San Antonio hosts the first Billy Jean King lookey likey Convention

Well we needed a rest after out last big trip but still wanted some of the great outdoors. The Hill Country and San Antonio only 6 hours drive away. Two nights camping 1 night in a hotel.

Easter weekend hmm only one night available in any campsite unless we want to go back country and carry our tent. Well maybe someone won't turn up.

Aah this is the life..we settle down for evening

Other than being warm it feels like an Easter weekend near Aysgarth

The joy of camping with Texans is that the get insecure when more than 15 feet from their trucks so very soon you are alone and can enjoy

 Now the Pedernales Falls:

It looks harmless enough doesn't it but you are not allowed to paddle or swim at this point because flash foods arrive in about 7 minutes when there has been rain upstream and do stuff like this:

Then there is the charge of the Light Brigade

Yes that is a real pith helmet...

Time to get back to base camp to see who hasn't turned up.

Drat and double drat...ok pick up thee tent and walk. The primitive campsite is two miles behind me, just below that hill, which the Texans like to overegg with the name Wolf Mountain:

If you have been following this blog you will already be aware of the professionalism of our camping set up. Having been advisors on a variety of survival programmes we set off with our 5 man tent, sleeping bags, his and hers camel pack, flask of tea, a nestle's milky bar, two cereal bars and torch. It is boiling hot so do we bring fleeces and hats....no.

When we get to the primitive "remote" back packing site, all the other out of staters who didn't believe Texans could leave their trucks are also there.

We set up in the dark, sip tea and hum the theme tune to the Milky Bar kid.

Sleep, perchance to dream, forsooth do I hear the dulcet grunts of a large four footed animal relieving of himself outside our meagre abode. How cruel is that domino effect that doth put a damsel in urinary distress when the night hath become cold and dark and she is without cape and hat. She will hang on, and hang on, and hang on and hang on.

Oh bu....r it's no good.



Morning at last and a two mile hike up the hill, bacon and mushroom butties never tasted soooooo good. And tonight in a hotel.

It was nice going back to San Antonio which was the first place we visited when we arrived in Texas.  Then life got confusing and I was also reminded why ees no good drinking Margaritas at 2 in the afternoon. Every woman started to look like a man and not just any man but a man that was possibly a woman and not just any woman but a woman that looked like Billie Jean King...Then  I sobered up and everyone was like that! 

It was the Women's High School Basket Ball Teams Reunion - class of 72.   I  am not keen on matching his and hers ski jackets but hers and hers matching sneakers, bobby socks, bomber jacket, khaki shorts, varicose veins and iron grey razor cut doesn't do it for me either....

Fortunately I soon became distracted by a beautiful evening and dinner sitting here next to the river, it could almost be Venice.

Just him and Me and We are proud to be grandparents.

Thought I’d throw in a Daily Star type headline to attract attention….actually it’s three baby boar swallows nesting in our porch and a baby gecko, stand at ease Heidi, that wandered in from the balcony and almost got hit with a John Grisham. As technical director I was key to the geckos safe removal….lifting my legs off the floor then jumping when it shot under and out from under the TV table etc, giving Phil an animal handling development opportunity gathering it up in a sieve with a paper trapdoor below. Ratifying his suggestion that we don’t leave the balcony door open do we…just in case next time it is a black widow. And talking of bugs I availed myself of the apartment complex bug man service. We went through a phase of being bitten really badly, no cats and dogs about etc but thought for good measure book them.
First question was “Have you seen it” to which I wanted to say “Is it on the trolley, can you point to it” but my stony ground image reared up and stopped me.
“What should I have seen”,
“A bug”,
“No just a feeling, though there has been the odd orange one bout ½ inch in size”.
Snort followed by “That’s a dune bug…..”
“Well should I be worried about them ???? Do they bite?”
“They’re from the outside, they die when they come in.” (Aren’t all bugs from the outside?).
“You got a dawg or a caat?”
“No just a man” Huge sigh…wanders around spraying all the edges with his little portable can and spray.
Conclusion....for the bug man to get excited it has to have appeared on British TV advertising insurance or be able to survive a nuclear explosion and ice age, have large antennae sort of thing and then scuttle and generally disappear when you switch on the light……NOT IN MY KITCHEN SCUSE ME.
Maybe I will experience his job satisfaction from hereonin because we have just had a weekend that was the first 100 degrees weekend and I have managed to make my legs go brown - you beautiful fair skin folk will understand the level of achievement here. I have tried to be responsible in this, building up slowly so 9 weeks not bad I think....Burnt my bum on the side of the sun lounger though and P burned finger ends when he first picked one up that had been left in direct sunlight for about 5 minuteswithout a towelling cover.
This was direct contrast to last week, our first major road trip..we did the bank holiday style weekend away with torrential rain…in San Antonio…allegedly four hours drive away. First picture coming up, found a reason to make an ambitious conversion.

Next two... For me if the boats were less gaudy the River walk would be even prettier.

My girls would be proud of me up the tower in a lift on the outside which was built for the 1968(?) World Fair. P was impressed and wondered if I would have the screaming ab dabs when I felt the darn thing sway..
the earth did move for me but I managed to keep my reaction under wraps.
The Alamo was the other reason for going

and the mustachioed chappy within.
I had hoped to get my big brother a Davy Crockett hat to replace the one our old boxer dog mauled in about 1967 but he and my other brother will have to make do with a mention of being there in spirit in the visitor's book. The quality of tourist products these days...and the fact that my brother's head is not the size it was when he wore short trousers. There were 15 Englishmen in the Alamo and I think 3 Scotsman and a couple of Welshman too...we were impressed.
Had dinner on Friday night in an old brothel come general store known as Liberty’s. Everything was on a slant, bar, walls, ceiling, floors etc. The most cosmopolitan place we have seen yet in Texas. It was also the longest we have been allowed to sit at a dinner table. Saturday night on the River walk was a combination of polite Hull City Centre Friday night rowdiness and traditional Mexican bands serenading diners. The trumpet playing was v melancholic.
Sunday we bought a new gaff in the German district ...
Then the drive home, the last time I gripped the dashboard in such a way was reversing down an almost single track, hairpin, dust road on the Susten Pass in Switzerland this was because the enormous spaghetti fuelled Fiat driver in front of us tried and failed dismally to apply mouth to engine resuscitation to his van which could not carry three of him up a 1 in 3 and so had commenced a reversing death slide, and hell anyways handbrakes are only for turns into parking spaces in the middle of Rome. Photo is a bit blurred to show full extent of cause of white knuckle ride but this went on for 30 minutes.
The photo is not taken at the deepest point as I was trying to tell where the edge of road was while P tried to judge the middle…did you know that fan belts whistle and slip when they get wet and it actaully only takes 6 inches of flowing water to move a 2 ton car (sorry...actually some of you probably do know that now). Like Hull there are counties in Texas awaiting the approval of federal funding to fix the flood damage.
Last one is the sunset over the Trinity River which is next to our apartment.
I had forgotten to mention the magical creatures for me…the fireflies at dusk, can’t capture them on film as shutter speed to slow. But they fill me with the same joy as fireworks..Simple soul I hear you say.
Oh and the HIM AND ME bit of the title…the name of the dentist with whom we have registered. Whilst a reference to the number of people at the practice I think it will be used as the opener when presenting the bill…That’s just $2,000 for the scale and polish. Bye to y'all and have a good conference to those to whom it means anything. xx