Kate Ryan Williams: Texas Travels

We've been on the road for almost two weeks. It just kind of happened. We were only going for a weekend visit to see Aquaman's folks and next thing we knew, we'd been gone for eleven days. Eleven days of fun and sun, food and drink, and friends and relatives can really take it out of you. Here are some highlights:

We began our days of leisure at T-Bone Tom's Steakhouse Restaurant in Kemah. We'd been here once several years ago, but that was before we'd seen it highlighted on Diners, Drive-Ins & Dives - one of our favorite shows on Food Network. Now that we knew what Guy Fieri recommended, we confidently ordered the armadillo eggs. In fact, this is all Thing 1 ordered. These are little gut bombs of pulled pork stuffed jalapenos rolled in breading and deep fried. My, my.

Oh. My. Lanta. As in Mylanta. Better yet, just pass the Tums.

We also ordered the appetizer sampler, a chicken fried steak sandwich and some barbecued brisket. It was all good, but perhaps the best was their cream gravy. Never had any richer or creamier. I highly recommend it. We couldn't finish everything, of course, and ended up carrying around the leftovers the rest of the afternoon as we went to a few stores and an afternoon showing of The Amazing Spider-Man. I did not think The Amazing Spider-Man was amazing. I thought it was cheesy and campy. But what do I know? The boys and Aquaman loved it.

The boys got some quality time with the grandparents while Aquaman and I had a few nights to ourselves in Galveston. Aquaman got to go spearfishing while I got some work done on my laptop. The fruits of his labor (and speargun) were red snapper, ling and sheepshead that we distributed among friends and family over the next few days.

Our travels next took us to San Marcos to visit my best friend from college who was also the Maid of Honor at our wedding and who, with her husband, serves as godparents to Thing 1 and Thing 2. She has her own little family now - a little boy and little girl who are cutie-patooties. Here are all of our children playing together:

Thing 2, reclining in a chair entirely too small for him.

And yes, The Redhead is wearing a Krispy Kreme hat because what self-respecting person would pass by a Krispy Kreme restaurant with the HOT DONUTS neon sign on and not go in? Even if you did just eat too many buffalo wings next door...

The boys worked off their donuts at the river the next morning.

My goal was to get myself to The Wittliff Collections at Texas State University to see the exhibit on Rick Riordan before it closed July 15th. Mission accomplished.

A fellow Texan, Riordan was a teacher who slowly but surely went from unknown to known writer. He is most often recognized for the Percy Jackson series, but was quite an accomplished mystery writer before that. I adored reading The Lightning Thief (the first book in the series) aloud to my seventh grade students. Riordan donated all of his personal papers to the Wittliff. The exhibit included original manuscripts, personal photos (I'd like to point out that while Riordan is a graduate of UT-Austin, the exhibit included a baby picture of him in a Texas Aggies onesie. WHOOP!) and his first rejection letter, received when he was 12 years old.

This place was made for writers. I enjoyed it immensely and hope to get back again to other exhibits.

Despite being caught in a major thunderstorm, we made the drive to Lake Brownwood where we met up with my cousins, aunt and uncle on my dad's side. There ensued lots of swimming, fishing, good eating, good conversation, and excellent napping interspersed with birthday celebrations and a baby shower thrown in for good measure. Amazingly, all of our children get along. There's just something about cousins...