Photos sent with this message (and now available in this album) feature the alarmingly steep hill near the Bennetts' house in Austin, TX; the natural swimming pool at Barton Springs; the Texas capitol during the Aggie Day parade; the Texas School for the Blind and Vision Impaired where Gloria worked; and a day trip with Gypsy to Enchanted Rock State Park, the westmost point in my trip.

I got up this morning after 9:00, but Gypsy didn't get up until around noon, so I watched Ranma 1/2 episodes from her housemates' DVDs.  We went to lunch at Waffle house and then drove more than 2 hours to Enchanted Rock, a giant granite hill in the middle of the sandstone hill country.  It's definitely worth seeing!

We stopped for dinner in the tourist town of Fredericksburg on our way back to Austin.

This morning we exchanged the laptop hard disk for some memory, and I was able to get Rich's laptop fully functional in Knoppix -- but it still couldn't see it's hard disk.  Next step is to see if this is a documented problem.

Gypsy picked me up in the afternoon, and we drove to her house in a southwest neighborhood called Oak Hill.  Then we picked up some dinner and had a picnic -- it was a beautiful day -- at a little waterfall near where she used to work.  Then we caught the last matinee of "The Incredibles" and got some Lammes candies.

This morning Gloria took me into downtown to see the Aggie cadets parade down Congress on their way to the UT / A&M football game.  We ran so many errands along the way that we didn't get home for lunch until 2:30!

We bought hard disks for both Rich & Gloria's computers, and I made some progress with them in the aternoon.  We also stopped at Central Market, a sort of cross between the Wedge and Lunds, heavy on the customer service and free samples.

Today was spent mostly in getting ready for Thanksgiving dinner.  I made creamed onions using Velveeta as the sauce base, and Marisa's brother Sean -- whom I had consulted about how to melt cheddar -- didn't identify it as counterfeit, so I guess I disguised the Velveeta flavor well.  I also made egg nog.  Rich made devilled eggs, Gloria brought a low-carb pumpkin cheesecake, and they baked a turkey for leftovers (not to bring).

Today I mostly cleaned and dried my gear.  I went with Rich to get ingredients for tomorrow, but aside from that I just hung around the house.  Feels good!

I made it! I'm safe and sound in Austin, Texas, my home for the winter.

[posted to the Wheeled Migration Yahoo Group on November 23, 2004]

Today I passed through practically every extreme of weather... flooding, fog, cold, heat, dry air, humidity, hail, high winds, driving rain, gentle rain, and sunshine.  Through most of this I was in pretty heavy traffic with no shoulders.

I waited for dawn to wake me this morning, since I knew I had a short day of riding and my taillight is broken.  The rain held off until about 10 or 11, and then it fell practically nonstop until I reached my campsite after 3.

The high point of today was passing through Crawford, Texas: "Home of the Pirates, President George W. Bush and First Lady Laura Bush."  Oh, so they're pirates!  That explains a lot.  I have this vision of W dressed in pirate garb, saying, "Avast there!  Hand over yer booty ur prepare ta be barded!  Are ye with us or against us?  Arr!  Bring it on, ye scurvy evildoers!"