June News

The highlight of our month was our trip to San Antonio and New Braunfels. It was 60 degrees when we left home and 106 degrees when we picked up our rental car. Wow, was it hot. Dan and I laughed at our weather differences: their lows in the evenings are higher than our highs during the day. Wish we could share our weathers. They are having a serious drought and could use a lot of rain, while we have lots of rain we would like to give away!

Greg had a good conference and I pretty much hung out in air conditioning while he was in class. I did a few short walks on the River Walk and lounged at the pool for 15 minutes or so but the outside was just not the place to be.

On Thursday we checked out of our conference hotel and headed toward New Braunfels. Dan and Karen were working during the day so we went exploring on our own. We went to Gruene (where Dan had taken us 10 years ago on our visit) where we enjoyed the old town, had lunch in the Tea Room, and bought fudge at the General Store. We found peaches at a roadside stand and couldn’t resist getting a small box. I love peaches and they won’t be ready until August out our way. In the evening we found Dan and Karen’s place and got the grand tour before heading out to dinner at Mamma Fu’s. Dan has a beautiful large garden going. It goes from one end of his property right over to the other end. We also admired Dan’s wood working projects, from vases, picture frames, puzzles, bookends, to a washer toss game and kitchen hutch. I want one of those kitchen hutches! Dan does a wonderful job with his woodworking. We met Karen’s Mom, Dorothy and her son, Garret.

Friday we started our day with the free breakfast at the hotel. I had the waffles that you make up yourself in the waffle iron. When I got my waffle out I noted its irregular shape and thought that I hadn’t used enough batter to make the normal round waffle. When I got to our table Greg said: Hey, the waffle is shaped like Texas – and so it was! We got a kick out of our Texas waffles.

Next we headed to Dan’s work in La Vernia. We met Dan’s boss, Warren, and his wife, Cindy, and their daughter, Danielle. Oh yes, we also met Maple, the ferocious attack dog who guards their house. Well, she barks a lot anyhow. I don’t know about her bite. She’s a chihuahua. We started our visit with lunch brought in from a local café. Amazingly the little café in the midst of cattle country had a terrific veggie sandwich! It was delicious. After lunch we toured Warren and Cindy’s place. They have a huge greenhouse that Warren built and have tubs of tilapia providing fertilizer. They are going to expand the greenhouse further. Dan, don’t forget that Warren promised to send pictures as the greenhouse progresses. We are looking forward to seeing them. As impressive as the greenhouse was, my favorite was the Chickilton, as in Chicken Hilton. Warren built a very fancy chicken house – as fancy as the Hilton Hotel. Then Dan showed us some of the work projects he had underway. He showed us how the various pieces of equipment work and the different type of signs that they make - all this in a big shop with only a fan to keep it cool.

We headed back to our hotel to rest up for dinner and in the evening drove out to the “Catfish Place” (officially known as Clear Springs Restaurant), where Dan and Karen claim the best catfish in Texas is to be had. Not being catfish fans, I opted for the salmon and Greg the shrimp, both of which were excellent. Karen and Dan said the catfish was great as usual. The special appetizer of the house is fried pickles. It sounded intriguing, but we went for the onion rings instead.

Saturday both Dan and Karen were off work and we went for the grand tour of New Braunfels, beginning with a stop at Naegelin’s Bakery, the oldest bakery in Texas. Once we were fueled up we started by driving around to look at old houses. Ever since my architecture project I have enjoyed looking at old houses. When we got in to town we started seeing deer everywhere – on the golf course, in the parks, on front and back lawns. Apparently they have come into town for food and water since the drought is making both scarce in their normal habitat. We cruised around looking at the big “muriels” – you know those huge paintings on the sides of buildings. They call them muriels in Texas – as least Karen does! One of them showed scenes from the popular Wurstfest each November celebrating German sausages, another was a tribute to an immigrant who started the first newspaper among other things, and another highlights the German immigrants who founded New Braunfels. We picked up some history along with the art appreciation. Road kill in Texas is different from what we find here in the Northwest. We spotted a buzzard pecking at an armadillo. Yuck! Not surprising water play is a big activity in town. There is a huge water park called Schlitterbahn which draws huge crowds as we discovered as we slowly made our way through the traffic. And all the rivers were packed full of “tubers” cooling off. We walked over a foot bridge spanning the Guadalupe River and had a good view of the tubers.

All that driving made us hungry and we headed to the Fork and Spoon for lunch and then back home for resting and visiting. Dorothy shared figs that came from her fig tree from her house (now rented out to relatives). The figs were huge and delicious.

And then, all too soon it was time to head home. We had a wonderful visit with you Dan and Karen. Thanks for the warm hospitality.

Another highlight of our June was a Janis Joplin concert. Well, it was actually a play "One Night with Janis Joplin" but it was mostly an actress singing Janis’ songs with small bits of dialogue in between. Being Janis fans we enjoyed it immensely.

Summer is at long last arriving. We have actually had two sunny days in a row. The garden is planted but not looking too good. If we can hold onto this sunshine for a while it might perk up.

Love,

Carol and Greg