Guest Blog Summer 2012

 

 

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.   

Isaac ponders his options

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.

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