Aylmer Express "MoHo" Extravaganza 2006

Today we managed to get our act together, as well as get the other pressing issues out of the way, which finally gave us a chance to some fun stuff in Austin. One museum that Chantal definitely wanted to see was the Texas State History Museum so that was stop number one. After the museum we thought that it would be fun to go biking at one of the locations that Ian and Kristi had pointed out to us. The Texas State History Museum turned out to be an awesome museum which illuminated, logically enough, the history of Texas. They also had an “interactive” theatre. You know, the ones where the seats shake and they have bright lights and loud sounds for thunder and lightening? This one even had mist coming down from the ceiling and big fans to simulate the hurricane on screen. But perhaps the most effective part had to be the simulated snake bite. They told a story about rattle snacks everywhere in the frontier days and the they displayed a number of different rattle snakes all around the screen with the loud rattling sound increasing and increasing and then suddenly you felt a big bump inside your seat! Well, I will admit it, I JUMPED. And I can’t deny that, in that single moment of shear terror, I let slip some billingsgate that was definitely not appropriate for family listening. But fortunately it appeared that everyone else was so freaked out by the same seemingly life-threatening serpent attack, that nobody appeared to have heard me. Let’s just keep that between you and me, ok? The museum was set up such that you could choose among three different time frames, which you might be able to summarize as “in the beginning”, “before the oil”, and finally, “after the oil.” In the end, there was so much of interest at the museum, we ended up spending the whole day learning all about how Texas became, well, Texas. The bad news is that they did not allow any pictures to be taken so my visual content today leaves a little something to be desired. Then it was off to pick up the MoHo from the RV repair shop. It got a clean bill of health so we were good to go. Well, except for one thing. Remember that electric problem we were having and we had determined that it was not because of the battery? Unfortunately the RV repair place did not have time to look into this today. Since we were planning to head out tomorrow we had to pick it up then so we will look into addressing the electrical problem en route somewhere. In the meantime, it was back to Ian and Kristi’s place to get ready for dinner. We decided to go out for dinner on the patio at Shady Grove, voted best patio in Austin and also one of Ian and Kristi’s favorite places. Enjoyed funky southern cuisine along with some live jazz entertainment under the stars. I actually thought that it was just a CD playing that was a live recording because I didn’t see any band. It turns out the band was playing on the patio at the place next to us so I could see the band. Bizarre. But I have to admit that my favorite part of the evening was the dessert that Kristi treated us to. She took us to an Austin landmark, “AMY’s”, for ice cream. As any regular reader knows, I am a big Ben and Jerry’s fan but the ice cream experience at Amy’s took ice cream to a whole new level. It is hard to explain but I will tell you that it involves the use of mallets as well as real, full-sized chocolate bars. The best description I can come up with right now to describe the experience is that it almost feels like they hired someone to chew the ice cream for you … and I mean that in the nicest possible way. But suffice it to say that Amy’s is a MUST SEE location for anyone who finds themselves in Austin, Texas. Then it was home for a mellow evening which included writing this!

Today’s word:

billingsgate \BIL-ingz-gayt; -git\, noun:
Coarsely abusive, foul, or profane language.