"We shall not cease from exploration and the end of all our exploring will be to arrive where we started and know the place for the first time." T. S. Eliot
We began to settle into a routine in our new Texan home.
Sunny Fayetteville.
The girls admirably stuck to their fitness routine.
I worked very hard on my never ending homework. Every once in a while one of my master's class teachers has a "everyone just teach themselves" philosophy which makes things much less pleasant and much more time consuming.
I did so much homework that we ran out of wine. This time we visited Rosemary's Vineyard and Winery. They actually had a curbside system in place which was nice.
You never knew what sort of crazy animal you were going to see next back at the ranch.
We had some more Tex-Mex.
We bought some rubber ducky inflatables just for this occasion.
The property wasn't like a full scale commercial ranch or anything but they did have 10-20 cows hanging around as like a side project.
After waking up to our first Texas morning in lovely Fayetteville, the first item on our agenda was to do a supply run into town.
There wasn't a ton to see in the area which was kind of calming. With nothing to see I could concentrate on doing absolutely nothing. During covid there's a certain amount of stress that comes from the presence of other people. Being in a place where not that many people were was a way to unwind. While there wasn't a ton going on, we did happen to be in a sort of Texan wine country, so we made a point of sampling some of the local vintners' wares.
It was about to get real crumbly.
Lydia did a good job experimenting with a lot of different Tex-Mex cuisine. I'm always amused by the fact that every dish contains the exact same four ingredients.
There was a pool near our guesthouse that we made an appearance at. It was quite a center of local wildlife as it was probably the only water source for quite a distance. For example wasps kept landing on its surface to drink which I was impressed by the physics of.
After some more Tex-Mex for dinner we headed out into the Tex for a night stroll.
We had a little dessert. Texas sheet cake, of course.
Lydia and Zoe have a great aunt Paula that lives near Fayetteville, Texas. At this stage in the end of the world COVID-19 pandemic we don't really enter any building other than our apartment. So hotels, public restrooms, grocery stores, etc. are all lava as far as I'm concerned. We came up with a pretty sweet plan, then, to visit Aunt Paula and be able to avoid cooties. They have a guest house that fit the bill perfectly. Zoe entered our bubble of trust by not doing any of her usual Zoe activities and by taking a covid test before the trip.
Some of the usual abuse that I endure at a rest stop in Arkansas. As hotels were out of the question we did the 13ish hour drive in one day.
To avoid public restrooms the girls tried their pee cones with mixed success. I, the hero of the story, simply did not go to the bathroom the entire trip there. I'm like a pee camel. Like a heroic camel of pee.
All of that time afforded us the opportunity to do some audio book listening. We finished Kitchen Confidential: Adventures in the Culinary Underbelly by Anthony Bourdain in no time. Bourdain read the book aloud, which was nice. I think that he was a special person and his go everywhere and eat everything style really spoke to me, and I was saddened to hear of his death.
Driving through the countryside always serves as a good reminder that the countryside is full of human excrement.
The setting sun was really painting the sky today so it was nice that I had nothing but time to watch it sink below the horizon.
Aunt Paula's guest house was on the second floor above a garage. One of the tips they gave us that I distinctly recall was to keep a look-out for scorpions. Joke was on them because I've been on scorpion watch every day of my life.
Nice place ya got here. Be a shame if... scorpions.
"Hey people from other countries: F you! Also cereal!"
As this was the first time we had been indoors with another human in like half a year I figured I would buy some fancy booze to celebrate. I grabbed a bottle of Cuervo Reserva De La Familia Tequila 2018 Edition. We tried a bit of it in a cave on the Jose Cuervo tour in Tequila, Mexico and it was pretty darn good.
They have a different artist do the box art every year, and this the artwork they were promoting during our trip so that made it even more fun.
