The Adventures of Sunsette -- Texas y'all! -- memories (Apr. 18)

[davidd]

Savor your last few days in the sunny southland! It sounds like there is more than enough to keep one entertained and amused there in your part of Texas.

I'm somewhat surprised to see that a memorial to a Confederate general still exists. A few years ago there was a major push in the US, similar to Mao's Great Leap Forward in China in the 1960s, to erase American history, and in particular any public acknowledgement of the Confederacy of the 1860s.

They look to be interesting murals depicting the evolution of Texas history from the era of General Cleburne to the present, colorful and of an impressive size.

[Alliecat]

"Our housesit wound down quicker than ex-pected.  The people returned a couple of days early -- or rather, we didn't know exactly what day they were coming because they fly standby, and we thought it might be a couple of days later.  They wanted Mum to stay and visit, and Mum wanted to stay and visit, but Mrs. came home with a streaming cold, which, knowing the immune-draining long-haul trip home that awaited, Mum really didn't want.  So we ended up in a hotel for a couple of nights.  It was a nice enough hotel but in a very noisy location -- even before the 10-or-so emergency vehicles went screaming by.
"Our last adventure was a visit to the Grapevine Mills Aquarium, which Mum had glimpsed on a map but didn't ex-pect to be in the vicinity to go see.  It was sooo cool!"


"No flash allowed, so you can't really see me, but we thought this was cute.  Some areas have animated projections on the walls and floor, and in the first room, all these little crabs were running around.  One of these is about to punch the other out."



"Since we love chocolate, we had to have a picture with the Chocolate Chip Sea Star."



"There's a fun little exercise where you can pick a turtle to 'rescue' and it takes you through some of the ailments and injuries human activity causes them, and tells a little about how they are treated by rescue programs."



"Success! with our 'rescued' turtle."



"We're in a fabulous 360-degree tunnel."



"And we saw a couple of caimans up close."





"We are, very sadly and reluctantly, back to winter now, and back in the land of crummy internet where it took 45 minutes (three tries and finally two at a time) to upload these few photos and then access them.  We'll have a few more from the real cameras when Mum gets them downloaded.
"Thanks for reading!"

"Love, Sunsette  "

[davidd]

Caimans! When I was a kid they still sold caimans in some pet shops. I wanted on so badly! Of course my mother was wise enough to realize that trying to maintain an alligator would be an untenable proposition so she refused my begging.

Still, it woulda been so cool.

Your picture and description of the crab projections makes me feel homesick for da North Shore. I used to sit out on the beach and toss little bits of chips or cookies to the sand crabs that scampered about.

Bummer about having to leave sooner than eected. Oh well, maybe you'll have an early spring. There was a woodpecker (actually, a Flickr) tapping on the side of the house today, and chipmunks are already emerging. There is, however, a chance of snow in the forecast for later this coming week.

Crummy internet means you need Starlink. Seriously, it's a game-changer (to employ a currently faddish colloquialism). Plus, business ex-pense (at least under the American tax system -- you need it for your journalism biz, right?).

Sunsette needs to find a "sit" in Florida next, seeing as she gets along with crocodilians so well!

[Alliecat]

maybe you'll have an early spring

Hah. [Interrupting Sunsette’s narrative to complain] The snow is knee-deep, covered with a layer of ice. When I got off the late boat at 10:30 I spent half an hour chopping my way into the garage. Last night I spent about 1 1/2 hours chopping snow and ice off the porches – up to 10 pound blocks at a time. Yesterday it snowed. Lows well below freezing are forecast for next week.
Florida would be nice. I have considered looking for housesits there.
As someone who is very interested in astronomy, I can’t quite bring myself to support the enterprise that is increasingly turbo-polluting our night skies with light trails as well as – have you ever looked at a tracker of just how many pieces of space junk now enshroud the Earth? Yikes

[davidd]

There was a time when putting all the stuff in to space which impacted the night sky bothered me more than it does. Sadly, air pollution in general has become so bad everywhere that even seeing a few stars is becoming a rare treat. Serious terrestrial astronomy is done for, I fear.

I feel sad whenever guests staying at the holiday rentals comment on how they cannot see any stars where they live. Even out here, in a "dark sky" zone, the light pollution from the cities miles away is having an effect, amplified by the amount of haze that seems to always be in the air.

Plus -- jet airliners. SO MANY PLANES! I could argue that any time we fly, we are contributing just as much to interfering with astronomical observations as do satellites.

I understand what you're saying, and I wish I could agree in full, but the pessimist in me says it's too late to matter at this point.

Yuck about the ice and snow. I've only had to chop away layers of ice one time -- and it was miserable.

[Alliecat]

"Hi!

"Nope, we're not in Texas again.  Sadly, Mum just turned down a three-peat sit for those lovely folks and wonderful kitty, because aside from da moneyz for all the plane tickets and car rental, she says she's done going over the border for a bit.  We'd like to have gone.

"But anyway, we have this penchant for not getting around to posting all the photos from our trips, (ahem, Mum) but here we are at last with a little catching up on the February trip, with a few more!  A little backtracking and we'll try not to repeat (much)."


"On our way south out of the cold.  This is the Maine coast."



"And there's New York City.  Somehow we ex-pected the collection of big buildings to be more widespread.  It looks small from up here."



"With cold weather forecast, we figured we better hustle and go to the Dallas Arboretum right away, instead of taking a day to rest.  It's such a great place."



"There are lots of water features."



"This pool is so neat, and we imagined what a fantabulous pool party a huge crowd of our full-size sisters could throw in it!  It's the perfect depth."



"We were happy to meet Amelia again.  We love this statue of her."



"We went to an orchid show.  It was small, but it was cool to see some different varieties."



"Mum loved this sunken garden."



"I mean, willya LOOK at this.  It's the middle of freakin February, and here are all these people lying around on the lawns like it's the middle of summer.  It really was a summery day.  In the middle of February.
"Yes, we are deprived living in the frozen north."



"The water walls were really cool too.  We'd love to have a garden with something like that in it."



"We should've had our pictures taken with these guys, but at this point it was nearly closing time and Mum was kind of hurrying to see a few last areas of the grounds before we got kicked out."



"Then we went to Dinosaur Valley State Park, which we posted more photos of in February."



"Outside the gift shop.  We think the better strategy here would've been to befriend the dinosaur and overwhelm it with cuteness.  We could've done that.  (Mum says she wants one of these for the hypothetical new garden at the hypothetical new house.)"



"The river walk was nice.  You couldn't see most of the dino tracks very well.  If you go back a page or so, you can see the photos we posted of those."






"And then we did a rather long hike up to a lookout point, which was quiet and un-peopley, and really nice.  Look at all that space."

"Mum promised to sort the rest too, so, more to come!  Thanks for reading."

"Love, Sunsette   "

[davidd]

Your pictures make the Dallas area look much nicer than my ex-perience of that area. When I've driven through Texas (several times to and from Florida), I've made a point to bypass the ginormous Dallas / Fort Worth area.

Funny how you think NYC looks small from the air. Last time I flew, the plane passed directly over Dallas, and the sprawl seemed to go on forever. Maybe "the west" is more sprawling while "the east" is compact. I don't know. At this point, the population density in rural Utah is becoming too much. Seems like every farm and field is being converted in to row houses, town houses, and densely packed subdivisions.

That sunken garden looks almost tempting enough to lure me in to Dallas some day. I love the "water wall." Will you add a "water wall" to your new garden?

So "house sitters" actually pay for their own airline tickets and their own rental cars and everything? That seems like it could get quite ex-pensive. I mean, what, then, is the appeal of "house sitting" or "pet sitting" over staying in a motel?

Did somebody chisel the eyes out the face of the cowboy on that lookout point monument? That's pretty sick. That is, "sick" meaning "depraved" as opposed to "sick" as in "gnarly" like in sk8r or surfer lingo.

[Alliecat]

what, then, is the appeal of "house sitting" or "pet sitting" over staying in a motel?

"Um, cos you get somewhere to stay for FREEEE?  For anything from a couple of days to months?  In a house, which if you pick right could be a nice posh house, where you can feel at home and have some space instead of squatting in a motel room?  And you can be somewhere nicer than strip-mall-strips and be in a place as a little more of a resident and less of a hotel-room-tourist.  And you can shop for groceries and cook healthier meals in a kitchen if you want to instead of $cavenging for re$taurant takeout.  And you get the companionship of animals and the lovely energy of sharing a space with them.  You're on holiday and sightseeing but you get to spend evenings with a kitty on your lap.  Or on the end of the bed at night.  You get cuddles and playtime and rambles around the yard with them, or walkies if it's a dog.  And you meet interesting people and have great discussions about Life, The Universe And Everything instead of just hi and bye with motel-desk clerks, and maybe end up as friends who keep in touch.  And when it's done and you get a good review you get the satisfaction of having helped someone out with something important, and knowing that they trusted you with caring for their home and fur babies and that they were glad they did.  Because it's an awesome way to travel!"

"Some homeowners will offer a car.  Mum has not taken one up on the offer because if anything happened, she prefers to keep the hassle out of the housesit and just with a rental car company.  ...And yes, someone did wreck that plaque.  Great housesits aside, some people just suck."


"OK, next chapter."

"We went to the Fort Worth Zoo, where there weren't a lot of photos taken of Scarlett and me.  It was pretty good, minus the primate house.  Mum thought the dejected orangutan was one of the saddest things she'd ever seen.  The rest was good, although, once again, we ran out of time for everything.  We should really start earlier."


"For something like $7, I think it was, they'd give you 3 or 4 lettuce leaves to feed the giraffes.  We got food for free with admission at the safari place last time."



"This is Bubbles the hippo, whose pic in her tank we posted in February."



"OK, can we all please just take a moment to acknowledge the SUPREME AWESOMENESS of TIGERS?"









"I mean, LOOK at this FUR.  Do you not want to SMOOSH him???   "



"The housesit folks left these lovely sunflowers for Mum."



"...and, ya know, because it's already like summer down there, they were probably freshly grown somewhere nearby..."






"Big enough to nap on!"



"Of course it was freezing while we were there, so on a gloomy cold day we had to do our best with photos on the kitchen table."



"Our new friend Kit, whom Mum had been looking for, for a while, and who amazingly showed up at a used-book shop just 20 minutes away; she had her introduction a while back."






"And we posted some pix already of the Frontiers of Flight Museum at the Dallas airport, which was fabulous and we should have gone a LOT earlier as -- all together now -- 'we ran out of time...'
"We love airplanes almost as much as we love tall ships."






"With all the models, we thought there was lots of potential for more we-sized things."



"Everything in the museum has flown.  This was our favourite.  Isn't it cooool?"



"We saw a piece of the moon!!!"

"Thanks for reading!
"Love, Sunsette  "

[davidd]

Thanks for the additional info about house sitting! That all makes sense!

Early starts are not one of my strengths, either, but getting going before noon is kind of essential when sight-seeing. I've done my share of "speed tours" through museums, exhibits, and parks.

That looks like an amazing aviation museum! And you definitely have a "need for speed" if the Blue Angels jet is your favorite rather than the V-173 Flying Flapjack! Or the JN-4D "Jenny" biplane!

Have you ever considered resuming flying lessons?

Seven dollars, or about two dollars per leaf, for lettuce? I thought it was eggs that were ex-pensive!

So Kit is a Texas gal, huh? Does she speak with an accent? Does she say things like "Howdy, y'all"?