Camping

We're headed out to Lake Buchanan tomorrow. A weekend full of nature, high quality family time, and no iPhones.

Yeah right. Who am I kidding. It'll be more like a weekend full of sunburn, bug bites, bitching, and searching for wifi hotspots.

Yes, Chris already looked to see if he'd have internet access.

I'm only packing for Chris and I. You'd think I was packing for a week, not just a weekend...

Not pictured- the cooler, our pillows, and my box fan. Gotta have that white noise, yo!

Have fan will travel. I'm not even kidding. I can't sleep without the thing.

What's that you ask about a tent? What's that? Tent camping? Pffft. There has been an RV rented and I will be sleeping in the air conditioning. Ya know, unless I need to get away from one of the other 14 people that will be camping in our group.

Then I'll be sleeping in a tent.

With my fan.

Alone.

Cool front! It's supposed to be 104 tomorrow.

This is going to be awesome.

It's Been Nearly A Month...

...since we went down to the coast. I've just been in a blogging rut lately, and haven't been in the mood to gather all of the pictures that were taken and then blog. I should mention that halfway through our vacation, my camera was DROPPED! and that was the end of that one. So, I had to gather pictures from multiple cameras. One of my brothers, Tyler, went with us to the beach. So when I say "the boys" I mean Chris and Tyler.

Better late than never.

To start off the day, the boys had to! wanted to drive down the beach and just park near the water. I said no, but it was two against one. So drive down the beach I did. I should have known to turn around when I saw this-

and this (if you can't read the sign, click on the picture to make it bigger)-

Needless to say, I followed advice from the boys after seeing those ruts, and I got stuck. Somebody told me to drive up on the loose sand. So I'm sitting in the drivers seat crying because we are stuck, and Chris is yelling at me to punch the gas. I was just digging my hole deeper. Thankfully after a few minutes, a few nice people saw us and helped dig us out. Then I got chewed out from some older guy who told me to, "stay off the loose sand!" Duh. One of the guys who helped dig us out let us follow him (in his hippie van) to where we were going.

At that point we were only halfway to our destination so Chris drove the rest of the way. I was done. We finally made it...just in time for someone to tell us we needed a beach parking pass in order to park there. I snapped a picture and told Chris to drive my car back to the condo because I wasn't getting back in that car already. There was a path leading to the beach (where we were) from our condo so it wasn't too bad for him.

Just as I was about to get into the water, someone yelled, "He's got a shark! Go look!" What the heck?! My day was steadily getting crappier. Of course, I ran over there and asked to take a picture of the shark he caught. Yes, the shark he CAUGHT. Genius was trying to catch them...and not too far from where we were all swimming. He caught more than just this one...

After seeing that, and the stingray that was chasing after Chris the day before, I wasn't going more than knee deep into that water. Instead, I stayed near the shore and took pictures of the cutest cousins ever.

Oh, and after going to the aquarium (and seeing jellyfish and stingrays) the day before, my brother wasn't too keen on going too far into the water either. We are weenies. So what?!

Chris on the other hand, was fearless and went way too far out into the water, way too many times. I nearly had 15 heart attacks. Then after taking 23,487,600 pictures in the water, none of them even turned out good! What?! This is the best we got.

The sunset (that was behind us!) was pretty though...the mosquitos that chased us back to the condo were not.

The morning before we left I actually went out onto our patio and saw that you could see the beach from there. So, here's a picture of that-

Even after getting stuck in the sand, seeing multiple sharks, and watching a stingray swim right by my leg, I had a good time and I can't wait until we can go again. We did a lot of other things while down at the coast, but there is no way it would all fit into one post. More to come later...

 

Vacation-Part 4 of 3

The last post ended up being much longer than I anticipated so here is the rest of our Sunday...

After floating the river for a few hours we were starving. My aunt suggested going to The Salt Lick, and it worked out great because Chris has lived here over three years and we still hadn't made it out there. Also, we were already out that way so we went to the Driftwood location. The boy loves BBQ. But, BBQ is different in Tennessee that it is in Texas. There, you can get pulled pork just about anywhere (that's his favorite), but here it's much harder to find. Beef rules in Texas.

Well he got lucky because we happened to go on a Sunday, and guess what was on the menu just especially for that day? A big fat pulled pork sandwich. He was nearly dancing on the table. Seriously, ask one of the other seven people that were with us.

This is his, "I can't believe I am here and about to get this awesomely delicious pulled pork sandwich!" face.

The sandwich took up over half of the plate. You can't even see the cole slaw, beans, or potato salad that he also devoured.

I'm not even sure he realized I was snapping pictures. But this...this is what got me excited...

Pickles. Yum. Chris ate the onions. Yuck.

 Chris also ate half of my plate. Sausage and brisket included.

Oh, and he tried some of Mason's baby back ribs. I think he may have eaten something off of nearly everyone's plate. He had to try it all!

At this point, we are all wondering if he has a hollow leg or something. I hadn't seen him eat this much in years. I'm not exaggerating. But then he stopped. And I thanked God because I had to ride home with him and his onion breath.

 But oh no, he didn't stop because he was finished. Nope, he had another trick up his sleeve.

His most favorite dessert ever. He and Megan shared this massive slice of warm pecan pie.

He may or may not have been shoveling it in eating it with his hands. The look on my aunt's face says it all. We just couldn't figure out where he was putting all of this food. And then it was gone.

Countdown to our next vacation- 9 days.

*Where Chris is bound to gross me out by eating some sort of critter that lives in the ocean.*

 

Vacation-Part 3 of 3

Alternately titled: Ashley's 3 Major Freak-Outs.

So, after listening to someone practice their gymnastics routine in the hotel room above us...we packed up and left San Antonio for the river.


I. was. so. tired. I was also sore from being thrown around on roller coasters all day on Saturday, and I'll spare you the gory details about my right foot and lost skin.


Moving on.


Chris hit the ground running. He was ready to GO.

Not me.

Yikes.

After breakfast, we hit the road. For the record, that is not my coffee I am holding. Yuck.

My aunt and her boyfriend (Ted) have friends who live on the Guadalupe River so we spent Sunday there. It was half way between Georgetown and San Antonio so it worked out. Once we got to their house we pretty much ran for the river, it was so HOT.  We opted to take a little walk to some rapids so that we could float back down to their dock. It was soooo fun! Chris especially enjoyed it.

Walking to the rapids.

Walking...

And then the fun began. Chris in the rapids...

The first time he went through the rapids, he didn't tip over. The second time though, he flipped over. It was hilarious, I didn't have my camera that time. Don't let the pictures fool you, that water was moving fast.

His face cracks me up in this picture. I have no idea how to explain how cold the water was. Just believe me when I say that our butts were still numb an hour after leaving the river. Here is Ted, helping his daughter get into the river. Now, is when I almost chickened out because it was kind of a drop and I just had to fall into the tube butt first. Did I mention the water is like ice? Ice on a 100 degree day is nice, but not when you have to sit in it.

But Chris was already floating, and I was about to miss my chance to float with him or float the river alone so I bit the bullet. This is the part where I tell you that I'm psychic. Keep this picture in your mind-

See how the bottom is that mesh-like material? It's nice because you just relax and sit there. Ok, back to my story...So I get into the tube.

What? You didn't believe that I'd get in? Everyone who knows me knows I don't do bodies of water where I can't see the bottom. I don't know what got into me but I did it! After not going into shock from the frigid water, I snapped a quick pic. At this point I was proud of myself for floating with the fishies in the water with no see-able bottom. I needed a picture for proof. Then I proceeded to freak out and beg Chris to tie our tubes together so I wouldn't be scared and alone floating to the ocean or something. That was freak out # 1.

He tied us together and it was awesome! Just sit back and relax! I mean, look at this view...

Holy crap, I'm in the middle of a river here!

See that tent looking thing on the dock to the left up there? That was the destination.

Well, I was enjoying the ride until Chris wanted the camera so I was tossing it to him and THE BOTTOM MESH PART OF MY TUBE BUSTED OUT. I'm not even kidding. I almost died. Enter freak out #2.  Thank God our tubes were connected because I was about to drown! Ok, not really, I just straightened my legs out and held myself up with my arms until we got to the dock, but I must have looked like death because Chris was begging me to switch tubes with him. Heck no! I am not swimming with the fishies! I will float with them but there is no way I'm submerging myself in this arctic water to switch tubes with you!  But, thanks for the offer! Once I yelled at Chris to calm down, that I was fine, he got mad and started taking pictures of my suffering. He got mad because I yelled at him and then he thought I wouldn't want to float again because this happened. He was wrong!

See that death grip I have on the tube? No idea why I trusted it to get me the rest of the way down to the dock, but I didn't care. I was just trying to not fall through the hole. I thought to myself as soon as I plopped myself in to the tube, "I will be the one that ends up busting out the bottom of one of these things and having to swim back to the dock." Psychic.

Regardless, we made it back to the dock and I got the heck out of that thing. I got a different tube that didn't FAIL me and we kept on with the fun! We all tied our tubes together and floated by the dock for a while.

This was right before Megan saved my life, hello freak out #3.

After going through the pictures taken on this day, I noticed that I always have a death grip on either the rope or the tube. Funny.

While floating, we decided everyone was getting hungry so we should dry off and go get some food. I was like, ok, just let me untie myself so I can get out of the water. Well, untie myself I did. It took me about 1.97 seconds to realize that I wasn't tied to anyone and I was quickly floating downstream.

Way to go Ashley.

So I yelled, and of course Chris already knew what I had done. Unfortunately he was already out of the water. Megan was the closest to me and bless her heart, she literally jumped out of her tube and swam to my tube to rescue me. Silly Megan, once she reached me she realized she couldn't swim us both back to the shore against the current. Needless to say Megan was clutching my handle on my tube while we floated on down the river, both of us screaming. Thankfully Chris jumped in and swam his butt off to us, and then swam his butt off again to get us on land saved us. It's okay Megan, it's the thought that counts. By the way thanks for getting your hair wet in order to save my life :) Oh and thanks to everyone sitting up on the dock laughing their heads off at us. We appreciated it!

Hey that water was moving fast! And it was scary!

Right before we left, Chris and Megan decided they wanted to jump into the river. I thought they were crazy. Here is a little video of them jumping in. Warning- Chris yells an expletive right when he emerges from the water.

You can hear me in the video holding my breath while they jump in. Funny.

At that point, all I wanted was land. Oh, and some aloe vera. I used someone elses sunscreen and it did. not. work. My legs are fried crispy.


There is more to this day, but I figure this is long enough so find out what happens next tomorrow!