We're Back!!

Well, we survived the trip despite the pups best efforts to annoy us on the way down.  The puppy spent the ride down in my lap, sleeping.  And I use the term lap loosely since she moved up as the day progressed and the sun got lower until she ended up somewhere near my neck.

The ride down was long and made longer by the dogs and children. We stopped almost every hour to water/walk the dogs and check on Youngest's temperature.  Speaking of which, she ran one until Thursday morning but finally recovered.  We were a snorting/sniffing bunch though.  Good thing I took my whole pharmacy with me since we needed just about all of it between our various allergies and incipient colds.

Snot aside, the trip was great.  Here's a picture of our cabin:

The weather was wonderful- clear and not too hot with cool evenings.  The area was really quite dry and the wildflowers that we expected to see were not evident.  There was a burn ban, a common occurence in the summer in the Hill Country but fairly unusual in the Spring.  Our winter has been very dry.

Here's the view from the porch:

The creek that ran through the property was a big hit with the dogs.  There were only two other cabins on the property and we were able to let the big dogs off the leash to run.  They loved running up and down the creek and playing in the water.  The puppy liked it too but she isn't what you'd call trustworthy off leash just yet.  She needs to learn to come when she's called.

Except for the general neuroses of the two boys, Rowan especially, they did really well.  Rowan has this problem with tile and the entire living and kitchen area of the cabin was tile.  He was pretty skittish until yesterday.  He of course finally starts to relax a little when its time to leave.

The area where we stayed is really isolated.  We were about 4 miles from the Lost Maples State Natural Area and the nearest town with a population over a few hundred was an hour away.  We had no cell phone service, no internet and no TV.  Miraculously, we didn't die.  In fact, no one really seemed to mind.

We played cards and took walks with the dogs and drove around and not much else.  We all liked it well enough that we're thinking of going back this Christmas.

The trip back was much better and as usual seemed much shorter.  We only stopped twice, that might have helped a little.

Now I'm off to catch up on current events!