For all of
Jay’s loyal blog readers who have been wondering what he’s been doing all
summer….I offer this guest post:
It has been
a quiet Summer of Jay 8, with a lot of reading on the couch, hanging out with
Beau and Milford, and doing a variety of small home maintenance projects while
he’s out of school. A few new lunch
spots have been explored, but the most regular option exercised has been
breakfast tacos at Julio’s, just up the street.
Early
on in the summer our youngest nephews, Elijah and Isaac, each visited for some
miniature golf and general fun.
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| Isaac ponders his options |
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| Elijah enjoys a snowcone at the end (the T-Rex is not very intimidating)
I saw them
again with their Mom and little sister when I went to Grand Junction to visit
my parents. (Jay stayed home to take
care of the pets.)
Taking care
of the pets has been a big theme this summer.
As many of you may know, we lost Sydney to kidney failure at the end of
April, and that has left us sticking pretty close to home except for those
occasions when we can schedule pet sitters to stay at the house.
We were able
to organize enough pet care to see Jay’s family this summer too, traveling to
Arlington on Father’s Day weekend to see Jerry and Brenda as well as Jo Carolyn
and family. A weekend in Longview with
Mary Joe and Jim introduced us to both a lovely East Texas vineyard and the
Kilgore Oil Museum. I confess to some
reluctance about the museum, but of course Jay was right and it was pretty
interesting. (You can see a picture of
his Great Aunt Nancy there!)
Our
“big” summer trip was a long weekend in Estes Park and Denver. We looked at a map and asked ourselves,
“What’s the closest place that won’t be hot?”
With Southwest Airlines’ direct flight to Denver, Rocky Mountain
National Park won the contest hands down.
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As we
usually spend most of our time in Colorado on the western side of the mountains,
we were stunned to see the proliferation of Medical Marijuana Clinics (or
“MMC”s as they are sometimes discretely labeled) throughout the Denver area and
the eastern slope. Yet civilization
appears intact.
Jay indulged
my affection for a PBS documentary about old amusement parks with a trip to
Lakeside Park in Denver on the last night of our trip.
The picture you see below is of me barely able to
pass the height limit test to drive the race cars. Yes, the state of Texas has licensed me to
drive an actual car for more than 25 years, but I barely met Lakeside’s 59 inch
limit for this vintage ride!
I know Jay’s
blog topics usually include some music and politics, but there hasn’t been much
of the former this summer, and I’ve declared a temporary moratorium on the
latter. We spent some time in Denver at
their main public library – which as it turns out is fabulous in terms of both architecture
and collections. Built 15 years ago, it
still looks new and is a great example of a public building fulfilling many
roles. We hope the City of Austin does
as well with the one we are building, but we aren’t too optimistic. I think that might be a metaphor (or is it a
simile?) for my hopes about the presidential election.
Jay is of
course a much better prognosticator of such things. You should ask him what he thinks!
Best to all
his readers,
Jay’s lovely
wife
