I'm Back

Well, I’ve obviously been out of pocket for a while. We had the first Pierce family vacation in several years, and so I had been out of town for a few days. We all had a very nice time.

This year, we basically repeated a vacation that we had taken a little over ten years ago. (We Pierces have a habit (not a bad one) of going to the same places we’ve gone before.) First, we spent a few days in Galveston. We had gone there years before for mine and Kalyn’s first look at the ocean, and that trip had been something of a failure. Among other things that went wrong, Kalyn and I only got to spend about twenty minutes in the Gulf. I’ve gotten to go back since then to the ocean (including Hawaii), but Kalyn hadn’t. So, we thought we would go back to Galveston to do some of the things we didn’t get to do before. Galveston’s also the place where my parents spent their honeymoon, so we wanted to see some of the places they went then.

And Galveston’s really a wonderful place. It’s sort of like a little New Orleans—gaudy, trashy, beautiful, and utterly fascinating. We spent a lot of time going through some of the beautiful old mansions there that survived the hurricane of 1900, and we went down to all of the shops that are built along the port. We ate some great seafood. We rode the ferry. And, of course, we spent a lot of time swimming which was so much fun. Swimming was particularly fun on the second day we were there because, for some reason, there were thousands and thousands of minnow-like fish in the water all around us and hundreds of gulls and some pelicans around us trying to get an easy dinner. It probably sounds a little gross (though we were able to get away from the fish when we wanted to), but it was pretty cool to see.

After staying a couple of days, we went down to San Antonio, which I always love. I’ve been there a lot of times in the last few years, but none of us had been to Fiesta Texas or to the zoo in over a decade. Those were both places we loved when we were little, and we decided to go back. The zoo has changed a lot over the years, and it was really beautiful. The coolest thing (at least for me) was that I developed a fascination with cranes this summer (I have no idea why), and they had a large “Cranes of the World” exhibit visiting. Fiesta Texas was also a lot of fun. The shows were great, and the rides were fun (though they’ve left me with an aching back).

Anyway, it was a nice few days, but now I’m glad to be in Menard for a couple more weeks. (And I’m definitely not ready to go back to Lubbock.)