This is the first post of several covering this trip. You really should read them in order.
Today, my friend Roland and I left San Antonio to go a-wandering. While I've planned out a route on RoadTrippers (one of my favourite travel planning websites and the only one I pay money to use) the theme of the trip is as always: Every intersection is an opportunity to change plans.
I'd expected to get to Paris, Texas today. That plan was foiled by a late start -- we didn't get away from Roland's house until about 9:30 -- and an unplanned detour of about 60 miles caused by the driver's selection of the wrong highway immediately after lunch. (Lunch, by the way, was at a surprisingly interesting and inexpensive little cafe in Caldwell called the Pink Kangaroo, owned by an Australian ex-pat and her daughter.) If my little compass indicator on the rearview mirror -- not the most reliable source, but useful in this particular instance -- hadn't alerted me to the fact that I was headed southwest instead of northeast, we might be spending tonight in Port Arthur or Goliad instead of Sulphur Springs. Oh, well, who cares.
It was nice enough this morning to have the top down. We drove along the Death Loop (1604) and up 281 to Highway 46; along that road I felt a little lightheaded a couple of times, just for a moment or two each time, so we pulled into a parking lot so I could take my old-man meds. Have felt fine ever since.
In San Marcos I tried to switch on Google Maps. Every time I use that app, there's a problem of some kind, always a different one. Finally got it sorted after half a dozen attempts at changed settings and such; and after a while I remembered something I'd learned on the last trip: that it won't actually say anything unless the radio is on, and set to Bluetooth Audio. Now if I could just get it to say the names of the roads where I'm supposed to turn....
Our only real stop this morning was at the Dinosaur Park in Cedar Creek, east of Austin. I'd gone there a year or two ago, but got there just as they were closing. Today we got there around noon, so I got to walk through the entire park. It was much larger than I'd expected, probably more than 5 acres. There were dozens of dinosaur sculptures and other long-extinct creatures (dimetrodons, smilodons, pterosaurs, etc.) and the park managed to place them so that each one is invisible until you're right on top of it, so you don't see the "next" dinosaur until you've had a good look at each one. It's all very well done. (Roland didn't have the energy to walk the park, so he went back into the air conditioning and waited. I did not hurry.) Took a lot of pictures but haven't gone through them yet, so will post a link to the album when I get it set up, maybe tomorrow.
Here, though, is a single picture to tease your interest:
After that we put the top up. It hit 105 this afternoon. Tomorrow (and the rest of the trip) should be a little cooler, but we won't be surprised if the top goes up every afternoon.
Click on "Newer Post" below for the next installment of this gripping story.
