San Antonio Trip -- Gruene, Texas

BonBons had ended up needing to go home, so it was just me, Grace, CanDo, Ninja, Eagle, and Eagle's granddaughter Susan who ended up heading to Gruene (pronounced green).

We got on the interstate and took the exit, and promptly passed the turn off. We had gone a ways with Grace talking to me to keep me awake -- I was fearfully sleepy by this time -- when she realized we had probably gone to far. A call to her husband confirmed this, and, as she said, we had gotten lost or turned around so many times that the others were probably wondering when we were going to stop and head back the other way. We didn't disappoint them, and like ducks in a row pulled into and back out of a small subdivision, finally arriving at our destination with laughter at our direction "challengedness."

Gruene is a former small cotton town, that became something of a ghost town, and that is now famous as a tourist destination and for Gruene Hall, the oldest continually operating dance hall in Texas. You are nobody in country music if you haven't played Gruene Hall, and it has been used in movies.

Many of the buildings are original from the late 1800's, repurposed as shops and eateries. The General Store is original, and the stuff in it was hilarious. I thought of buying the Poo-Poo paper, really made from the undigested grass of horse or elephant poop, for #2 Son, but realized he would want jerky more, and restrained myself.

The whole "town" -- it is actually not an independent town any more, but a part of New Braunfels -- is only about two blocks long, and we walked up one side and down the other, stopping where our fancy took us. Susan's fancy took us to the candy store, of course, and my favorite was the antique store.

We went to Gruene Hall, of course, and sat for a bit listening to the live music. Because I was so sleepy by that time, I sat at a table to the side and closed my eyes for a few minutes. Eventually Grace and I wandered outside to listen from the lawn, as I think she was trying to keep me awake again, and she tends to get tinnitus from too loud music after a while.

The pleasant afternoon ended too soon, and CanDo got on the road to head back home. The rest of us went back to Grace's, where there was leftover gumbo for dinner. Eagle and Susan went home early, as they had to consider school the next morning, Grace, Blossoming, Ninja and I sat and talked until way too late, not wanting the weekend to be over.


Today is:

Children's Day -- Brazil

Columbus Day -- Traditional Date

Cookbook Launch Day

Dia de la Raza -- Latin America (Day of the Race, or Day of the Natives)

Discoverer's Day -- Hawai'i

Farmer's Day -- Florida (Sometimes called Old Farmer's Day)

Fortuna Redux -- Ancient Roman Calendar (goddess of successful journeys & safe returns)

Freethought Day -- celebration of the effective ending date of the Salem witch trials

Global Scream Day (30 second scream at 1200 hours GMT) a/k/a Moment of Frustration Day a/k/a International Moment of Frustration Scream Day (No matter what you call it, we all get a free yell at the universe for life's little frustrations.)

Hispanity Day -- Spain

Independence Day -- Equatorial Guinea

Mother's Day -- Malawi

National Bookkeeper's Day

Native American's Day -- often celebrated on both the observed and the traditional Columbus Day

Widecombe Fair -- Widecombe-in-the-Moor, UK


Birthdays Today:

Kirk Cameron, 1970
Hugh Jackman, 1968
Carlos Bernard, 1962
susan Anton, 1950
Chris Wallace, 1947
Luciano Pavarotti, 1935
Dick Gregory, 1932


Today in History:


The army of Cyrus the Great of Persia takes Babylon, BC539
King John of England loses his crown jewels in The Wash, 1216
Nichiren, Japanes Buddhist monk who founded Nichiren Buddhism, inscribes the Dai-Gohonzon, 1279
Christopher Columbus' expdition makes landfall in the Bahamas, 1492
Massachusetts discontinues all witch trials, 1692
America's first asylum for "Persons of Insane and Disordered Minds" opens in Virginia, 1773
Bavarian royalty invites the citizens of Munich to join the celebration of the marriage of Crown Prince Ludwig of Bavaria to Princess Therese von Sachsen-Hildburghausen; this celebration becomes the founding of the first Oktoberfest, 1810
Charles Macintosh, of Scotland, sells the first raincoat, 1821
President Theodore Roosevelt officially renames the "Executive Mansion" to the White House, 1901
An iron lung respirator is used for the first time at Children's Hospital, Boston, 1928
The Soviet Union launches the Voskhod 1 into Earth orbit as the first spacecraft with a multi-person crew and the first flight without space suits, 1964
The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, the first of five books in the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy comedy science fiction series by Douglas Adams is published, 1979
The lowest recorded non-tornadic atmospheric pressure, 87.0 kPa (870 mbar or 25.69 inHg), occurred in the Western Pacific during Typhoon Tip, 1979
Elizabeth II of the United Kingdom and Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh visit the People's Republic of China, 1986
NASA loses radio contact with the Magellan spacecraft as the probe descends into the thick atmosphere of Venus , 1994
The proclaimed 6 billionth living human in the world is born, 1999
The second Chinese human spaceflight Shenzhou 6 is launched, 2005