Conley Update

A few months ago Sara and I decided that we wanted to come out to Colorado to see family. Within a few days of talking with family, a family reunion was in the works. It’s been many years since Sara and I have been to Colorado in the summer so we decided that we’d do something we’ve been talking about for years, climbing Pike’s Peak.

I had climbed Pikes Peak when I was 18 years old. It’s one of 54 fourteen thousand foot mountains in Colorado. The famous Barr Trail is 13 miles long with an elevation gain of over 7,000 feet. It’s a long and hard hike. Sara and I began getting ready for our ascent. We joined a gym and worked on preparing for climbing this mountain.

Unfortunately, life has a way of getting busy. Sara started getting worried about being ready for the 13 mile ascent. I wasn’t willing to do this hike without her, so we decided to take a secondary and less traveled route up the same mountain. It’s only a 6 mile hike with a 4,000 foot elevation change. Sara’s dad and brother-in-law, who decided to hike with us, were fine with our change.

So, due to a small window of favorable weather, we decided to climb the mountain on September 15th. Afternoon storms are frequent in the Rocky Mountains so it was important to reach the summit as close to noon as possible. This meant an early start for us. Our plan was to begin hiking at 7:00 AM. A moderate pace should have gotten us to the top by 11:00 AM.

Since we were not doing the more difficult Barr Trail, I had decided to make the round trip. While Shayla, Sara’s sister, intended to pick us up on the summit (Pike’s Peak is only one of two 14ers that you can drive to the top), Sara’s Dad and I were going to hike back to the car and meet the rest of the family back at the house.

This was the plan. As you know, things don’t always go as planned.

Below are pictures of this hike along with directions from a website dedicated to hiking Colorado 14ers.

Yesterday we all drove down to San Antonio. I used some points to book two rooms in a hyatt place. The actually messed up our reservation, so I got my points back, so Sara and I have two more nights available. Titus LOVED the room and jumping around on the couches.

In addition, we ate at a local favorite, Henry’s Puffy Tacos. It was delicious. We ended the night playing two games of Apples to Apples. I won both. Woo hoo. Now Sara and I are waiting to get on the flight. On to Mexico!

Well, this Thursday we’re heading here!

Sara and I are celebrating our 10th anniversary by spending five days and four nights at the Valentin Imperial Maya at Playa Del Carmen. We’re beyond excited!

We just finished round two of the Texas BBQ Challenge. The top five BBQ joints in Texas are within a hour of our Austin home. About a month ago we visited Smitty’s Market in Lockhart and today we ate at Louie Mueller’s Barbeque in Talyor, TX. My parents are in town visiting and we figured we’d take them out for some real Texas BBQ. I can easily see why this place is in the top five. It was awesome.

According to the Texas Monthly magazine, I knew we had to try the briscuit, the jalapeno sausage and the beef ribs. We ended up ordering all of those including pork ribs and pork loin.

The environment was perfect. It was hot! The place doesn’t have air conditioning, but the large screen windows and the high powered fans keep it pretty cool, even for the 103 high we experienced today. All the walls of this high ceilinged restaurant was covered in 60 years of BBQ soot. One wall is covered with thousands of business cards form the years, all browned with age and smoke.

Unlike Smitty’s Market or Cooper’s in Llando, the BBQ pits are in the back where you can’t really see them as much. However, of the BBQ Big Wigs I’ve been too lately, the staff at Smitty’s were the friendliest. Sara spent five or six minutes talking to the owner about peaches and when they are in season. It helped that they weren’t too busy, but they were genuinely nice people.

I do feel like we’re getting better at knowing how to order at these places. Our first experience cost us more than $50 and we had more left over than we ate. This time the five of us ate well, only had a little left over and spent just over $50.

Let me say, all of it was INCREDIBLE! My favorite was the briscuit and the jalapeno sausage. However, I’m going to have to say that between Louie Mueller and Smitty’s, I’m going to go with Smittys. We’ll see what happens as we continue to sample Texas’ Top Five.

We arrived at Possom Kingdom on Saturday morning and spent half the day on Sunday there before leaving. We had to be back in Austin by 4:00 PM, so we made sure to spend a little more time on the lake. Here are some pictures. I love this lake! The picture below is Hell’s Gate.  A few years ago JD and I hiked up to the top of Hell’s Gate to grab a geocache. We pulled the boat in here, lowered the anchor and swam around for 30-45 minutes.

Next week Sara and I will celebrate our 10th wedding anniversary! Woo Hoo! My parents are coming to Austin to watch Mr. T. while Sara and I shoot off to Playa De Carmen for five days. From the beginning I had planned to actually take several days off before we left for Playa to really get into the vacation mode before leaving. As a result, Sara and I have been working really hard at getting everything done that we needed to accomplish to leave for vacation a week before we left for Playa. Then, last week our good friends JD and Shelby invited us to go to their family’s lake house on Possum Kingdom lake.

As a result, I only slept four hours a night for the last three nights and last night Sara only slept two. We’re about 95% done with everything, but we opted to go to the lake with our friends even though we didn’t get everything done. So, we’re officially on vacation mode right now. We’ll come home on Sunday for another day of work/errands, but then we’ll be back in vacation mode by Monday evening when my parents arrive.

So, here are some pics from the day on the lake. It was pure awesomeness!

Tonight I was reading my favorite magazine and they had an article about the Georgia Guidestones? Have you heard about these things?

Essentially some guy (we don’t even know his real name) representing an anonymous group of people wanted to build a monument in rural North East Georgia. What is the monument? It’s the ten commandments for the new world order.

What?

Yeah, exactly. Also called America’s Stonehenge, these massive slabs of granite were put together in such a way to survive an apocalyptic event. The purpose of the guidestones are to be the rules for the post-apocalypse civilization. Here’s the Wikipedia entry.

I totally want to go see these things. They’ve been in place since 1980. Although I didn’t live too close to these things, why have I not heard of them? Perhaps I’ll see them on a future roadtrip! It’s not really on the way to anything, so the next time I’m in Georgia and I have absolutley nothing to do for 10-12 hours, I’ll venture out to cross these off my “things to see” list.

Okay, before you roll your eyes and dismiss this post, please here me out. This soap has changed my life and it could possibly change your life as well.

Okay, that was just a little dramatic. Before I met Sara I was a bar soap kinda guy. It’s all I ever knew. Men don’t use them sissy, flowery body washes, right? Then Sara brought her body wash into my life and I’ve been living life differently. When I watch those commercials where they talk about soap scum, residue and sticky film left behind by bar soap, not my head in agreement. I’ve been converted.

I think what normally drives Sara’s choice in body wash selection is price. She gets whatever is on sale. Currently we’re using Soft Soap’s Honeysuckle and Orange Peel. It’s good, but it doesn’t compare to what we just finished. Seriously, as much as moving to body wash changed my life, this product changed my life again. It’s Soft Soap’s Pomegranate and Mango. I’ll be honest. I don’t really like mango and I’m not sure I’ve ever eaten a pomegranate. However, every time I used this stuff, I wanted to eat it. I didn’t because it was soap. But if you poured this stuff in a jar and gave it to someone, they’d want to drink it becasue it smells that good. You; however, would be a jerk for getting someone to drink soap though.

So, if you’re at the store and you see a bottle of Pomegranate and Mango, do yourself a favor and get a bottle or three. I’m praying it goes on sale again soon. Now you know what’s going on my Christmas list this year.

Titus has always been a Cheerios kinda kid. Initially we thought it was cute when he’d go to the pantry and bring us the box of Cheerios. It got less cute when he would  grab the box and dump all the contents onto the floor. Step two was to roll aound in it experiencing a pure Cheerios pleasure. We usually got to him before step two. We also didn’t find his insatiable Cheerios munchies so cute. He’d finish a decently large meal and once he got down from his chair he’d head directly for the pantry for his comfort food.

Well, last week Sara picked up a bag of Marshmallow Mateys. This is the knock-off brand of Lucky Stars. This was a college staple for me. Like his daddy, Titus loves his Mateys. LOVES them! He loves every little bite, but I know it’s the marshmallowy goodness that has him addicted. He craves it. He thinks about it. He dreams about it. I’m just not sure how far this might go. Have we created a monster? I feel it’s power on me too. I’ve already had two bowls of it myself this morning. So, if you’ve got a two-year old, hold off on the Mateys as long as you can!

Sara and I love to travel and experience new things, even if those new things seem trivial to others. However, we do like to take advantage of where we live. Not that we’ve done so on purpose, but in the ten year we’ve been married, we’ve lived in four differnt cities in three differnt states (more if you count our six month stint in Georgia). So the thing we’ve learned is that we have to take advantage of seeing everything there is around us while we’re there. Otherwise, we may regreat never having seen ________ or not having visited ________. Personally, I’d be real happy to stay put for now. I love what I’m doing at Gateway and we love where we live. Plus, there are enough things to do around her to keep us buys for a decade.

So, in addition to our BBQ challenge, we’re taking on the Swimming Hole Challenge as well.

One thing we noticed since living in central Texas is that people around here love their swimming holes. More than any other place I’ve ever seen, these people love their rivers, lakes and stream. I guess it’s making up for the fact that Texas doesn’t have the best beaches. I was first exposed to this when we moved here and we saw Barton Creek in Zilker Park. Just south of downtown is a HUGE, beautiful spring fed swimming hole that people swim in year round (the temperature of the water is 68 degrees year round). Then we started to hear about all the people who tube down the Guadalupe or swim in the Frio. Then last summer Texas Monthy, the same magazine that ran the BBQ competition, had an article about the best spots to swim in Texas. Most of these swimming holes are close to where we live, so Sara and I (Titus too) are going to plunge in to all that we can.

Below is the list from Texas Monthy:

1. Barton Springs - Austin.
2. Blue Hole - Wimberly
3. Brinks Crossing - Cedar Point
4. Balmorhea State Park - Toyhavale
5. Hamilton Pool - Travis County
6. Garner State Park - Uvalde County
7. Schlitterbahn West - New Braunfels
8. Deep Eddy Pool - Austin
9. Medina River - Near Bandera
10. Fort Clark Springs - Bracketville
11. Krause Springs - Spicewood
12. Ratcliff Lake Recreation Area - Ratcliff
13. City Tube Chute - New Braunfels
14. Lake Raven - Huntsville
15. Utopia City Park - Utopia
16. Burger’s Lake - Fort Worth
17. The Quince - Camp Wood
18. The Slab - Kingsland
19. Cypress Bend Park - New Braunfels
20. Lake Fryer at Wolf Creek Park - Perryton
21. Rio Vista Park - San Marcos
22. Hunt Crossing - Hunt
23. Village Creek State Park - Lumberton
24. Blanco State Park - Blanco
25. Hancock Springs Pool - Lampasas

In addition to this list, I found another list of top swimming spots. I won’t include repeats from the previous list:

1. Lake Whitney
2. Pedernales Falls
3. Mustang Island State Park
4. Guadalupe River State Park
5. Colorado Bend State Park

There you have it. That’s 30 swimming holes. There are a few that may be a little futher out of our way and aren’t as high of a priority. However, we’re going to hit as many of these as we can. We’ve already been to Hamilton Pool and we anticipate going there again soon. Between our busy schedules and all, I assume that this will take us 2-3 years to complete. So, if you’re in the area, you like to swim and are up for a bit of adventure - let us know and we’ll put it on the schedule!