother picked up Lesley and I and we went to eat some home-style cooking at a local restaurant for lunch. After that, we went to the top of Mount Bonnell to check out the view and walk around in the nice weather. It's one of the highest points in the city and is comparable in elevation to some of the high points in Seattle. After that, we went to the Mayfield Park and Nature Preserve, where several peacocks roamed around the grounds.

Later that day, we went to the LBJ presidential library, which had a lot of information on LBJ's presidency. That evening we had some Texas barbecue at the Salt Lick. We explored Austin a bit more, including famous 6th Street.

Unfortunately, the weather the next day was wet. We went to the Texas Memorial Museum, which had several fossils and geodes and other cool stuff. For lunch, my parents tried Thai food for the first time. We visited the Texas Capitol building afterward and then while my dad and brother went to walk at a park, my mom and Lesley and I went to the Harry Ransom Center at UT. There was a really cool exhibit on filmmaking, which explained the job of the major roles in making a movie (e.g. producer, cinematographer, etc) and had old scripts, costumes, and other artifacts from famous movies. Later that day we went to see Austin's bats and walked along the river. Unfortunately it was rather breezy and cold and the bats were a little underwhelming. However, afterward we all went to Mellow Mushroom for a pizza dinner, which was very good. We played a game of UNO that night back at the hotel. The next day we left around 10 to go back to Fort Worth.

I had a really good time in Austin. I got a much better feel for the city than I ever had before and gained a better understanding of how it considers itself weird. The heart of the city had fewer chains and more character than DFW along with hints of radical political ideology. While the development pattern was rather typical for Texas, the river, hills, and trees seemed more central to the city's identity and lifestyle than geographic features in other major TX cities. Anyway, I had a pretty good time and would be interested in going back someday.