September. The beginning of fall. The air starts to cool, and there’s a different smell in the air. Pumpkin spice everything gets hawked. People start to make chili and roasts and warm apple pies. But not here. We had a couple days somewhere in the middle where I thought we might have some relief, but it was short-lived. Still, whether intentionally or by circumstance, we stayed busy.

Everything started out nicely enough. We had a three-day weekend that we tried to leave mostly unplanned. We had friends over for a delightfully informal dinner, wherein we tried one of my new favorite side dishes – Hatch Chile Creamy Rice Casserole! I like working in the kitchen, and I even like the smell of chiles roasting in the oven. But I do not enjoy peeling the skin from said roasted chiles one tiny little bit, and I still thought this casserole was worth making.

The kids had been asking and asking Sean to re-teach them how to roller skate. Plus, Maya had a skating birthday party to attend and wanted to practice up a bit so she’d feel more comfortable. I hung out and helped get skates on feet, but owing to my messed up spine, I chose not to actually participate. They seemed to have fun, and at least Maya was willing to skate around the rink on her own by the end of that first outing. When she went to her best friend’s birthday the next weekend, she was able to participate without as much worry, which is nice.

We had been battling a slow drain / weird clog situation at our kitchen sink. We had deployed a plunger, a plumbing snake, hot water, even mild cursing, but to no reasonable avail. Well, apparently the clog moved downstream in the plumbing chain, which we found out later when water started gushing from our washing machine’s supply line as I was running a load of laundry!

We eventually gave up and ran Drano through the line, and even that took a couple tries before the clog mercifully resolved. The two (semi-)grownup Woodses were so relieved. Maya and Ian were mostly just curious about the new disaster.

We managed to get cub scout Ian his uniform together so he could dress properly for his September pack meeting. He got to race minnows! His minnow was funny. It took sort of a meandering approach to traversing its swim lane, and Ian was sure he’d lose. Then all of a sudden, that minnow darted to the end and back again, almost too quickly for us to follow. He won the race. Then the kids got to field test every variety of popcorn they’d be selling for their fundraiser. Ian was so thoughtful; he saved some of his popcorn so that I could try all the flavors as well.

We took the kids to the Alamo Drafthouse to watch the “Gran Turismo” movie. Our two little gamers seemed to love the notion that a regular gamer kid could get to be a real race car driver! Also, while anyone who’s watched the underdog makes the grade trope, knew what was coming, it was all new and amazing to the kids. There were audible cheers. They were genuinely uplifted. It was fun to watch.

Maya learned that she got one of the speaking parts in the musical her after school choir group will be performing in December. They’re doing a school-age adaptation of “Seussical” and she’s going to be Mrs. Mayor. On the day the parts were announced, she was very put out because she had her heart set on being one of the cats. She came around though and now is back to being excited about the whole production.

The kids had outgrown the tie-dye shirts that we had made for father’s day a few years back. Sean may have <ahem> outgrown his as well. And because they were father’s day gifts, we hadn’t even made one for me. Sean spent maybe a week or so getting all the variously sized t-shirts ordered and washed and ready to go, and then we spent an afternoon trying our hand at different tie-dye patterns. Maya’s and Ian’s turned out the best – our figuring is that dye distribution is a little easier in a smaller shirt. We each have another shirt or two that we didn’t get to because we ran out of both stamina and appropriately colored dye.

Ian has been learning knife safety as part of his cub scouts training. As a third grader, he’s currently striving for his Bear rank, and these knife safety and usage skills are part of a unit called Bear Claws. Ian knows how to sharpen his bear claw, safely transfer it to another person, and even do some introductory whittling with it. We don’t let him keep his pocket knife in his room, but he’s definitely getting better at safely using it. Maya, who’s historically been afraid of knives, has been willing to chop a few things with my kitchen knives and has even expressed interest in learning the same skills that Ian is learning.

One weekend, Sean willingly woke up super early and drove all the way to Hye to the Garrison Brothers Distillery, maybe an hour and fifteen minutes away from us to be there when they opened the doors so he could buy a bottle of the very limited release of their Cowboy Bourbon. Sean is patently NOT an early bird, except for Disney park days. Apparently he’ll also get up early for hard liquor – who knew?!

He arrived around 8:20 (they had opened at 8 that day) and was greeted with literally a mile-long car line. The release was 9600 bottles, so I think he was feeling pretty good about his odds. Each car was only allowed to purchase a single bottle per adult occupant, so it seemed likely he’d get his bourbon. Further down the line, he heard from a video crew who was on sight shooting that Garrison actually only had a thousand bottles to sell that morning; the rest had been distributed to retail establishments. At that point, it became less of a sure thing.

The folks at Garrison Brothers have this down to a science evidently – the intrepid bourbon buyers don’t even have to exit their vehicle to score their bottle – so after a little over an hour of creeping along in that car line, Sean had his Cowboy Bourbon in hand and was on his way back to Austin. We don’t know when they sold out, but as Sean was leaving, there was still a huge line of cars so no doubt the thousand bottles were sold.

The bourbon acquisition was on a Saturday. That Sunday, it was a hundred stupid degrees outside. Sunday night, a weird freak storm blew through – we got emergency warnings about 2-inch hail and high winds. In Round Rock, that hail was legit – people had car windows and house windows shattered. The car dealerships took lots of damage. At our house, there was some rain and high wind. At one point, we heard a sound like a branch hitting our roof. It was dark, and with all this mess going on, we didn’t really want to go out and examine things right then, but we did see a biggish branch – trunk maybe the size of my forearm – that likely blew into our roof.

Imagine my astonishment on Monday morning once it was light outside. I was blithely making my coffee, not paying a great deal of attention, when I finally looked up to see that a huge branch had crashed into our roof. It definitely damaged one of the gutters and may have messed with some of the roof a bit, but for the size of the limb, we’re probably lucky that’s all that happened. Sean took the morning off and sawed the limb up to at least get the weight of it off of our roof.

I have had a “bad back” for a while. I initially just took it as a sign I was getting older; these things happen. But it seemed like it was getting worse as time marched on, and one day (this was several months ago), I leaned over to pick something up from the floor and felt an intense pain that I’d like very much to never feel again. Over the course of minutes or hours, I don’t recall, that pain dwindled, but it was just another sign that I needed to get my back looked at.

I had X-rays that seemed to show disc degeneration. The orthopedist I was seeing said he wouldn’t make any recommendations without an MRI, and insurance wouldn’t pay for an MRI unless I had tried an 8-week course of PT first. My thinking was that the PT would be good for me regardless, so why not. I did the PT, and while I feel stronger, it didn’t fully mitigate the pain (and I already knew that disc degeneration was irreversible, so I wasn’t surprised). By that time, I was deep in the throes of summer vacations and back to school planning and all those things, so it wasn’t till September that I managed to schedule an MRI.

Sure enough, as seen in the x-ray, there’s lumbar disc degeneration – one disc is completely gone. There’s one nerve pinched, but for the most part, the nerves are undamaged and have plenty of room. Given all this, the orthopedist doesn’t recommend surgery, no spinal fusion, anything like that. This isn’t really a treatable condition apparently. It’s a little frustrating because the post-MRI visit was so abrupt. I think I need to keep doing PT and avoid lifting heavy things. (“Don’t move a couch,” the orthopedist chuckled.) He directed me to another office that could do some sort of injections to help with the pain. He recommended I get a relationship built with them before the pain is severe.

Mentally, I need to find a constructive way to deal with this. Already, every time I turn around, I see another thing I cannot do because of the pain it will cause or the damage it might do. This is all happening at the same time my middle-aged brain is losing track of things and my middle-aged eyes are adapting to a newfound farsightedness that seems to evolve on a daily basis. I’m worn down.

Everything in me wants to preserve what I have left of my spinal function, but I’m a little vague on how to do that. All that orthopedist wants to talk about is pain management. I’m not sure what kind of health care professional I need to seek out to obtain solid advice, but so far, I’m just trying to common sense my way through it, which I fear will only take me so far.

Anyhow, it’s not like I’m bedridden, so hopefully there’s hope. And in the meantime, both kids had really good parent teacher conferences, they seem to be enjoying their extracurricular activities, and we’re all excited that it’s finally, finally managed to cool off a little now that we’re a week into October.

I know in my heart of hearts that it’s foolish to bitch about the heat in Texas, especially in August, but this summer has been a doozy. It’s barely rained since May and the heat has been insane. We broke a record sometime this past month for number of 100+ degree days in a row. 2011 has been the year with the most 100+ degree days (at something like 90 of them), but this year has been every bit as brutal.

I just checked – Lake Travis is at 38.2% full as of September 4th. This isn’t as low as it’s ever been, but it’s worrisome all the same. I just checked our forecast for the next ten days – not a drop of rain in sight. I used to chuckle over some of our tourist literature – “300 days of sunshine” it said. I remember thinking that that was an awfully rose-colored view given our summers.

Thanks to our extreme drought conditions and the subsequent water restrictions, most of the yard is some degree of brown and crispy. We haven’t grilled all summer for fear an errant spark will start a fire. Our cold water currently measures 86 degrees Fahrenheit. Our local weather folks have told us these oppressive temperatures are in part courtesy of something called a heat dome. Evidently there was a huge and unmoving area of high pressure around us trapping in warm air from the gulf and from Mexico. That warm air evaporated the ground moisture from our nice mild spring, and once the ground was good and dry, any evaporative cooling we may have enjoyed was gone gone gone.

Thankfully, we’ve mostly been able to escape indoors this August. Lots of movie nights and family game nights and arts and crafts nights. Anything to not go outside. Even the cacti and succulents are losing the good fight. Even the weeds are browning.

Early in the month, we tried out the Museum of Illusions. It was probably a little expensive for what wound up being maybe an hour-long outing for us, but it was entertaining regardless. Plus, Ian at the time had been on a tear creating “impossible drawings” (things like the Penrose triangle) so it was fun to let him lean into that a little bit.

Maya liked bits of it I think, but spent much of the time feeling bored and audibly wishing she could not be there. She seemed to like trying to solve some of the puzzles toward the end, so at least that part was fun for her. And either way, we got a few fun photos out of the deal.

We had a night early in the month where we hung out with a few friends and played board games. I am ambivalent about board games and so for me mostly it was about trying out some interesting recipes and socializing a bit. For example, we learned that bacon wrapped pickles are friggin’ delicious. The recipe calls for smoking them, but 1 – reference my earlier commentary about our intense drought and 2 – Maya doesn’t like smoke. I made them in the oven instead and they were divine.

For our entire 20-something year history together, Sean has not been a tequila guy, much to my chagrin. However, after sampling this spicy margarita punch that I made for the event, he may be a changed man. Since then, we’ve tested out a handful of tequila and mezcal cocktails together, and I’m delighted to say that he seems to have turned a corner. Hooray!

The kids’ school ice cream social was on August 10th. It’s an opportunity for the kids to meet their new teachers and see their classrooms before the first day of school. The kids, especially Maya, have been looking forward to school starting so they can see more of their friends. Just before back to school night, we learned who the kids’ teachers would be. Maya found out that while she had one teacher, two of her best friends had a different teacher. To add insult to injury, this teacher that her friends were with had student-taught Maya in 4th grade and Maya absolutely adored her. She put on a brave face, but you could tell she was upset.

Ian had a guitar performance at a local coffee shop with his guitar teacher, Chris. It was a sort of low-key open-mic affair and for the first few songs, I’m not sure sure people really paid them much attention. I think it wasn’t till Ian started belting out AC/DC’s Thunderstruck on his nylon-stringed classical guitar, something familiar, that people noticed. He and Chris garnered some polite, coffee-house applause for their efforts.

And then on August 14th, the kids went back to school. Back to lunch rooms and recesses and homework assignments. Back to drop off and pick up and the end of the day discussion of how their days went. So far, the kids both seem to like their classrooms well enough. All the same-grade kids have recess together, so Maya still gets to see and play with her friends during the day.

Every year around August, our local Central Market grocery store celebrates hatch chile season. These delicious chiles are ripe and ready for harvest from Hatch, NM around this time, and Central Market (and many local restaurants) put them in everything. The smell coming from the grocery store grounds at this time of year is divine as they roast chiles and huge open-air drums outside the store. You can choose to buy them hot or mild, fresh or roasted. For me though, the fun is all the hatch-flavored stuff they wind up concocting.

Sean went foraging for goodies this year – he’s our primary grocery shopper. Let’s see if I can remember all the things he came back with (many of which wound up in the freezer): a whole hatch roasted chicken, hatch macaroni and cheese, fresh hatch sausages, hatch marinated salmon, hatch marinated shrimp, hatch crab cakes, hatch marinated chicken thighs, hatch marinated flank steak, hatch burgers, hatch hummus, hatch cheese, hatch tortillas, dried hatch enchilada sauce mix, hatch chocolate chip cookies, hatch creme sandwich cookies, hatch tamales, hatch cheddar biscuits, hatch sourdough crisps, and hatch cheese puffs.

And so far, except for the cheese puffs, everything has been really good! We ate the chicken and macaroni that very evening, still-warm from the store. All four of us really liked salmon and shrimp. And it’s been fun since then taking things slowly out of the freezer week over week and stretching out our hatch chile enjoyment.

On that Sunday, both Sean and Maya started feeling a bit under the weather – sniffly noses, headaches. As a precaution Monday morning (the second whole week of school, for anyone keeping track), we gave Maya a covid test. On the initial 15 minute run, only the control line showed up, but on glancing at the test a little while later, there it was: a faint positive line. I called the school and Maya was dismayed to find out she’d have to stay home for the entire week. She didn’t feel too terrible, so I went ahead and fetched some of her homework from school and that helped occupy her time a little, but for the most part, she was bored and frustrated.

Thankfully, Ian and I managed to avoid infection. I don’t know if it made a difference, but we wore masks around the house during the first few days. We ate our meals separately, and I slept in the living room. (They tested on Thursday evening and once no positive result appeared, even after a full hour of waiting, we chose to ditch our at-home precautions.) But Maya had to miss school for a week already, miss her first swim lesson, and miss her piano lesson for the week, none of which impressed her.

Maya and Ian have played soccer for the past couple seasons. Both of them seemed interested in testing out some other things, so we’ve decided to skip out on soccer this fall. Ian is still taking weekend archery lessons, and they’ve both started swim lessons with an eye toward joining swim team once they qualify. Maya has also again joined her after school choir group. And Ian has decided to try out cub scouts.

Ian’s first pack meeting was toward the end of August, and I’m gonna be honest: all of this is a little overwhelming. I have managed to register him with scouts, buy him a pack t-shirt, and get him to that first meeting. But I’ve not yet bought his uniform or handbook, signed him up for any of the events, nor figured out what’s going on with popcorn selling business. One of his friends from class, who also happens to be in the weekend archery lessons with him, is in scouts as well, so Ian is pretty excited. During their first pack meeting, they made rockets, and Ian’s rocket both held together and flew pretty well. Now his mother just needs to get her crap together.

Every summer, we daydream about living somewhere with a milder climate, but this summer may be the one that finally does it. We’ve floated the idea past the kids a little, just so they know we’re thinking about it. Maya, who is very attached to her friends, is dead-set against moving away from Austin. Even though she wishes she could play outside more, even though she wishes it would snow more, even though she likes the idea of maybe being a little closer to her grandparents, she does not want to leave. We Woodses don’t tend to move quickly, so she probably doesn’t have much to worry about for a while.

I know that’s not a very clever title, but we spent a lot of time on the road in July. We started with our family road trip throughout Arkansas. Then we made a long round trip drive to collect Maya and Ian from Camp LolliPop. And finally, we drove to Caddo Mills and back one weekend so that Maya and I could collect on one of our Christmas 2022 gifts. For two adults who don’t have a commute, July saw quite a few miles added to the odometer.

Sean and I had the whole week after our Arkansas trip to ourselves while the kids were in Alabama with Lolli and Pop. We didn’t have a reason for sending them off other to let them spend more time with their grandparents, so it’s not like we had a lot going on at home. Both of us were in catch-up mode at our jobs, Sean especially. We tried and failed to replace a faucet in the kitchen early in the week, and I think that may have hampered our enthusiasm for household projects.

We did manage to stop by the Celis Brewery to try a few beers and stock up our garage fridge. We also took advantage of Maya’s absence to cook a favorite octopus dish of ours. Despite what happened when she was three, Maya is now steadfastly against the consumption of octopus. In deference to her, we don’t eat it when she’s around, but we were happy to take the opportunity while she was in Alabama. The recipe we made comes from “The Magic of Tinned Fish” by Chris McDade. It features smashed and fried potatoes, fried tinned octopus, and a lovely drizzle of homemade aioli.

Meanwhile, Lolli and Pop made sure the kids’ visit was chock-full of fun. For one, to Maya and Ian’s immense delight, they spent hours at the pool nearly every day. Ian started off his week referring to the Homewood pool as the waterpark, so much did he enjoy the pool’s amenities. Maya came back to us an acorn-brown color on her back and arms.

They went to Okinawa restaurant one day where the kids again discovered they like sushi. At a different restaurant, Ian discovered that he liked bacon and egg omelets. They “discovered” that they like cake and ice cream too!

On Monday, they all went to Chattanooga! One of the things they did was take the Missionary Ridge Local train ride offered by the Tennessee Valley Railroad. I don’t know if it’s still true, but generally speaking, Maya especially is a big fan of pretty much any kind of mass transit, so hopefully she had fun. They also went to the Tennessee Aquarium, which I know they loved. They were both full of stories about a giant pacific octopus who wasn’t just sitting still but actually swimming around.

They went one day to see the Dill Pickers perform; Maya and Ian needed a little humor and bluegrass in their lives. Then they all went and watched a Birmingham Children’s Theatre production of Treasure Island. Another day they went to Chuck E Cheese. I am pleased to tell you that it’s the first time they’ve ever been, and I’m not sure we’ve bothered to let them know that there are some Chuck E Cheeses in Austin too.

We’ve been referring to it as Camp LolliPop. Lolli and Pop kept those kids BUSY. When we Facetimed them in the evenings, Maya and Ian seemed like they had better things to do than talk to us boring bozos.

When their week was over, we met Harry in Jackson, MS to pick the kids up, and they seemed pretty sad to see the end of their visit. We’ve been trying to make the most of our little stopovers though. This time, we had some really solid bbq at a place called The Pig & Pint. It was there that we (mostly Sean) discovered we like a local beer called Colsons. It’s yellow, and Sean is not normally one to suffer yellow beer.

We stayed the night Jackson on Saturday and then drove back to Austin the next day. The drive home was especially long since we had just driven the 8 or 9 hours to get to Jackson the day before, but we managed well enough. Once back home, the kids settled into kind of a mope. Home was so boring compared to their super fun week with Lolli and Pop. Mom and Dad had to do their boring jobs and couldn’t run kids to the pool or the park every day. No fun at all.

Ian did get to go to a bouldering camp the week they were back, which he loved. On the first day, he was pretty nervous about the whole thing, but every day after that, he’d point out that if he got there early, he could play with his friends. Maya had been signed up for a coding camp, but it was canceled due to low enrollment. She did however have a couple of hangouts with friends from school, which seemed to perk her up a little.

We also went one evening to see the new Indiana Jones movie (Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny) at our local Alamo Drafthouse. Not only do they have $7 movies on Tuesdays, Sean also scored some gift cards from our local Costco that essentially worked out to a 20% discount.

The kids weren’t even home a week before we were in the car again! This time we “only” had to drive to Caddo Mills, TX. This past Christmas, Maya and I had received the chance to take part in the Trainer for a Day program at Window to the Wild. She and I were going to get to help train birds for a couple hours on Saturday morning.

We drove up the night before and stayed in a hotel. This gave us the opportunity to stop by Waco on the way through and pick up another interesting bottle of whiskey from Balcones Distillery. It also let us stop by the Milk Bottle Cookies store for … cookies!

The next morning after a quick hotel breakfast we drove into Caddo Mills to the Window to the Wild location. As we were pulling in, Sean looks at me and says, “Where do you find these places?!” It was maybe a little off the beaten path. The facility was great though. Lindsey and Simon McNeny clearly care for their creatures. They seem to forever be looking at how they can make the environment better for the bird inhabitants.

We started our morning watching a trumpeter hornbill flying about, accepting food. We learned about the some of the fundamentals of training – that it should be reward based, and that you need to ensure you aren’t accidentally rewarding non-preferred behaviors.

Maya spent some time chucking food into an aquarium full of water for a pretty hadada ibis to fly over and collect (it would have been dangerous to try to feed that spike-billed creature directly). She chucked some more food to an Abyssinian Ground Hornbill, who was really good at catching the meat bits, and fed a little (I think) Pied Crow from a small cup full of meat bits.

We spent quite a few cycles trying to get a crow (I think) to take a slightly smashed metal can from our hands and flying it over to a recycling bin. Maya’s body naturally wants to wiggle a bit, so she had a hard time holding still. The bird, understandably, wanted a reliable perch. I was able to get the bird to collect the recycling and place it in the bin. Maya was able to hand the bird the can and he’d take it to the bin.

We met many other birds. Here are some that I’ve listed: East African Crowned Crane, a raven named Blogden who I remember talking to us, though I can’t recall what was said, a Barbary Saker Falcon, and a few others who I may have not gotten written down fast enough.

I wish like crazy I had written down all the animals’ names. These folks have a way with naming things. At one point, Simon grins and says, “This is Papua. He’s our new Guinea.” (Oh yeah, we saw a Guinea too – so speckled and pretty.)

We went over to feed a black vulture who was doing speed drills, running back and forth between his handlers and Maya and I at speed to collect all the meaty treats. Maya said his beak hurt a little but that it was worth it to have him eating out of her hand. We watched Lindsey and Simon handle on of the bald eagles that lived there. When he was still or in flight, he looked as majestic as you might expect. When he walked around on the ground, he looked sort of ungainly, even a bit derpy.

Maya and I got to hold a really lovely little American Kestrel named Falcor. I think Maya loved this one because it was tiny enough not to make her arm tired AND she didn’t have to wear a big leather glove to protect her skin.

Then we got to have a bird fly to us! A red tailed hawk would fly to us, accept its meat treat, and then fly back to its perch for another meat treat. To be proper trainers, we had to keep our perch steady and show that we had a treat worth acquiring. If he didn’t come right away, we took the treat away and waited a moment before offering it again.

It was incredibly cool and maybe a little alarming to have that much bird flying at your face. Maya did a great job and seemed to love the experience, which of course was the whole point.

Still with gloves on, we got to hold a gentle Great Horned Owl named Hermes (Lindsey and Simon are Harry Potter fans). His eyes were gigantic, and it was explained to us that despite the common depiction of an owl as a wise creature, because their eyes occupy so much space, their brains are actually relatively small. Hermes was big enough that he actually started to feel heavy after a while and you could really tell Maya was warring between the desire to hold the owl for as long as possible and the need to rest her weary arm.

We ended the bird part of our visit by checking out the enclosure that held a variety of tropical birds as well as a happy little brood of chickens. Maya was absolutely delighted when Gil the Rose-Breasted Cockatoo actually did what we call the cockatoo dance with her. He also talked to us a bit, which was fun. In that same area we got to see a blue and gold macaw and a Yellow-naped Amazon. Toward the end of our visit, I walked over to the pretty Yellow-naped Amazon and tried to talk to it. It appeared to tolerate me briefly before finally hollering out “Goodbye!” I took it as my hint to leave the bird alone, though Simon told us it was actually a tactic to get us to stay (since he had just opened the door to leave the enclosure.)

Before we left, the kids got to meet the dog, several goats, and a couple of tortoises. They were gifted with some pretty macaw feathers, which now hold pride of place on the shelves in their rooms. And Maya and I got to go see the mother of all garden spiders, and on our way over to check it out, we saw a huge wolf spider, her back covered in babies! Ian would not have been impressed with any of this, so it’s good he stayed with the goats.

All too soon it was time for us to leave. If you have a bird lover in your life, especially if you’re in the Dallas area, this is definitely an experience worth having. Plus Window to the Wild is a nonprofit, so your dollars will directly benefit those creatures. Hooray!

On our way back home, we decided to swing through Dallas for lunch and a liquor store visit. We ate at a delightful place called Rex’s Seafood & Market. Everyone enjoyed their seafood lunch a great deal. Everyone, except Ian. He ordered a cheese flatbread, but instead of being coated in mozzarella like a pizza most likely would be, it had a variety of cheeses on it. He flatly refused to eat it. Instead he ate some fries and some of my fish and some of my broccolini.

After lunch, we let Sean stop in at a fancy-pants liquor store called Pogo’s Wine & Spirits. It sounds like it’s probably in our best interest to be a couple hundred miles away from this place. There are plenty of unique bottles to be had, some at very precious prices.

Thankfully, after an Arkansas road trip, a round trip weekend drive to Jackson, MS and another weekend drive to Caddo Mills and back, we were done with our driving adventures for a bit. We closed out the month mostly hanging around home. The kids had yet another camp that was canceled for low enrollment so they’ve been stuck at home. We took them out for “robot sushi” at a local place called Kura one night, just to break things up a bit. They were in heaven. Plus a robot brought us our drinks, which they loved.

On the last Saturday of the month, Sean took Ian to try out an archery lesson at Archery Country here in Austin. This was one of his Christmas gifts. (We were shooting for replacing some of the stuff we might normally buy with interesting experiences instead.) He seemed to really like it! It’s hard to coordinate all the things you need to when shooting a bow and arrow, and I think that frustrated him some, but he seemed to hit the target reasonably often and by his second lesson in early August, might have been gaining a touch more accuracy. He wants to keep going to lessons, so for now, we’ll keep taking him.

Meanwhile, Texas is cooking. We finally managed to get our sprinklers working again, but not before most of the front yard grass and even the back yard natives were looking pretty crispy. It’s a hundred degrees every day and zero rain to speak of, and since we’re on watering restrictions, everything would have dried out anyway. At the end of July, it still looks like there’s a lot of summer to go, and I don’t think I’ll miss it once it’s gone.

Owing to the ridiculous cost for airfare to any place we thought to check, we decided we’d try a driving trip for summer vacation. The problem is that Texas is really big, so getting to a neighboring state in any particular direction takes at least five or six hours, just to get out of Texas. Our options were limited. We’d already been to New Mexico and Louisiana, so we decided to try out Arkansas.

For whatever reason, Arkansas (and Oklahoma for that matter) haven’t ever really been on my radar. I’m not one of those people who needs to have visited all 50 states or every national park, etc. But we’d seen friends who’d shared camping and hiking photos from there, and they’re always very pretty. We have some Arkansas local friends that travel all over the state and their travels were a motivating factor as well. Plus, the interstate welcome centers in Arkansas are some of the most helpful and encouraging we’ve ever visted. They’re well-organized and staffed by folks who are excited about tourism in their state.

We actually started our journey on the very last day of June, shortly after the kids finished up their Harry Potter acting camp. As is typical of a Woods vacation, we left far later than 25% of us (that would be me) wanted to. It wasn’t till probably 6:30 that evening that we started our five hour drive to Texarkana. I hadn’t been sleeping well, and Sean had been pulling late nights trying to get a special project done at work. Given our mental state, Sean wound up driving the whole way, and I stayed on high alert making conversation and ensuring he didn’t get too drowsy. It was a long drive.

Day 1 – Texarkana, Hot Springs National Park

We woke up the next morning in Texarkana. After a hotel breakfast, we decided to play tourist for a bit before heading the rest of the way into Arkansas. Maya, ever the piano player, has learned a simplified version of “The Entertainer” by Scott Joplin. It turns out that Texarkana is where he grew up! We could have taken a whole driving tour, but I’m honestly not sure that would have been entertaining to any of us, so we settled on seeing the big Scott Joplin mural in town. It was Twilight Zone-eerie driving around Texarkana – it seemed like almost no one was out and about that morning. The mural was big and impressive and Maya seemed delighted to pose for a few photos (which is not her norm).

Our next stop was to see the famous post office that straddles the Arkansas / Texas border. The kids had fun playing the “now I’m in Texas,” hop, “now I’m in Arkansas” game. We snagged a few quick photos and then were on our merry way to Hot Springs.

As we rolled into Hot Springs, we joked that all the people we didn’t see in Texarkana must have been in Hot Springs because hooo boy was it crowded! We drove back and forth a bit, struggling to even find paid parking that wasn’t full. We finally cycled through the free parking lot till a space opened up.

Hot Springs National Park is an interesting member of the National Park system. While it does have hiking trails and a campground, it is essentially an urban park. What I perceived as one of the main features – Bathhouse Row – is right in the middle of shops and restaurants and a whole pile of tourist traffic.

Part of the reason for establishing this as a national park was to protect the thermal springs and make them available to everyone. There are public fountains around bathhouse row from which you can draw the 140+ degrees Fahrenheit water. Given my half-dead fingers, I was placed in charge of filling all our water bottles, as no one else could hold their bottle while filling. Even I had to take breaks. We cooled the water before drinking it, and enjoyed the flavor immensely. Interesting fact – this water is over 4000 years old! Water seeped down way back then through cracks and fissures to a depth of 8000 feet. Given its proximity to Earth’s mantle at that depth, the water was heated. The heated water flowed along impermeable rock till it found a thrust fault that allowed it to reach the surface at Hot Springs. I read or heard that a million gallons a day flow at Hot Springs National Park.

Another point of interest. Hot Springs National Park is the only national park with its own brewery. And that brewery uses – you guessed it – thermal spring water in the production of its many delightful beers. This was our destination for lunch that first day. The Superior Bathhouse Brewery is housed in the smallest of the bathhouses. We were worried about how long we’d have to wait to be seated given the very heavy traffic in the area, but they have a wonderful waiting system. They took our names and guided us to the bar where we could order beers for the grown ups and root beers for the kids. Then we were told we could go into the air conditioned upper level and hang out at communal picnic tables and sip our drinks and play games while we waited for a table for lunch. Perfect!

We played Uno together and sipped our drinks until our table was ready, and then we wandered downstairs. The beers we tried – Golden Stout, She Don’t Use Jelly (a saison), Bikini Bottom, and a dunkel – were all wonderful. The place was dog friendly, so Ian happily requested dog petting from as many folks as would allow. The food was solid. I know it sounds weird as heck, but my favorite thing I ate at that lunch were the plantains. The kids and Dad had epic desserts, and we were maybe a little sad when we had to finally leave the air conditioning.

After lunch, we wandered the Fordyce Bathhouse, which acts as the park’s visitor center and museum. Many of the bathhouse rooms have been restored, so you can see what it might have been like to experience the “healing waters” back in the late 1800s and early 1900s. Wandering through was interesting enough; intriguing to see what people thought of as medicine back then.

The kids weren’t super interested until they met a friendly park ranger on our way out who completely talked them into becoming junior rangers. I have tried to do this on previous national park visits to absolutely no avail. At her suggestion, we took a walk back to touch the thermal waters coming from the display spring. It was kind of neat to be encouraged to touch the water. Ian was having none of it until I quickly dipped my hand in. Yes, it’s hot. You really can’t linger, but a quick check won’t hurt you. One of the things I found interesting was the shockingly green algae that was growing around the thermal spring. I don’t know if photos will do it justice.

All the old bathhouses are quite pretty and each looks architecturally unique, which makes for an interesting aesthetic when walking down the row. There are still two bathhouses operating, Quapaw and Buckstaff, but the kids were too young to take part.

Finally, we headed away from the Hot Springs mayhem to what we hoped was a peaceful retreat to the house we had rented. The rental property was a little tricky to find, but it was as advertised. The house sits right on Lake Hamilton, and there was plenty of room for us to spread out. After dinner and a supply run, we didn’t have time to swim that first night, but it was fun to watch the geese on the lake and the pretty orange and pink sunset from the porch.

Day 2 – Ron Coleman Mine, Hot Springs part 2

Ian is a rock collector. He willingly reads books, with no goading from us, about gems and minerals. Maya is a treasure hunter (keeping in mind, treasure is in the eye of the beholder). Given this, I was excited to find that there were several quartz mines in Arkansas at which you could dig for your own crystals.

Everyone talks about the Crater of Diamonds state park as a place you must go when visiting Arkansas. And to be fair, I think a diamond or two is found per day, which is pretty incredible. Certainly the payoff would be better if you were one of the lucky one or two who actually found a diamond. But for an 8-year-old, a 10-year-old, and their two middle-aged parents, we thought it would be much more fun to definitely find something of lesser objective value. Plus, Arkansas is known for the quality and quantity of its quartz.

After conferring with our college friend Joe, who is big into minerals and crystals and lives in nearby Little Rock, we decided to visit Ron Coleman mine. They regularly bring up fresh tailings from their commercial mining operation and dump them for visitors to dig through. You pay a fee to access the public digging area – about 4 acres, so there’s room to spread out – and you keep whatever you find. To the kids’ delight, we were finding little pretty sparkling things already in the parking lot!

We had done a little research ahead of time, so we came reasonably well prepared. We had folding step-stools to sit on, a sack full of trowels, little rakes, weeding tools, and screwdrivers, plus gloves for everyone. We had packed a small cooler with drinks and snacks, in case we decided to stay a while. They gave each of us a bag to fill when we paid our dig fee, but we had brought along a couple of empty cat litter buckets as well for hauling home our treasures.

I thought that we might spend an hour, maybe two at the most before the kids wore out on the experience. As it happens though, we kept finding pretty things, and that’s very motivating. I think Sean was pretty disenchanted with the whole affair at first, playing along because Ian especially was so excited about it. And for the first little while, he did a whole lot of digging and not a whole lot of finding. Then I heard him say he thought he had something. After some very careful, meticulous digging, he unearthed the biggest crystal we found that day. Following that, it was all we could do to get him to leave!

Maya as well spent what had to be a half an hour carefully digging around this giant rock she was trying to unearth. Her rationale was sound – that rock was huge and embedded in the dirt; clearly no one had looked beneath it yet. After such a long while, she finally asked for some help. I walked over and thanks to all the work she had done to move earth out of the way, I was able to pick the big rock up and move it aside for her. Sure enough, she then found several large and beautiful quartz crystals in her pile. And being Maya, when it was finally time for us to leave, she showed another family the crystals she had found and pointed them to her “very good digging spot.” She didn’t want it to go to waste.

All told, I think we were there between four and five hours. I don’t want to know how many pounds of rock we wound up hauling back to Texas, but I’d betcha it was in triple digit territory. Even a few weeks later, we still haven’t managed to root through them all and wash the red clay off of them. I will say, for me especially, washing them was like digging for treasure all over again. The shiny stuff is hard to find for all the dirt, so it’s fun to see what you uncover once you rinse the stones and leave them to dry in the sun.

We grabbed a quick takeout lunch and headed back to the rental house to clean up a bit. Then we headed back into Hot Springs so Maya and Ian could acquire the junior ranger badges they had become so enamored with the previous day (the nice park ranger did her level best to get the kids to vow to clean their rooms and do their homework, but our little pirates were having none of it). After that, the parents secured half-growlers of a couple of Superior Bathhouse Brewery’s finest, plus one of root beer for the kids. Then we went up into the Hot Springs Mountain Tower, a 216-foot tall tower with an observation deck, for a bit of history and a good long look at the area around us. It’s pretty there, and it was fun to see Bathhouse Row from up high! We all took the elevator up. The kids and I elected to walk down the outdoor stairs so we could look around outside while we walked. And we arrived at the bottom at about the same time as Sean!

Then we went to a local pizza joint called SQZBX. The decor in this place was amazing. A variety of musical instruments and implements had been repurposed into light fixtures, room dividers, etc. We were tucked into a booth and set up with beers and drinks and an order of garlic knots. Pizza came quickly thereafter. Solid beer, solid food, wonderful surroundings and service. The kids were pretty bouncy and chatty, like always, and the nice lady taking care of us at one point grinned and exclaimed, “Your kids are so expressive!” I’ve never heard anyone call our kids loud and maybe even obnoxious in such a nice way!

And finally, at long last, we had an evening swim in the lake. We discovered there was no ladder off the dock. Not such a problem when getting in; a little trickier when climbing out. We hung out in the water with the geese and watched the sun sink down and the sky again turn orangey pink. After our swim, the kids tried to clean some of their fancy rocks, but that chore lost its luster pretty quickly.

Day 3 – Kayaking and Garvan Gardens

When we were looking at houses on the lake way back in the spring, there were lots of options right on the water, and several people had kayaks and paddle boats and those sorts of things at their property for the renters to use. By the time we got around to finding a place and booking it, there were none of those left and even for the place we wound up staying, we paid more than we would have had we secured a place earlier. Alas.

That’s how we found ourselves at Young’s Yaks, renting a couple of double kayaks so we could paddle around Lake Hamilton for a couple hours. We had zero problems renting from them. A nice lady was there to meet us at the designated time. The kayaks were all lined up and ready for action. There were life vests all ready for us.

Maya and I loaded into one kayak, and Sean and Ian into another. Maya couldn’t settle down and just wanted to paddle, paddle, paddle. Ian didn’t understand why we had to be in the boat instead of in the water. He tried to paddle one, decided that was for the birds, and mostly either rested or complained the rest of the time. Kids aside, paddling around in the big lake was peaceful. We did eventually find a little pebbly pocket beach were we could park our kayaks and mess around in the water and cool off a bit. That seemed to perk them up some. We also swapped kids after that, just for the variety.

That afternoon, we went to Garvan Woodland Gardens. What’s interesting about this place is that on its surface, it’s a botanical garden, but what drew me here were the interesting structures on site. The Evans Tree House was the big draw for the kids. They could climb around freely in its multi-storied structure, climbing nets and peeping out windows.

The Anthony Chapel was another must-see for us while at Garvan. It’s a glass-walled chapel, not unlike the Wayfarer’s Chapel we had seen in California in the spring. The structure was gorgeous and the diminished division between inside and outside spaces was decidedly serene.

The Garvan Pavilion was another highlight of the visit. The open air pavilion had an interesting glass and steel faceted skylight roof, almost like a surprise. Normal enough looking pavilion from the outside. Walk in and look up and there it is!

Maya and Ian delighted in streams filled with colorful beachballs. They saw little fairy houses (including a replica of the Anthony Chapel) and a miniature railway. They got to see a gorgeous peacock doing his best to pretend people didn’t exist. (Probably the heat was getting to me, but that peacock’s random desperate yelps started to occupy the same highly-amused space in my brain as the screaming goats in “Thor: Love and Thunder.”) They saw squirrels and dragonflies, climbed rocks, and ate ice cream. All in all, a good visit.

We did a hasty stopover in Hot Springs to get Maya a souvenir she’d been craving (a stuffed pileated woodpecker that’s she’s since named Strawberry – we saw one of these in real life at Garvan), refilled the kids’ half-growler with root beer, and loaded up on allllllllll the taffy from Colonial Candy Corner. We went back to our rental house to unwind a bit and maybe have a swim before dinner.

It had been thundering off and on and threatening to rain while we were at Garvan earlier. Not but a few minutes passed after we got back to the rental house before the winds picked up and the skies opened. I went ahead and brought in all our swim clothes from the balcony, where I’d left them to dry the day before. When the wind kept increasing in intensity, I thought maybe I’d bring the flip flops and water shoes in, just in case. Not long after, I saw Maya’s dragon floaty pushing a metal chair across the deck, and so I wrestled that giant wet dragon float through the door too! The storm was so fierce, it actually ripped soffit out from the ceiling above the porch. It was crazy!

While all this was going on, the kids were availing themselves of the jetted bathtubs at the house, or trying to at any rate. There was one upstairs, where the kids slept and one downstairs on the same floor as the main bedroom and the kitchen. The upstairs jets were … vigorous. They were so vigorous, in fact, that they shot clean out of the tub and walloped unsuspecting artwork on the walls. So only Maya got to have her whirlpool bath that evening.

With the kids duly bathed, we drove into town to meet one of my coworkers and his wife – Mike and Kelly – for dinner at The Purple Cow. Can you believe they agreed to hang out with us? I tried to warn them.

This grape-purple diner-esque establishment delivered. Dinner was delicious – burgers, shakes, patty melts. I had a rueben. The kids enjoyed their milkshakes and the company was top notch. We did, however, start the unfortunate trend on this vacation of forgetting to snap photos with the friends we saw on this trip. Bad introverts!

Day 4 – Bill Clinton Library, Little Rock Fireworks

The next day, 4th of July, we were heading to Little Rock. We spent the morning packing, including all those many pounds of rocks, and said goodbye to our underused house on the lake. Since Ian’s jetted tub had misbehaved the night before, we did let him have a turn in the downstairs one before we left.

Little Rock is only about an hour away from Hot Springs, so even with our leisurely departure, we arrived at the William J. Clinton Presidential Library and Museum fairly early in the day. The kids were supremely underwhelmed … until we all made the happy discovery that there was a “Dinosaur Explorer” exhibit there for the summer. It features a bunch of animatronic dinosaurs and a few little activities to (try to) keep the kids engaged.

We more or less started and ended our museum visit with dinosaurs. We started out right away wandering through an area featuring some of the animatronic dinosaurs. Within this part of the museum was a neat little area where the kids could grab a coloring sheet and decorate their own dinosaurs. Then they scanned the sheet in and their very own dinosaurs, sometimes multiple copies, would be digitally rendered and could join the other dinosaurs already living their best lives on the room’s giant TV screen.

After the fun dinosaurs, it was snoozeville all the way as we walked through exhibits showing Clinton’s early years, things he accomplished, and displays showing what life as president was like. One of the docents had told the kids there were records of his daily schedules while in office, and that they should go try to find out what the president was up to on their birthdays. I didn’t think to look, but Sean and the kids thumbed through some of those schedules. Sean told me it was crazy. The president’s time was fully scheduled, morning to night, sometimes in 10- and 15-minute chunks.

We visited a full-scale replica of the White House cabinet room where we tried to explain a bit how the cabinet members work with the president. We had our photos taken in a full-scale replica of the Oval Office as it was during Clinton’s presidency. The kids both confirmed that they have zero interest in being president.

Maya and Ian wanted to know if Clinton was good or bad. Their world is still pretty black and white like that. We tried very hard to explain that it’s hard to categorize him in that way. Better to look at the things he tried to accomplish and the decisions that he made – good or bad – and decide on balance if he did a good job. It didn’t really look like it landed, but at least we’re planting seeds.

The Little Rock Nine are prominently featured at the museum. These are the kids who, following a 1954 US Supreme Court ruling that segregated schools were illegal, in 1957 finally became the first black students to go to Little Rock Central High School. It didn’t happen overnight and they had to face the state’s National Guard, a whole mob of angry townsfolk, and eventually had to be escorted by soldiers from both the National Guard and the US Army in order to attend classes. High school students! I can’t even imagine.

I’m not sure how much the concept of racism has been discussed with the kids at school, but they seemed completely baffled by the notion that just because one kid had darker skin than another, they’d be forced to go to a different school. Maya pronounced it “stupid.” When we tried to explain that racism still exists today, she just couldn’t believe it.

Afterward at Ian’s request, we took a stroll partway across the Clinton Presidential Park Bridge. From there we got a good view of the interesting architecture of the Clinton Library. It’s a giant, cantilevered, naturally lit space, and it seems weirdly at home nestled into its nook along the Arkansas River.

Eventually hunger won, and we left the museum to eat at Flying Fish. They had a huge wall of fake fish that appear to have been decorated and donated over the years. Were they all Big Mouth Billy Bass? I’ll never know. The fried seafood and cajun dishes were solid. I think Ian was less thrilled with his chicken fingers, but sometimes chicken fingers are like that.

Loaded to the gills (ha!), we made our way to our Little Rock hotel and relaxed a bit. I took the kids to the hotel pool for a while and let them run out some of their energy.

We enjoyed a superb dinner at Lost Forty Brewing, which was within walking distance of our hotel. I think I’m the only one who had a beer – something called Tropical Confusion, which was divine. The kids shared a cheese pizza, and Sean and I split a Firestarter, which featured Italian sausage, pickled Calabrian chiles, and a light, tomatoey drizzle. It was even good cold the next day!

That evening, we made the short trek across the river to the North Shore Riverwalk Park in North Little Rock. This was an excellent location (thanks for the advice, Joe)! We started out sitting up on the hillside, but as fireworks time drew closer, we sidled down to the riverside fence to have an unobstructed view of the festivities.

The kids enjoyed the spectacle, though Maya struggled some with the fireworks smell. After it was all said and done, we had an easy walk back to the car, but thanks to random road closures and heavy traffic a nearly hour-long drive back to our hotel!

Day 5 – Driving to Branson, Dolly’s Stampede

Since we had been up so late the night before, we all slept in a bit. By the time we were done packing and showering, we decided to just drive straight on to our hotel in Branson rather than stopping by any of the places I’d halfway considered visiting en route (Mount Magazine, Eureka Springs, Table Rock Lake).

We stayed at Lodge of the Ozarks. The kids ooed and aahed over the big open entry area, and the room we stayed in was large and comfortable for our family of four. Our hotel was on the main drag through tourist Branson, and it’s absolutely bonkers. It reminded me in a jarring, not particularly pleasant way of Gatlinburg. Tourist attraction after tourist attraction lined the strip, each competing for most visual zing. Maya and Ian, being 10 and 8 respectively, were in love and excitedly chattered about all the the things they might cajole us into doing.

Our next day would promise to be very busy and tiring though, so we rested a while before that evening’s fun – Dolly’s Stampede! We went early so that we could check out the Horse Walk. The performing horses are all lined up in their stables for folks to walk along and visit. Ian was very excited about the horses and studiously photographed each one.

The show itself was pleasant enough. The food was really good and there was an insane amount – soup, corn on the cob, a whole (small) chicken, some pork. The show was about what you’d expect. Horses and riders doing tricks, some folks in spangles and sequins, some folks in 1800s period garb. They fashioned it as a competition between the North and the South (like the Civil War?!?), each side rooting for its set of competitors.

We saw pig races and a buffalo stampede. A comedy magic act broke up things in the middle of the show. There was a lot going on and the kids seemed to really enjoy themselves.

Day 6 – Silver Dollar City

The next day’s event was our reason for driving all the way to north Arkansas and edging up into southern Missouri: Silver Dollar City! After cooking in 100 degree heat all June and continuing to cook a bit so far during our Arkansas trip, we were delighted that the highs this day would only be in the 80s. Hooray! We started our morning with a delightful buffet breakfast at Molly’s Mill Restaurant. They set me up with good strong coffee and the kids got to eat all the bacon a kid could ever hope for (we made them eat other stuff too).

Our first ride of the day was Powder Keg. This coaster features a compressed air launch – a first for us! I just looked it up, that ride goes from 0 to 53 miles per hour in 2.8 seconds. The feeling was definitely different from a linear induction type launch. If felt so fast, literally breathtaking. Now, you’d think that we’d have learned not to go hardcore thriller as our first ride of the day, though obviously we haven’t. Ian may have been a little rattled when he got off the ride, but he claimed it was fun.

We next visited Fire in the Hole. This ride, originally opened in 1972, is going to be shut down after this season. Maya, who feels a sense of loss at just about everything that ends, quizzed one of the park hosts mercilessly about why the ride was closing (old and costly to maintain, waning in popularity). The story is that you’re part of the volunteer fire brigade that has to deal with fires the Bald Knobbers had set. One of the characters you meet on the ride is Red Flanders, hanging out in his red long johns. Maya left with a T-shirt that says on one side, “Red Flanders, you come back in here and put on your pants!” and on the other side says, “Well Sadie, I ain’t got no pants no more. The dang bald knobbers stole ’em!”

We rode a coaster called Wildfire and a log flume ride called American Plunge, wherein the adults got thoroughly soaked. Next was a ride we were all looking forward to – Time Traveler. The unique thing about this one – beyond its cool steam punk aesthetic – is that the ride vehicle spins with the loops and curves of the coaster. It makes for some pretty weird ride dynamics. Sometimes you’re facing up, sometimes down, sometimes spinning a bit, sometimes still. We all loved it; however, each ride is different, and while the first run through didn’t bother Sean with his occasional vertigo issues, the second run did.

Sean and the kids rode a coaster called Thunderation. Owing to my screwed up spine, these days, I try to avoid the rougher rides and Sean had read that this one was maybe a bit abusive to its riders. (As he’s explained it to me – it has a tubular steel track, but Arrow, the company who designed it, didn’t use computers to aid in design, so the curve transitions are really rough.) Ian seemed genuinely bothered that I wouldn’t be riding with them, but I gave him a job – assess the ride and let me know if I can ride along if they want to go a second time. With that task in mind, he seemed less upset. Afterward both kids assured me that it was good that I had avoided it. I think even Maya wished she’d skipped it.

We rode rides and ate food and did very little watching of musical acts and experiencing the talents of the various 1800s-themed craft demonstrations. The park was pleasant to experience though. Operators were all friendly and it was clean. The theming was fun and consistent throughout the park. We enjoyed milk shakes and ice cream at Hannah’s later in the day when we needed to sit and cool off.

Here’s a fun, you’re-not-so-young-any-more discovery. Toward the end of our day, the kids wanted to “marathon” a couple of the coasters. Which is to say, they wanted to get in line, ride the ride, and then get in line and immediately ride it again. The lines were short enough that there wasn’t a lot of down time in between those iterations. I and I think to a lesser degree Sean, both experienced a little bit of … i don’t know … head spinning wobbliness after doing that a few times. The kids seemed unbothered. I decided to sit a couple of the rides out for that reason. We love roller coasters and thrill rides, and it’s so fun getting to do these things with the kids. Hopefully this isn’t the beginning of the end of that.

The park closes pretty early, so we had time that evening to hang out at the hotel pool. It was every bit the madhouse you’d expect in a place like Branson, but the kids had fun and it was a nice way to cool off after a busy day.

Day 7 – Snake World, Turpentine Creek, and Crystal Bridges

We tried something different on this vacation. We let the kids dig through Arkansas tourism information and choose some things they specifically would like to do. Ian chose a place called Snake World because we thought he’d probably get to actually hold snakes there. And Maya went with the Turpentine Creek Wildlife Refuge – a big cat rescue facility. We were in north Arkansas, so I personally wanted to visit the Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art. And we would do all these things before driving back down to Little Rock for the night!

After packing and a quick hotel breakfast, we high-tailed it down to Turpentine Creek Wildlife Refuge. We needed to make it there in time for their first tour of the day at 9:00, and we did it! We spent the first hour riding around the grounds in an open air tram, learning about the various animals they cared for and where they came from. Lions, tigers, bobcats, servals, and cougars are cared for there, as well as some bears and a whole slew of hybrids. They had ligers (cross between a lion and a tiger, of course); and here I thought Napoleon Dynamite was making them up! Sometimes you could see the creatures well, and other times not so much.

Maya and Ian seemed to enjoy the visit, though Maya was saddened by some of the stories about the animals’ condition when they were surrendered to the wildlife refuge. Ian happily snapped photos during the trip, so he was well occupied. We were delighted by a white tiger enjoying a bath in his giant trough and by a tiger cub who was merrily dismantling a big box they’d given him to play with. It sounded like the animals were well cared for, and we were told all our admission fee went back into the refuge, so it suited Maya’s sensibilities on multiple levels.

After wandering around the grounds a bit on our own, hoping to spot a few of the creatures we had missed, we all hopped in the car and drove as quickly as we dared to visit Snake World, which opened at 11. The road was very, very curvy, and while we know to give Maya Dramamine since she definitely gets car sick, the curves on this one even made Ian sick. Whoops. Now we know.

Snake World can best be described as a roadside attraction. When we rolled up on it, we were a little unsure of what we had gotten ourselves into. The building and grounds seemed a bit careworn and haphazard. Plus, it was closed, and despite knocking and calling both numbers on the sign on the door, I had roused no one to come talk to us. (This was after I had gotten ahold of them the previous week to ensure I knew how tours worked and were scheduled and that sort of thing.) We decided to go back into town and eat lunch and mull it over. Eventually I got a text from them that said they’d had a doctor’s appointment and would be back at 1.

While we ate, I fussed about whether we should go back or just skip it and move on. Ian was absolutely distraught. He was so upset about possibly missing it that he nearly came to tears. And so it was that we made our way back. As promised, Melina was there to meet us and show us her creatures. The poor lady had had something bad happen to her knee, so she was hobbling around trying to show us snakes with one arm on a walking stick, but she was as pleasant and informative as a person could have wanted.

She showed the kids how the same kind of snake could be colored very differently if they were from different parts of the country due to adaptation to their environment. She showed them the ocular ridges on vipers. She let them hold so many different nonvenomous snakes and a couple of different bearded dragons. Ian was in heaven. Except – there were spiders. There were some rubber ones here and there, ha ha, but there were also webs constructed in quiet corners and Ian was not impressed.

We also saw a bunch of venomous snakes hanging out in well locked and labeled enclosures. We were never in any danger, and it was interesting getting such an up close view of live specimens of snakes we’d otherwise avoid. I bet we were there well over an hour listening to her talk about her various creatures, and it was time well spent, especially for our budding herpetologist.

We then made the trek over to Bentonville so we could visit the Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art. The place is absolutely gorgeous, and general admission is free! Funded largely by the Walton family (of Wal-Mart fame), this sprawling complex occupies about 120 acres.

We saw untold quantities of paintings, sculptures, and mixed media installations from artists spanning multiple decades. Like many of the places we’ve been, they have no issue with confronting our not-too-distant racist past … and maybe some of our racist present too. But they also celebrate form and light, conflict and resolution. There’s a lot to take in. We saw Chihuly glass, toured a restored and relocated Frank Lloyd Wright house, examined strange and interesting outdoor sculptures. We even got to see another of Yayoi Kusama’s Infiniti Rooms – this one titled, “My Heart is Dancing Into the Universe.” It was a good visit.

Days 8 and 9 – Kid Transfer, Dinner with Friends, Back to TX

In the morning, it was all about packing up the kids’ suitcases and backpacks and leaving all our grown up stuff sit. This summer, we were again trying something new. Maya and Ian would be spending the next week at Lolli and Pop’s house in Alabama! (We had planned to do this with the Missouri grandparents as well, but needed to cancel for some medical issues.)

And so it was that we drove to Memphis, kids packed for handoff to their grandparents. It felt weird. We really don’t spend a lot of time away from the kids, and we’ve never been apart for an entire week. I worried about how well the kids would behave, whether we were burdening their grandparents and they were just too nice to say so, and how much the kids might miss us (spoiler: not even a little bit).

We had lunch with the Maya and Ian in Memphis at a place called A&R Bar-B-Que, and it was glorious. Sean read that the thing to order was a rib tip sandwich, and so we each got that, plus slaw of course. Let me tell you a secret – this was effing delicious but impossible to eat. Were we to find ourselves in Memphis again ordering from A&R, we’d either get a plate of ribs or a pulled pork sandwich instead. Maya and Ian had chicken fingers – I can’t even.

We had a delightful cookie treat at Makeda’s afterward. Then we met Lolli and Pop in a strip-mall parking lot and handed off the kids and their luggage. Lolli and Pop handed us a mysterious large box. More on that later. After lots of hugs and maybe a little fussing from me, we relinquished our children and made the quiet drive back to Little Rock.

That evening, we met our college friend Joe and his partner Keith for dinner and drinks at Big Orange Burger. The cocktails were delicious, the burgers hit the spot (mine had pimento cheese), and the company was fantastic! It was so nice to be able to catch up with an old friend on the preceding twenty-some years. Keith is an Arkansas native, and Joe has lived in the area for quite a long while. They gave us excellent advice on what to do and see and where to eat before and during our trip. And we again captured no photos with our friends. Sigh.

For example, at their repeated insistence, we stopped by Blackberry Market for breakfast the next day. Sean and I had buttery, crumbly scones and I had the honey lavender latte. Given my love of coffee, I rarely order anything as diluted as a latte, but the gentle honey and lavender flavors would have been lost to the coffee in anything less milky. A solid recommendation!

The drive home was long. There were heavy rains on the way out of Arkansas, somewhere near Fate, TX we were held up by some kind of police action – we saw guns drawn, and heading into Austin traffic was as sluggish as always. But eventually we made it to our 100 degree heat, our crispy, half-dead yard, and our quiet kidless house.

And what was in that large, mysterious box Sean had received from Lolli and Pop? It was his first saxaphone. They had it fashioned into a sort of amplifier for an iphone. Neat!

We rolled back into Austin from Missouri to find a wall of intense heat and crisped greenery. Evidently the daytime high temperatures experienced a 10-degree step up while we were gone. It’s been in the neighborhood of 100 degrees pretty much every day since. At one point during the month Maya said, while applying sunscreen, “The sun has murder in its eyes.” She is not wrong.

We all felt a bit of relief at not having every evening scheduled with some kid activity (though we have continued Maya and Ian’s music lessons through the summer). We did manage to find a new piano teacher for Maya. His name is Ben, and his structure is a little more laid back, which Maya loves, but that I’m not yet certain about. He answers her numerous theory questions with enthusiasm and patience, and when explaining something new, he provides her with lots of examples. I’m hoping we’ll find our groove on structure. I’m personally not yet ready to abandon her Suzuki curriculum – the songs are interesting and challenging and there’s an emphasis on refining technique, which I’ve not yet seen otherwise. She’s very happy though and clearly deeply interested in music, so either way, I think we’ll come out ok.

Our favorite local theater, the Alamo Drafthouse, started showing movies for $7 on Tuesdays a while back. Given that, we’ve done dinner and a movie a couple times with the kids on Tuesdays. So far we’ve seen Elemental and the Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse. We have intentions to take them to see the new Indiana Jones movie in July, and who knows what else.

Maya and Ian, after a week with nothing to do, got to go to a half-day art camp at their elementary school. They made some neat stuff and it broke up their day a little. Maya was sad to note that none of her friends were in the class with her. This year more than any year previous, poor Maya is really missing her friends. We’ve tried a playdate here or there, but it’s nothing like seeing kids every day at school.

For Father’s Day, we took Sean out Saturday evening for drinks and endless slices of pizza at Delucca Gaucho Pizza & Wine. It works a little bit like a Brazilian steakhouse. Servers roam the tables with different varieties of pizza, offering them to you as they pass. For their fixed price menu, they start you with some lobster bisque, a small arugula salad, and some meatballs. Then the pizza starts coming. And their pizzas are really good. For one, they have a very flavorful crust. For another, they have a lot of variety. Garlic Picanha was a favorite. The grown ups were very fond of the Mexican Elote pizza. Ian especially was delighted with the Nutella dessert pizza, while I REALLY enjoyed the Guava Marmalade one.

Then on Sunday, because the kids just knew how much Sean would like it, we went to the water park at Typhoon Texas. We didn’t get too many photos, but we had a lot of fun. Especially when we first got there, it wasn’t too miserably hot and the lines were shorter. The only real downer (ha ha) is that they never opened their big drop slides. The kids kept a careful eye on them to see if they’d ever open up, but no joy.

Ian went to Pokemon camp at Dragon’s Lair, one of our local comic book stores. We weren’t sure how he’d fare without his sister along for support, but he LOVED it. He received a lot of new Pokemon gear and got to play the game and trade cards with kids his age all week long. Maya started the week being happy that she finally had some alone time, but I think by the end of the week, she was missing her brother a little bit.

One of Maya’s (and my) favorite parts of picking Ian up from camp was seeing if we could find any of the “lair beasts” roaming around the store. They currently have two cats, Brigid and Diana, overseeing the day-to-day operations of the store (read: napping and getting petted), and it was fun trying to spot them every day.

We often have interesting creatures come to our backyard, but I’ve been a little lax on keeping the various feeders and birdbaths filled in this stupid heat, so traffic has been light. We did, however, see a crazy white caterpillar merrily chomping away at one of my shiso plants. Turns out, it was a Virginian Tiger Moth caterpillar. There were lots of grackles perching here and there in our back yard that day as well, so it may have become a grackle snack.

A while back, we bought tickets for an outdoor concert. In Austin. In June. Even at the time, we had misgivings, but the show was in the evening and who knew when the Pixies might come to town again, so we bought tickets for us and the kids and hoped for the best. Plus, the McKee-Starling clan were going too – it would be a social gathering! Fast-forward to concert day. It’s over a hundred degrees outside and has been for a while. We’d be sitting in the full baking sun for quite a while before it actually got dark. And around here even after it gets dark, the heat persists. It’s usually above 90 well into the night.

At Holly’s suggestion, we purchased little personal fans for the kids. I’m not sure they really did much good, but at a minimum, they had fun playing with them. We bought snacks and t-shirts and at one point Sean wandered off to get drinks. He came back grinning, explaining to me that even without asking, he knew he should get three sodas and a beer (the latter being for me).

Bully opened, followed by Franz Ferdinand. Both did great, but I was mostly there to see the Pixies perform. I had done a good job of having the kids listen to a couple different albums whenever they were in the car with me, so they had songs they were wanting to hear. They were both looking forward to Monkey Gone to Heaven, and Maya was especially looking forward to Where is My Mind?, to the point that as the Pixies started each of their songs, she’d glance at me to confirm or deny whether her song had started. They played a good set, and despite all the sweat, I am happy we went.

The kids finished out their month by attending a Harry Potter acting camp at Zach Theatre downtown. They drive to take them there in the morning and fetch them in the evening was a bit arduous, but they seemed to have a lot of fun hanging out with like-minded Harry Potter lovers. Maya even made new friends, and so she had an extra wave of sadness when camp was over. On the final day, the parents got to come watch a handful of skits that the kids wrote themselves. The subject matter was pretty wide-ranging, but the kids were all definitely into it.

This sounds like a lot, and I guess it was, but it’s still nothing compared to our normal school year schedule. The kids have had a week here and there where they’ve just been left to their own devices while we work. I know Maya misses her school friends a lot, and I know Ian gets bored easily, but learning to deal with those things is part of life too.

I don’t even remember May any more. All the teachers at school tried to squeeze in last minute fun. We did all the teacher appreciation things. There were soccer games, some canceled, some not. And we had to find a new piano teacher. We traveled for a concert, and we traveled to visit grandparents. We celebrated a 50th wedding anniversary and a 23rd wedding anniversary and we caught toads in a pond. This much I know: it all happened. I just need to remember it well enough to write it down.

At the beginning of the month, with Maya’s last piano lesson looming, we decided we needed to make a parting gift to show our appreciation. We decided that Maya would build and paint a birdhouse, since Ms. Hannah shares Maya’s love of avian life. Maya got to learn to use a hammer (which she was a little nervous about), and she learned about dry-fitting things before applying wood glue. And she’s always loved to make things and to give gifts, so it was a fun project. Plus the birdhouse was well-received!

We wind up doing a lot of things to encourage Maya’s love of birds. It’s not even all that hard – they’re everywhere and often very visible. Ian’s reptile and amphibian fascination can be harder to accommodate. When we heard that someone called Wildman Phil would be doing a show at a nearby nursery, we decided to take Ian to check it out.

By all accounts, he loved it. Here are the creatures I noted having seen: a tarantula who’s known as a bird-eating spider (even though it doesn’t generally eat birds), a soft-shelled turtle, a uromastyx who is a kind of spiny-tailed lizard, a gila monster, a legless lizard, a king snake, a corn snake, and a reticulated python. Ian seemed very interested in all that was shown, though he maybe could have done without the spider.

Wildman Phil asked if anyone wanted to come onstage and hold the python. This python was pretty huge (about 12 feet long), and Phil was clearly looking for a bigger kid to hold it, so it wasn’t a big surprise when he locked in on Maya as his volunteer. To her credit, I think she tried to get Ian up onstage too, but ultimately, it was just Maya, a not particularly cooperative python, and Wildman Phil doing his best to keep the python from slithering away from the kid. Maya did well, and she clearly loved it. Ian took it all in stride and was delighted to be able to touch the bubbly scales of a well-contained gila monster after the show.

How does one tell a legless lizard from a snake? They have ears (snakes don’t). They can blink (snakes don’t have eyelids). And they have a tail that can break off and grow back. Also, the way a snake moves is much more refined than the way the legless lizard moves. It was interesting to see the comparison.

For two days in a row at school, Ian came home reporting a lost tooth. He’s been a slow teeth-loser, so I think he was pretty excited about the whole deal, plus he’s sporting that toothless smile that makes for such cute and funny photos.

Maya took an after school coding class in the spring, and one day after school we got to go watch her code demo. Like her mother, she seemed shy about presenting her work in front of everyone, but it was a fun little game. As she describes it, a cat-person is being chased by a bowl of cheese puffs with legs. The object is to keep away from the bowl of cheese puffs. Cute first effort, and we heard one of the other parents say something like, “I would totally play that game.”

Maya’s last piano group class was the day before Mother’s Day. Kids showed up and hung out and did music games and performed pieces just like always, but it was kind of a subdued affair. We didn’t really want to say goodbye, and Maya struggled a little.

Because of the May pandemonium, we really didn’t have much time for Mother’s Day. The kids made me cards and presented me with gifts, and that was about the end of it. There really wasn’t even time to “take the day off.” Maybe next year.

We saw a cool caterpillar in the yard. After a bit of looking, seems to be an American Lady Caterpillar. I like all our cool lizards and caterpillars and weird beetles, and of course the birds, squirrels, raccoons, and foxes. It’s fun to try to identify all of them. Probably I should have been a biologist or something instead of an engineer.

We snuck in a quick visit to school to watch Ian perform in the school’s MARE week finale. Their elementary school has an ocean week, and they use MARE (Marine Activies, Resources, and Education) curriculum to, as they say, create ocean-literate kids who are excited about science. It must be working because the kids are always pretty wound up about it.

That weekend, we tried a new thing. Sean and I had gone to the Cruel World festival last year. Sean’s dad, Harry (who the kids know as Pop) came and hung out with them while we jetted off to California for the day-long festival. It worked out pretty well and we had a lot of fun. This year, we thought we’d try to take the kids along. It’s held at the Rose Bowl, so there’s a big outdoor space and food trucks. Our college friend (and the officiant at our wedding) Matt came along as well – he’s really good with kids.

We got in late and our AirBNB was a little confusing to enter, but all in all, things went fairly smoothly. The house we rented was comfortable and we could all spread out, which was nice. The next day, after doughnuts from Monarch Doughnuts and lunch from Menya Hanabi, we walked to the metro station to get ourselves over to the Rose Bowl. We arrived in time to see Berlin (who we had missed last year thanks to that stupid merch line). They were only there because the Motels had to bow out. (Also, right before concert date, Adam Ant wound up not making it and was replaced by Squeeze.)

The kids spread out on a beach towel and colored pictures and watched the little lady onstage sing. They seemed semi-into it – Ian even asked to be placed on Sean’s shoulders briefly so he could see better. Then – ahem – aromatic vapors and smokes were really bothering Maya. Luckily a nice lady near us noticed and offered her a mask. She wore that thing pretty much the whole day, and it seemed to help. And now we know we need to bring Maya a mask to future shows.

It wasn’t long before the kids were kind of used to the remove earplugs, pack up, relocate to new stage to see different band, reinstall earplugs routine. They seemed to particularly enjoy the Vapors set. Maya and Ian were both dancing along, doing the dance we now refer to as The Cockatoo. In deference to the kids, we didn’t really try to push too close to the stage for the most part. We would lounge in a higher ground spot (if we could find it) a ways back from the stage and watch from there. The music is plenty loud and thanks to the big screens, you could sort of match what was happening to the teeny figures on stage.

Let’s see if I can get them all: Berlin, The Vapors, Gang of Four (who beat the shit out of a microwave on stage!), Gary Numan (who Ian was particularly entranced by), Echo and the Bunnymen (hooray, Sean got to take the kids to see his favorite band of ALL TIME), Love and Rockets, we listened to Billy Idol for a bit more than saw him. The dudes walked me over to the Iggy Pop stage. There was a nice open area for us to spread out and Cushman shared his funnel cake with the kids. Then he and Sean walked over to watch The Human League a bit while the kids and I hung out and watched Iggy take his shirt off.

And then The Bad Thing happened. They abruptly shut absolutely everything down because 30 miles away there was lightning and all indications were that the storm was headed our way. Presumably because evacuating 75,000 people is hard, they wanted to give us a head start. The cynic in me kept thinking, “if you’re going to get struck by lightning, please kindly do so off property.” So, we wouldn’t be seeing the rest of Iggy Pop’s set and we would not be seeing Siouxsie. These were the two acts I was most interested in, so it was a bit of a heartbreaker. Still and all, the behavior some of the grownups around us displayed was pretty shitty. I hope like crazy we showed the kids how disappointment should be managed … and those other folks showed them how it shouldn’t.

Maya was flipping out a little because there was a thunderstorm coming, and she’s a little apprehensive about those. But I explained repeatedly that Dad and Matt *did* know where were were, but that I *didn’t* know where they were, so the smart thing to do is to stay right where we were. Networks were jammed up, so we couldn’t really communicate either. But eventually find us they did and a sad Cushman, two sad Woodses, and two Woodses who were all-concerted-out-by-this-point-anyway made their way to the shuttle buses back to the metro station.

We eventually found out that Siouxsie, Iggy Pop, and Gary Numan would be coming back the next evening to do their sets, but there was no way we could rearrange our schedule to stay an extra day, so we missed out. Still, I like to think it was a good first concert for the kiddos, and we did enjoy the acts we actually got to see.

We came back to the kids’ last week of school. We had our back fence rebuilt (it had been beaten up by a fallen tree from the ice storm), got Maya to her end-of-year soccer party, and hastily prepped for our grandparent trip.

Right away after school let out on the 25th, we started our drive toward Alabama. We wanted to arrive in time for a dinner with the out-of-towners on Friday evening, and we thought it best to have a 6-hour drive before that rather than a 12-hour drive. The kids still find it novel to stay in a hotel, so this plan didn’t bother them at all.

We arrived in Alabama the next afternoon with enough time to unpack and unwind a little bit before social hour began. Dinner that night was at Okinawa. Even though they do hibachi there, Maya and Ian both opted for sushi! And they ate it! Ian and Sean’s nephew Steele, who are only a few months apart in age, hit it off something fierce. I think if we lived closer to Darci and Will, those two boys would be a force to be reckoned with.

We talked 75% of the Jester clan into making a side trip over to the local Jeni’s Splendid Ice Cream shop. The limited time only creation at the time was an Everything Bagel ice cream. This stuff is amazing! It truly captures the essence of an everything bagel in a rich, sweet ice cream. It is so weird in the best possible way.

The big 50th wedding anniversary celebration was the next day. Harry and Helen were married in 1973, and so their anniversary dance party was 70s themed. The four of us all dressed up, each person choosing their own outfits. Maya became enamored with this pair of white go go boots. Sean became obsessed with this insane pair of yellow pants. Ian and I did the best we could to keep up. We tried to learn a few dances too before the big day, so we could participate … well, except Sean who decided he was “the photographer.”

Harry and Helen also sprung for hula hoop instructors to help keep the kids entertained. The hula hoops were EXTREMELY popular amongst kids and adults alike. Good food was had, dances were struggled through, Ian and Steele got ahold of the Polaroid camera and had fun with that. Maya and Sean even managed to win the 70s costume contest – hooray!

After all that fun, we loaded up a few things in the car and headed back to the house. And get this – Harry and Helen and probably most of their line dance friends STAYED AND DANCED FOR SEVERAL MORE HOURS! These people are crazy.

The next day was our anniversary (only the 23rd – not nearly as impressive), so we went with Lolli and Pop and the kids to have lunch at Seasons 52. The food there is pretty delicious and LolliPop could find things there that would fit their specialized diet. I wish I could replicate their vegan pasta dish because I think Ian ate as much of it as Lolli did. That guy needs vegetables in his life. For my part, I had some glazed carrots flavored with gochujang that I’m well on my way to figuring out how to make.

The kids got to go to the pool with LolliPop the next day while Sean and I worked on laundry and packing. We hear it went well and they stayed long enough for Ian to finally be ready to leave (though maybe Maya wasn’t so ready). That evening, Maya managed to pull out a loose molar. Poor kid; she was in a fair amount of pain before that tooth came out. Maya manages pain entirely too well, so it’s a big deal when she’s actually complaining that something hurts.

And then, after some bright and cheerful doughnuts from Hero Doughnuts, it was time to drive to Missouri. The drive was kinda strange because our navigation system routed us differently from normal – some business about a dam in or near Memphis potentially breaking. What?!? Normally we would take a direct diagonal route on I-22 between Homewood and Memphis and then I-55 north from there. Instead, we took a slightly longer but very pretty drive that routed us north through Huntsville and Nashville and then over through Kentucky to Cape Girardeau, and that’s where we finally found I-55.

We arrived in Missouri not too much later than planned and the kids got to unwind a bit with toys and outside time. We even made time to ride out to the pond and feed the fish – some of those fish are getting pretty big!

The next day, Grammy and Grandpa had The Most Fun Thing Ever planned for the kids – the water park. The Cape Splash Family Aquatic Center was just about perfect for the kids. They’d been to a local Texas water park in the past, Typhoon Texas, but they had been so young at the time, they mostly stuck to the splash pad and kiddie slide area.

Now they were primed to experience EVERYTHING. Plus, the park was contained enough that we could mostly just let them roam free, slide as much as they wanted, and feed them whenever they showed up feeling hungry. Also, since it was midweek and we got there when most folks are at work, it wasn’t all that crowded and the kids could slide and lazy river as much as they wanted without just a whole lot of waiting.

We showed up around midday and essentially stayed till the place closed, and it’s all the kids could talk about. They loved it! When the time came, they didn’t really want to leave.

The next day was mostly a recovery day. The kids had played really hard at the water park the day before, so on this day, we relaxed. Always at Grammy and Grandpa’s there are art projects. The yard is huge, and and there are lots of little toads and frogs to catch around the pond. And … there are cousins! Maya and Lily, who are only about 6 months apart in age (despite the BIG height difference), really played well together this time. And evidently both of them are skilled frog catchers!

We learned on this trip about Gus the Goose. Gus is a white goose who apparently has worked himself into a flock of “regular” geese (Canada Geese, maybe). Well, we managed to find a couple of very nice Gus feathers around the pond while we were walking – one for Maya and one for Lily! And while I never got to see the infamous goose, the kids did.

And finally, it was creek day! Every summer when we visit Grammy and Grandpa, the kids spend time at the creek. This time, there was the added fun of cute little ring floats. Ian, Maya, and eventually Lily as well got to float around in a unicorn, a duck, or a flamingo, as the mood struck them.

And there were SO MANY critters to catch. We saw a snake slither off into the brush when we first pulled up (didn’t get a good enough look at it to ID). The kids caught a bunch of toads. They caught little fish and a few random crawdads as well. I tried to show Maya that if you just let the crawdad walk on your hand, it probably wouldn’t pinch you. There were no guarantees of course, so there were no takers.

That last evening, Grammy and Grandpa took us to the Circle U so the kids could play video games. It’s a small thing, but they now fully associate a stop by Circle U with a visit to Grammy and Grandpa’s house. The food is good and they don’t mind rambunctious kids, so I’m content. We were surprised to find that as the evening progressed a live DJ with a karaoke machine set up shop. They kept asking for requests, and the kids all wanted to put theirs in. No one else was really taking them up on it, so that’s how the fine patrons of Circle U found themselves treated to Ian’s request, Thunderstruck by AC/DC. Maya wanted to hear Octopus’s Garden by the Beatles. I don’t remember what she chose, but Lily got to hear her request as well.

And the next day it was time for the very, very long drive back to Austin. This time we tried a different thing to help break up the drive. Sean borrowed an audiobook from the library – “The Magic Misfits” by Neil Patrick Harris. The books as read by Mr. Harris himself was about four hours long. We’d listen to the book in hour-long chunks split up by regular old screen time. It worked like a charm. The kids (and even the adults) were fully engaged in the story and the segmenting of our time a little did make the long trip more tolerable. And now, with school and soccer and travel buttoned up, maybe June would be a little more relaxed!

April was less busy than March, but only because we didn’t travel anywhere. We still had every bit of the kid activities and things that we had the previous month.

Easter was a little more laid back though than it has been in years past because we bought tickets to see the “The Super Mario Bros. Movie” as a family party at the Alamo Drafthouse for mid-morning on Easter.

We tried a new to us egg dyeing technique this year – silk dyeing! Our bubble family friends did this last year and it turned out so well, we thought we’d give it a go. I overpaid for some brightly patterned silk scraps from Etsy, and there really wasn’t much else we needed other than some nice white-shelled eggs. We wrapped the raw eggs in silk scraps, and secured them with a rubber band. Then we wrapped in something (in our case, pieces of old flour sack dish towel) to ensure the silk maintained good and steady contact with the egg.

We then boiled the whole mess in some water mixed with a bit of white vinegar for 20 minutes. Once the boiling time was over, I used tongs to move the eggs to a drying rack to cool completely. Then and only then did we remove the wrapping for our first look at how well the patterns and colors transferred. We were pleased with how ours turned out – definitely a fun change of pace from the normal PAAS color tablet egg dyeing we usually do. Note: do not eat silk-dyed eggs – clothing dye is not food safe. We had no intention of eating them, so we actually left them out on the counter to be admired until they got gross (maybe 10 days or so).

Because we were going to our movie, we negotiated with the Maya and Ian to let the Easter Bunny know we couldn’t do an egg hunt this year. Thankfully the Easter Bunny worked with us and left the kids nice baskets full of candy and fun things like games and Lego.The kids seemed to enjoy their baskets, but I think especially Maya was sad there was no egg hunting.

Our movie party was fun. There were cute props for the family (visors and mustaches and little white gloves, etc), and the kids got to make a game block as the pre-movie craft, which they both seemed happy with. The movie was silly and visually arresting as you’d expect from a movie based on the various Mario Bros. video games, and the kids seemed to love it.

Then we had to hustle home and get Maya to complete her Star Student poster. She was the Star Student in her fourth grade classroom the following week, and it kicked off with her presenting a poster all about herself. We printed a bunch of photos and she stuck stickers and even added a few actual written details about herself, albeit begrudgingly. By all accounts, her presentation went well and now we have a new sacred thing cluttering up her bedroom. Hurray!

The following weekend, we got to see Ian perform in a guitar recital, which was a lot of fun. He performed both solo and as part of a group, which was neat to see and hear.

During the next week, Maya received some very sad news. Her long-time piano teacher (something like four years now) would be closing her studio in mid-May. Maya loves Hannah. They share a common interest in birds, and Hannah answers all of Maya’s (often very tangential) music-related questions as patiently as anyone could. Maya doesn’t say much about it, but you can tell she’s been upset. They used to have a game where they’d turn happy songs into sad songs by changing from a major key to a minor key. Maya LOVES this game. Sad Twinkle (Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star) and Sad Mary (Mary Had a Little Lamb) were early favorites. I think all the songs have been in minor keys in Maya’s mind lately as she processes her situation.

The next weekend, at Maya’s soccer game on Sunday, Ian the reptile and amphibian lover was happy to see a Checkered Garter Snake hanging out on the sidelines near us. He rarely gets to see snakes, especially in the wild, so it was pretty exciting. (Maya’s team won their game also!)

That whole following week was a blur. In and amongst the normal soccer practices and music lessons, we started the search for a new piano teacher. Also, Ian’s after school music group performed a play for us. It was called, “Goodbye Winter, Hello Spring.” The kids started the play in the dead of winter and were outfitted in black sweatshirts and jackets. Then as spring sprung, the jackets were removed, revealing that the kids were dressed in bright colored t-shirts and were arranged to form a rainbow. It was pretty and Ian seemed to have fun performing.

The last weekend of the month, since the kids both had soccer games scheduled, Sean decided to rent a fancy lens for his camera so he could try to capture some action shots during their games. Alas their games were rained out! The storm was pretty intense, in fact, and the sky was wild looking. Mammatus clouds loomed large in the sky and the light was an orangey-pink. It made for some excellent photography, should a certain Dad be equipped with a fancy lens he’d no longer get to use for soccer games.

On Saturday, Maya’s music memory group competed. She had been meeting one afternoon a week after school for a couple months to listen to pieces by various composers and musicians. She’d been spending time listening at home as well. And then on competition day, we went to the AISD Performing Arts Center. Maybe it’s because I grew up in a small town where plays and whatnot were held in the local church’s hall, but that place was impressive. I just looked it up – the main auditorium seats 1200.

Maya was seated with her music teachers and participating classmates along with other AISD schools and their teachers and participants. A live orchestra performed small segments of the pieces they’d been listening to, and the kids had to guess which was which. Some of the pieces were on atypical instruments. For one piece, they had to try to guess from just a 5-second snippet. They had test forms open on Chromebooks so the results could be tabulated immediately. There had been a composer to composition matching component of the test as well. All told Maya did pretty well, and either way, it exposed her to some great and varied music and the experience itself was pretty neat. She’s already planning to participate again next year.

That Sunday, since it was nice outside and Sean had rented that fancy lens, we had the kids get suited up in their soccer uniforms and head to the park to kick the ball around so Sean could at least play with his lens a bit before returning it. There were lots of Texas Spotted Whiptail lizards running around on the sidewalk and field too! Very pretty, but also fast and hard to photograph. The kids were only slightly more cooperative.

And boom. April was over. I have a hard time not saying “yes” when the kids want to sign up for all the extracurricular things. But I don’t love how full our schedules are. It makes it nigh on impossible to actually slow down and take things in. Maybe a good summer break will erase our memories a little and we’ll find ourselves saying “yes” all over again next school year.

Disney California Adventure

It was a quiet Woods family that loaded up the car the next morning. As we walked to the parks, Sean and I worried that this was all for naught. The kids asked a million “what-if” questions that we really couldn’t answer just yet.

Sean explained our plight first at an information desk attendant who told us we’d need to go to the park entrance to try and work it out with them. Then at the Disney California Adventure entrance, the person he spoke with had to call in managerial support. It was a tense few minutes, but after Sean explained our situation to several folks, they thankfully let us in! I thought Maya was going to hug the lady who helped us, she was so happy.

Short of a brunch reservation, we mostly let the kids choose how we’d spend our morning. We were only allowed to have our car parked at our hotel till noon, but that was ok – we really hadn’t planned to spend a third full day at the parks anyways.

With our morning, we managed to hit Incredicoaster at rope drop, where it weirdly ran with no audio. Then we rode it a second time, this time *with* audio – and ride photos! This time when we were done, we found that the Jack-Jack Cookie Num Nums stand was open, so we all enjoyed cookies!

Then we hit Guardians of the Galaxy – Mission: Breakout again (we got “Burning Love” by Elvis Presley this time). Sean cooked up a scheme whereby the grown-ups gave the kids bunny ears for the ride photo this time. I’m a little short in the arms, I’ll admit, but I think it worked! That ride is so much fun.

We had time to squeeze in one more attraction before our brunch reservation, so we went to Soarin’ Over California again. This time we managed to get B-1, which is the preferred ride location for diminished screen curvature and no dangling feet in your view. Hooray!

We headed to Lamplight Lounge for our dining reservation and were promptly seated outside near the water. The weather was wonderful – sunny and a little cool. I had a nice coffee served in an actual mug. Ian had a mocktail called “Mint to Be.” When Ian was little, he’d pull the mint plants up out of our friend Holly’s garden and just munch the leaves off the stem. Even still, he’ll ask me for fresh mint from our back yard. This drink was made for him – limeade and watermelon-berry puree with mint.

Sean and Maya both had a drink called the 2319. This is the code they shouted out in the first Monster’s Inc. movie when one of the monsters came back from a scare session with a child’s sock stuck to his back. This is contamination in monster land and so had to be handled with caution. 2319 – W is the 23rd letter of the alphabet – S is the 19th letter of the alphabet – stands for “White Sock.” The drink itself is really neat. There’s cream of coconut, pineapple juice, and strawberry puree with a topper of Coca Cola. As you’re sitting enjoying your beverage, the coconut cream rises to the top in a lovely way. I supposed you could see that as a white sock stuck to a furry monster’s back.

The food was nice too. Sean had the Brunch Burger, I had Crab and Potato Cake Eggs Benedict (which I really loved), Maya had Indulgent French Toast, and Ian had their Omelet with no cheese (read: scrambled eggs) and double bacon. We got a kick out of the decorations around the bathrooms too. There were funny quotes from Disney movies in sort of a chalk looking font on black-painted walls. It was fun trying to place them all.

We used one last lightning lane to let the kids ride Incredicoaster yet again (their fifth time over the course of the trip). After the ride, we thought we had lost on of Ian’s laniard pins, but 20 minutes later, it magically fell from a fold in his jacket. Whew!

We saw Darci and Will one more time and thanks to a friend of theirs, managed to get a photo with all six of us. They had bought pins for Maya and Ian, which they loved. I don’t think I had mentioned it yet, but we did manage to do a bit of pin trading on this Disney trip as well, and the kids are both very much into it.

On our way out of the park, we snuck in the last of our Food and Wine Fest tastings before hustling to our car. We wound up being about 15 minutes late getting back to our car, but thankfully, no one had tow booted us yet. Wheeeeee – and that was our last half-day at Disney’s California Adventure! Now back to the rest of our Los Angeles vacation.

Disneyland – 23,105 steps

Yesterday Sean had allowed himself to be swayed by the whims of our kids and often found himself frustrated at the inefficiencies this introduced. Today, he decided he was going to do his best to stick to a plan. And that plan was to hit as many of the calmer dark ride type things early in the day as he could while everyone else was busy lining up for the more thrilling rides first thing.

We started out on Snow White’s Enchanted Wish. You board your mine cart and are whisked through glowing-jewel bedecked caves and scenes from Snow White. It was pretty to look at and the kids seemed into it (possibly because they hadn’t already ridden a take-your-breath-away roller coaster).

Next we went right to Alice in Wonderland. After an almost nothing wait in line, we boarded our giant caterpillar ride vehicle, and tootled along a winding track that presented us with scenes from Alice in Wonderland.

We hit peak Sean nostalgia with the next one – Mr. Toad’s Wild Ride. Apparently this was an opening day attraction at Disneyland Park in 1955. From what I’ve read, it was upgraded in 1983 to update the facade and add to the interior Toad Hall space. We paired up in little cars and J. Thaddeus Toad, Esq. drove away like a maniac. After crashing through doors and tearing through the countryside, we eventually ran headlong into an oncoming train! The ride ends with Toad having gone to hell. No, really.

The ride is weird and odd and fun. The kids wanted to like it because their Dad was so fond of it, but I’m not sure their hearts were it it when they were saying complimentary things afterward.

Storybook Land Canal Boats was a ride through a whales mouth into a land of intricate miniatures. Yeah, it was a sleepy little ride, but the kids got to ride on the flat decks up front, which they seemed excited about.

The kids were dying to ride Dumbo the Flying Elephant. Maya and Ian love these kinds of rides because there’s a lever inside the ride vehicle (a Dumbo!) that lets them control whether it goes up or down as we fly around in a circle.

We had finished what we wanted to do in Fantasyland at this point and hit Red Rose Taverne for breakfast. Sean and I had big breakfast plates with scrambled eggs, potatoes, and bacon and a petit croissant to boot. The kids both had giant Mickey pancakes with bacon. Mom had a mondo-sized coffee. All was right with the world.

We went next to Pirates of the Caribbean, which may have been our first use of a lightning lane that day. The ride almost immediately dropped you down a waterfall into the seedy world of pirates. You float past a huge ship firing its cannons, cannonballs splashing around you. The animatronics on this ride were incredible!

The kids had been jonesing hard for a proper thrill ride (though the surprise drops on Pirates were definitely fun), so we went next to take in Splash Mountain. While Disney World’s version of this ride closed down in early 2023 for re-theming to Tiana’s Bayou Adventure, the Disneyland version is still Song of the South themed. You get to see Br’er Rabbit and Br’er Fox and Br’er Bear getting up to their shenanigans and Zip-A-Dee-Doo-Dahing away. (Though this one too will close in May for the same re-theming.)

Ian was funny on this one. I don’t remember him having any issue with this ride when we were in Florida, but as we were in line this time, he managed to work himself into an absolute fizz. He was growing noticeably more jittery as we progressed, and he insisted that I put a hand on his shoulder when we went down the big drop at the end (which I did). And of course Ian bounded off the ride full of excitement and delight. Sean, unfortunately, squish-squished off the ride in his now very wet shoes.

Next up was The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh, where we boarded a giant beehive to experience Pooh and Tigger and Piglet and Eeyore and their various adventures. I remember it being cute enough but probably not a favorite for me.

After this, we went to Haunted Mansion. This one is a favorite of mine. It’s just so … weird. It’s a haunted house but it’s silly. It’s dark and scary, but not much. Apparently one of the notable differences between this Haunted Mansion and the one in Disney World is that in the initial stretching room, this one actually does lower you down, whereas its Florida counterpart just gives the illusion that you’re dropping. We did experience some ride issues while on this attraction. I can’t remember how long the delay was, but they did eventually get us moving again.

Around here is where I managed to find some Haunted Mansion Mickey ears. Only Sean, the biggest Disney fan of all of us, was earless at this point.

Next we checked out the California version of the Jungle Cruise. Our guide was Skipper Hannah, which Maya loved because she shares a name with Maya’s piano teacher. This ride is maybe not the most technologically or even thematically interesting, but the skippers are so funny with their goofy puns and silly sense of humor. “See that bamboo over there? It’s six stories tall. Some skippers say seven, but that’s a whole ‘nuther story.” And since she had a long running short-term memory issue joke, we heard variations of that bamboo joke several times during our cruise.

With our jungle cruise complete, we decided it would be a good time to relax for a bit and have some Dole Whips at The Tropical Hideaway. Maya and I had these crazy chili-mango whips that were loaded up with chili lime seasoning, chamoy sauce, and chunks of fruit. I think we both would have enjoyed it more without the fruit chunks, but I truly loved the flavor. Sean got a swirl of pineapple and strawberry Dole Whip. Ian went traditional with the pineapple. I think Maya was kind of ambivalent about hers, so I think she and Sean wound up sharing.

After this, while waiting in line to buy a few kebabs for snacking on, we managed to run into Darci and Will! Rather, Darci was stalking us with the locator app on her phone, so really she came and found us. Yeah, so completely by accident, the two Woods siblings wound up planning Disney vacations in California at the same time, Sean because it lined up with spring break, Darci because it lined up with a work training trip. Also, Ian likes asparagus wrapped in bacon.

Next we rode the Indiana Jones Adventure. Ian was locked in on this one. We had watched Raiders of the Lost Ark not long before this trip, and Ian wanted to have a giant boulder roll down at him. He was so excited. I think the theming as we made our way through the line did nothing but heighten his excitement. The dark passageways were a little creepy, the jungle before that was transportive.

This is a very intense version of a dark ride, much like DINOSAUR in Disney World. The ride vehicle jerks and bumps as you move over rugged jungle terrain. You are encountering booby traps galore as you make your way through the Temple of the Forbidden Eye. One of the elements of the ride is indeed a giant boulder bearing down on you. Also, there were lots of snakes, to Ian’s delight.

Next we rode Big Thunder Mountain Railway. The kids seemed to enjoy it, and with the intense theming, its a pretty neat experience regardless, but it’s very tame by roller coaster standards.

After that, at Maya’s repeated request, we went to visit the Enchanted Tiki Room (not like we weren’t going to anyway). This is the one where all the animatronic birds sing and banter in the rafters above you. All of this is supported by chanting Tiki gods and flashing lights. In Florida, I remember the kids being a little scared during that part; evidently they’ve grown out of that apprehension, because we got nothing but smiles for this one.

Then it was time for us to meet up with Darci and Will for our “lunch” reservation at Cafe Orleans. I’m nearly certain Sean booked this reservation just so he could have their battered and fried Monte Cristo. If I remember correctly, the kids ate roasted chicken. I had a very delectable braised short rib dish. It was semi-civilized bliss, and I remember being very thankful for the down time.

Discussion during our late lunch was lively and entertaining. One of the topics that came up was something like, “What would your dream Disney experience be?” Sean had one at the ready: He would like to get e-stopped (emergency stopped) on Space Mountain so he could see what it all looked like with the lights on. I can’t recall what other’s dream experiences were, and I don’t have enough context or research capacity to have one, personally.

Well, we had a lightning lane reserved for Space Mountain a bit later on, so we had time to wander over and partake of It’s a Small World while we waited. I was fine with the ride in Florida – tolerant might even be a better word. Here I was completely taken with the ride’s facade. It was gorgeous! Mary Blair is an artistic genius!

The ride itself was likely more compelling to the kids than its Floridian counterpart. The song, as they say, remains the same (“It’s a Small World, After All”), and the delightful characters clothed in culturally accurate costumes representing different countries sang and danced with the same joy we experienced on the other side of the country. But interspersed were characters we were all familiar with. Here’s Peter Pan in England. Oh – there are the three caballeros in Mexico. I spy Lilo and Stitch! It was very engaging.

Then it was time for Space Mountain. We were in line and not far from being able to ride when suddenly the ride came to a full stop. We watched a general hubbub ensue. Because the ride would be completely cleared of ride trains – by hand, no less – it took a while. We watched as trains were moved off to the side onto a sort of storage track so that all of them could be brought into the station. I don’t remember how many there were, but the internet tells me Space Mountain at Disneyland can support up to 12 trains at a time.

So, Sean missed his chance to be e-stopped on Space Mountain by a matter of minutes. And I’m betting those minutes can be attributed to some kid needing to pee!

Eventually, after whatever protein- or equipment-based cause for the e-stop was resolved, we spent a lot of time watching trains come into the station and interrupted riders re-ride the attraction (understandably) before we finally had our chance to board. The ride itself was delightful as always, though I’m sure Sean laments just how close he actually came to getting to have his ultimate Disney experience.

We then visited Star Tours. This is a 3D simulator ride set in the world of Star Wars. I had the (incorrect) preconceived notion that this would maybe be a bit tired or boring given the Rise of the Resistance and Smugglers Run experiences. After riding, 1 – I’m just going to confess now that I don’t recall the specifics and 2 – it was way more immersive and entertaining than I had anticipated. From my reading it sounds like the storylines vary and change, and as I’ve already confessed, I don’t remember the specifics of ours. But when we exited, it seemed that we had all had a lot of fun.

We headed next to Millennium Falcon: Smugglers Run. Because Maya hadn’t gotten to pilot the Millennium Falcon when we were in Florida, we decided we should ride this one again here in California to give her the chance.  Unless I missed something, the ride experience was the same, sans the (I think) two-hour wait we experienced the first time. Maya seemed to be apprehensive but had a good time piloting the ship, and we achieved at least a portion of our assigned smuggling mission. I don’t care how old I get, I’m not sure being on the Falcon and seeing the “jump to hyperspace” will ever *not* be cool.

We finished our rides with a spin through the Matterhorn Bobsleds. The Matterhorn lords over the Disneyland landscape, featuring almost as prominently in my memory as the castle does. The kids had kind of been looking forward to riding this one all day. I liked it well enough, and I’m glad we rode it, but it wasn’t as thrilling as I had built it up to be in my mind.

What is interesting to note is that it was the first tubular steel roller coaster in the world, and it was the first roller coaster type ride at Disneyland. Also, it has two different tracks, one on the Fantasyland side of the mountain and one on the Tomorrowland side. Sean believes we rode the one on the Fantasyland side.

We exited the Matterhorn just after 8:00, but by then seating for the 9 p.m. showing of Fanstamic! was all but completely full. Rather than squeeze into the back somewhere or try to hold out till the 10:30 show, tired as we were, we decided to eat, finally buy Dad his Mickey ears (his featured the traditional, retro Disneyland sign), and head back to get some sleep. (I’ll comment here that our lobster rolls from Harbour Galley were divine.)

We’d be checking out of our hotel the next day, and we wanted to get an early start, so we bathed and packed and the whole bit even though we were completely shot from our epic Disneyland day. We had just gotten settled into our beds, and Sean was making our last day’s park reservation. The plan had been to spend one day at DCA, one day at Disneyland, and then spend our third day (really half-day) at whichever one we felt warranted a little more time. The kids unanimously voted for DCA, which suited us fine because we still had a couple more of our Food and Wine festival tasting credits that we wanted to use.

Sean looked alarmed and said something that I don’t feel like repeating here just now. When I inquired he let me know there were no reservations available … at either park. Which means we had no way to get into either of the parks in the morning. Sean went directly into research mode. After some hunting he came to the disheartening conclusion that given Disney’s policies, we were likely out of luck.

We prepped the kids a bit for the bad news, but we assured them that we’d still get ready and go to Disney’s California Adventure tomorrow and try our best. They were discussing strategies for pretending to cry, which we stopped right away. We explained that we’d tell the Disney folks the truth and let them know that we were from way out of town and that we’d have no other way to redeem our park visit without going that day, but warned that that didn’t guarantee anything. It was a sad clan of Woodses that went to bed that night. I’m not sure Sean really slept much at all.

Disney California Adventure – 20,250 steps

We managed to hustle out of our hotel in fairly short order this morning. What we hadn’t done is eaten any breakfast. While we were lined up at Disney California Adventure, the kids started asking about food. Knowing that the plan at “rope drop” would be to rush to whatever our first attraction would be, Sean went hunting for snacks in the vicinity.

After wolfing down our pastries and slogging our way forward with the rest of the crowd after rope drop, we hustled back to ride Incredicoaster. Sean tells me this is a retrofit of a ride originally called California Screamin’. It was re-themed as an Incredibles-based attraction to tie in with re-theming of Paradise Pier to Pixar Pier. In my memory, we didn’t stand in line but maybe 15-20 minutes and then we were on our coaster.

The story is that Jack-Jack (Maya’s favorite character, by the way) is on the loose and we’re trying to catch him. The character Dash counts you down before you LIM-launch forward (at 55 mph; I looked it up) through a very enjoyable series of twist and turns. It’s a satisfyingly long ride for a coaster, zips through a number of tunnels, and it even features a loop within the Pixar Pier sign in the center of the coaster’s big hill.

The kids loved it. Sean was sad that the cameras weren’t operating, so we didn’t get ride photos. Then he was again sad that the cookie stand outside the ride was closed.

Instead of enjoying a cookie, we made our way to the Avengers Campus to check out Web Slingers: A Spiderman Adventure. Here the idea is that Spiderman has made spider-bots. These spider-bots are able to replicate, and after doing so unchecked for a period of time, begin raining down destruction on Avengers Campus. Our job was to board the ride vehicle with our 3D glasses in place and shoot webs at as many of the spider-bots as we could.

I hadn’t really been paying attention, but later on, Sean pointed out that he had been winning through the whole ride but that at the end, I had the high score. Just so we’re all clear here, I never have the high score, nor do I particularly care that I don’t have the high score. But last time we were on one of these Disney shooting-stuff rides, Maya taught me a trick. As she says, “spam” the firing button. In this case, you moved your arms and hands in a particular way to fling a web, but the principle remains. My habit is to carefully aim at something and then fire, but speed is rewarded in these scenarios. And so, I flung webs at spider-bots just as fast as I could without a great deal of regard for fine-grain aim. Also, I wasn’t watching the score, LOL.

When we went to Disney World, there were still many pandemic precautions in place, and so between that and the kids’ need to ride as many rides as they could, we didn’t really meet our favorite Disney characters and gather character autographs. In fact, Sean still had the autograph books he had bought for the kids back when we thought we were going to Disney in 2020.

This time though, the kids were interested in autographs. Ian’s 2020 book was frilly and pink, but he has since grown out of his princess phase and requested a new book for this trip. The kids’ first autograph was that of Black Panther. I think it seemed weird to Maya that she’d be expected to actually interact with the character instead of just watching, but otherwise, photos were taken and signatures gotten. Wakanda forever.

Next we popped into one of dozens of conveniently placed souvenir shops to get Ian some new Mickey ears. This trip’s ears for Ian featured light sabers, which fits in with his love of weaponry. Maya thought she *might* like some Black Panther ears, but held out for a while to see what else we happened upon.

Next we went to Mater’s Junkyard Jamboree. The theming all over any Disney property is incredible, but to me, especially the Cars part of the park was bonkers good. The Junkyard Jamboree is a spinning ride where your ride vehicle is one of the tractor “cows” from the movies. They look fantastic. Mater’s emceeing the ride – warning you to hang on since these tractors have on their dancing tires. It was a relatively tame ride, but the kids seemed to have fun anyway.

Then, we went for our lightning lane for Guardians of the Galaxy: Mission Breakout. (I think it was on our way to this that we went ahead and bought Maya her Black Panther ears as well.) This used to be Tower of Terror, but was re-themed to tie into the Avengers Campus part of the park. I won’t lie; I loved this ride. You’re visiting The Collector’s display of creatures that he’s collected throughout the galaxy, which includes the Guardians of the Galaxy characters. Maya was delighted to find that Cosmo the dog was on display.

At the beginning of the attraction, you crowd into a room and start to hear the Collector give you his welcoming spiel. Then we see an animatronic Rocket, who has broken out of his cell, interrupt the transmission to explain his plan for breaking everyone else out as well, including his fellow Guardians.

Poor Maya had herself worked up into a right state as we waited to board the next phase of the attraction. She was near hysterics, speed talking about possible ride failures, explaining all the things she had been bothered by in the Tower of Terror ride in Florida. I couldn’t really enjoy the ride (though what I did see was fabulous). Initially, she death-gripped me around the neck, literally blocking my oxygen intake. After extricating myself from her, she insisted on ducking. With the ride shooting you up and down at random intervals, I was very concerned she’d hit her head – hard. And so I spent most of the ride watching her and hoisting her back up if she slumped. Still, the story was hilarious and the ride was indeed thrilling. (The soundtrack for the attraction might feature any of six different songs – this time we were treated to “I Want You Back” by Jackson 5.) And Maya exited telling us excitedly how much she loved it and wanted to ride it again. Fine, fine, but she’d be sitting next to Sean next time.

We headed over to the Pym Test Kitchen to get some snacks for the kids. Ian and Maya were astonished to see a mechanism inside the restaurant that seemed to be taking normal-sized pretzels in and outputting giant pretzels instead. Ian wanted to know, was that really happening? Were Pym particles (from Ant-Man) real? Sean assured him that they were. Maya’s usually a bit more skeptical, but even she seemed to be considering believing her dad.

In the end, they shared one of the giant pretzels and some candied bacon. I believe they discussed that the Pym particles didn’t seem to make the pretzel taste weird or anything, so they thought it was probably ok.

According to my notes, we did a couple of quick-hit rides next. The Little Mermaid – Ariel’s Undersea Adventure is a tame dark ride that features several scenes filled with animatronic characters that tell a condensed version of the story. The kids were enthralled and everyone got to rest their feet for a bit.

Maya and Ian wanted to ride on the Golden Zephyr. You board a steam-punk / science fiction sort of aircraft and are swung in circles around a central post. The views were nice and the kids seemed to have a good time.

Throughout the day, Sean and I were partaking of the Food and Wine Festival being celebrated at Disney’s California Adventure. We’d sneak in our tastes and snacks as it became convenient, so we mostly just had to remember to keep the kids fed. For lunch, we bought them slices of pizza and cotton candy (shut up, it’s vacation), and we shared one of our Food and Wine Fest tastes. We relaxed for a bit, listening as a band played for the Festival. We watched Ian’s poor face get more and more blue as he tried to attack his cotton candy head-on.

After our lunch break, we headed over to ride DCA’s version of Soarin’. Whereas Florida had you soaring over the wonders of the world, DCA has you soaring over the wonders of California instead. Actually, I just looked this up. They only offer the experience as Soarin’ Over California from March 3 – April 25 to tie in with the Food and Wine Festival. Otherwise it’s Soarin’ Around the World, presumably similar to its Florida counterpart.

You see Yosemite, you see San Francisco, you smell the oranges as you soar over orange groves. At the end, you even soar over Disneyland. This is another relax and lean into it kind of a ride. Let your feet rest. Enjoy the sensation.

We were back to Cars Land for our next ride – Radiator Springs Racers. We paid extra to lightning lane this one, and I think it was wise. Every time Sean checked, the wait time was immense. Remember how I said the Cars Land theming was really spectacular? That definitely extended to this ride. We started out on a casual drive through the rocky, cactus-laden desert landscape. Then we entered a “dark ride” part of the attraction where we really felt like we were moving within scenes from the movie. Then the race was on, and to the kids’ delight, it became a thrill ride from there.

In reading up a bit on the Disney site, I discovered that the line of Cadillacs that make up the mountain range in Cars Land was actually modeled after the Cadillac Ranch art installation in Amarillo. We’ve been to there.

After a spin through the Goofy’s Sky School ride for the kids, we decided to procure cocktails for the adults. Sean had a Chipotle-Pineapple Bourbon Sour and I had a Smoked Cherry Mezcal-tiki Cocktail. They were excellent and a bit of a respite from our Disney mania.

We largely consumed them while in line for our next attraction – Pixar Pal-A-Round. It’s the huge Ferris wheel that, along with Incredicoaster, dominates the DCA skyline. You have options when riding this one. You can choose to ride in a fixed gondola – what I’d have called the “normal” Ferris wheel experience. Or you could choose what they called a swinging gondola – which is what we did. Your gondola not only moves in the main orbit of the Ferris wheel, it’s also able to glide along an interior track that provides radial movement to and from the center, which exaggerates the swinging motion of the gondola. They include barf bags in the ride, if that tells you anything. We all really got a kick out of it – taking what is traditionally a ride that’s maybe a bit boring outside of the views you get to see at the top and adding a bit of a thrill.

Since we were in the area, we rode Incredicoaster again before eventually choosing to stand in line to ride Guardians of the Galaxy again. We’d be there for about an hour, which gave Sean time to make some food runs for us and the kids. Even though we wound up waiting quite a while, this was overall a better experience – Maya wasn’t so terrified this time. As an added bonus, since we didn’t zing through on a lightning lane this time, we actually got to peruse more of The Collector’s prizes than we had earlier. And at the end, we had a much better ride experience, since Maya wasn’t trying to choke the life out of me. (Though none of us can remember which song they were playing this time.)

And finally it was time for us to get lined up for World of Color. I’m not entirely sure how Sean finagled it (some business about adding us to a virtual queue earlier in the day), but we were able to enter one of the fancy roped off areas about an hour beforehand and score primo positioning right along the waterfront. Before it got crowded, we took the opportunity to sit and rest our legs for a while.

It was already chilly out, and the warnings all over the place that we’d definitely get wet where we were standing had me a little nervous. We needn’t have worried though. Throughout the show, we’d occasionally feel a light misting, but never anything more. One of the guests near us visited often and explained that if the winds were right, you might get a more thorough soaking.

The show was amazing. Beautiful jets and fountains and fans of water cavorted all over that bay, underlit with multi-colored and ever-changing lights. Huge fans of misty water had scenes from favorite films projected on them. Lighting on Incredicoaster and Pixar Pal-A-Round were incorporated into the show. For certain things (think Remy’s kitchen and Moana’s Te Ka), jets of fire accompanied the show. Soaring music complimented the action. It was intense.

When things were wrapping up, and it started to seem more like “closing credits” and less like “show,” we thought we’d sneak out and maybe get ahead of the throng. Ian was having no part of it – he didn’t want to leave. Maya really liked the show, except for the parts with fire. She’s still not a fan of the fire.

And then after all that standing and waiting and riding and eating and watching, we made the long walk back to our hotel room, where we discovered that the clothes I had hung over the shower rail really hadn’t dried much at all. We carefully arranged the necessary stuff for the next day on the heating vents and hoped for the best before crashing.