Heat in Texas

I met some friendly people from the University of Texas who were hosting the symposium that I spoke at, and who showed me around their lab, and some of whom came out to a lunch.
One of them is moving to China next month with a friend, to learn Mandarin and then start a tech company, doing not quite sure what, reasonably impressive I thought.

So after this conference was finished with EarlyBird and I escaped in a car to go camping again.
We went to some shops and the AAA to collect some maps.
Then we got to the McKinney Falls State Park to discover that we couldn't swim in the swimming hole cause they didn't have enough water and the bacteria levels were too high.
Already hot by this stage we were quite disappointed.

Our campsite was nice enough but we made plans to drive somewhere else for a swim. Heading East we got to another state park about an hour away, which had a lake.
So we paid more money to go in there and then had lunch and looked at the inviting water. We were ready to cool off and then waded in. The water was a hot as a spa pool.
We went deeper and it wasn't any cooler. It made you feel a little better but the only slight cool moment was when you first got out of the water. After swimming for a few
minutes we got used to the temperature, but every time I swam and water splashed on my shoulders and face I was surprised again how warm it felt.

So we got out and lay in the shade to dry off. And a thunderstorm came, and the rain came down, and it was a bit cooler and we just enjoyed the slightly cooler water raining down on us.
I thought it was great.

So then we went back to our campsite with a picnic from the supermarket and slept as well as we could in the steamy heat.

The next day we went for a walk around the park, saw turtles in the creek and admired the flowering cactuses.
Then we went to San Antonio for the day. A real American tourist town. We visited the Alamo. It was very hot in San Antonio as well but the riverwalk and the parks are really nicely done.
We got a bit overheated in the afternoon but recovered by having a long cold drink in a nicely cool coffee shop.

Then we went early to a Texas BBQ restaurant for dinner and shared an entree, mains and dessert which was more than enough for the both of us. It is fun to be able to share and so have
space for dessert and to try those stuffed jalapenos for entree and the mixed bbq platter for main.

After all that we drove back to our campsite which was disturbingly close to the airport, ready for another day of plane travel.

We got to Denver uneventfully and then after about 2 hours delay apparently cause the pilot was late showing up for work, on to LA.

perfcangel picked EarlyBird and I up from the airport and we went to a nearby fast food mexican place for dinner. Played a game of Bohnanza (which EarlyBird won by 1 point over me
cause she twisted it out of perfcangel at the games end, perfcangel was only 1 more point back on her first game ever) and then took EarlyBird back to the
airport for her trip home. After some deft work with the queue at the checkin, we said goodbye and perfcangel took me to my hotel in the city where I am staying for Siggraph.

I am enjoying Siggraph but missing EarlyBird too.