Don't Mess with Texas

The last few days have treated us well, though Texas tried to mess with us a little. After a nice, but too brief time in Austin we headed for Balmorhea, Texas, to a quaint state park with a warm and large spring-fed pool. We thought it could be nice to splurge for an evening. So we hustled to get there before the pool closed at six and dissapointingly, it's all cemented in, but it was 20-some feet deep and not cemented on the bottom, which was extremely nice for all the scuba divers! I didn't quite see the value in Texan scuba-diving, but we were way outnumbered. So we jumped in and it was kind of warm, though everyone had goosebumps and after we got out my inner ear hurt and I had a bit of a headache. So we quickly set up camp as the sun was close to setting and cooked a lovely stew of lima and green beans, corn and wheat tortillas, some fruit, and I forget what else. It wasn't bad. Solid dumpster stew overall. There were amazing stars out, but we still went to bed by 8 because the sun had been down for hours. Then we froze our asses off, though still sleeping for 12 hours because everyone was too cold to get out of their sleeping bag and the sun didn't come up until 8. When we realized this we packed in ten minutes and cranked heat on in the car. Oh, and each of us had a nightmare.

In New Mexico, we hit up White Sands, frolicking and frisbeeing for several hours, then drove to Albuquerque, staying at Mike's former residence with Laura Shank, Amanda Yoder Short, Amanda Heggen, and Deb Brubaker, played some name game last night, and today went to the San Antonio Hot Springs! Many thanks to Dave and Jen for taking us. I had heard about these years ago, but no one ever seemed to know how to get there. A grueling hike down and murderous on the return, but definitely worth it!