I had great aspirations for this blog, that I started way back when; however, ask my mother or my husband and they’ll admit that I’m kind of lazy. I have these wonderful ideas in my head - I’m witty and funny but by the time I actually locate paper and pen those ideas are all but gone. My wonderful husband recently purchased Dragon naturally speaking for me, so hopefully this will help me to get back into blogging soon.

In the last year I actually went to a couple of really neat places and I took lots of pictures and completely intended on writing and uploading stuff to my blog; however, that never actually happened. So I’m going back through my pictures and see what I can come up with.

There was the snake farm, the bed-and-breakfast that my husband and I stayed at in Kerrville and I even spent two full weeks in New York with my in-laws. So I think I have some stories that I can actually put up on the blog that might be somewhat interesting to all two of my readers.

In addition to the couple of trips that I made in 2011, I was also thinking about possibly expanding the website to include some cooking, arts and crafts, and just anything that strikes my fancy. I am constantly coming up with new ideas in the kitchen and thought maybe I’d like to incorporate a food blog with my travel blog, somehow.

So check back often as I fully intend to get some more content, including pictures, up really soon!

Today, my husband and I decided to venture out to the Capital of Texas zoo (link here: http://www.capitaloftexaszoo.org/)  in Bastrop County.  This was not our first trip there, nor will it be our last.  It’s quite small, as far as zoos go, but the assortment of animals this facility has amassed makes the drive worth the money.  Personally, I have a thing for anything that looks like I might be able to “cuddle.”  The pygmy goats are among my favorite! My favorite “exhibits” are the guinea pig corral, the fruit bat enclosure, and the macaw that says things like, “hello”, “hello, baby”, and my personal favorite, “I love you, baby.”

Among the bobcat and pea fowls, there were 2 Asiatic black bears which were rather pleasant to look at.  One of the bears decided to be an “exhibitionist” and treated us to a little show, which was complete with grunts and gurgles.  It was quite comical.  My husband suggested I should step back 5 feet or so, in the event this bear’s climatic dispatch had some distance to it!  *laugh*  To see a video and hear the noises he emitted, click here.

What I meant by the guinea pig corral is, there is an area that’s probably 25 - 30 feet long and about 15 feet wide, with a log style fence only about waist high that was home to probably 40 - 70 guinea pigs.  In the Cavy Corral, there were big piggies, baby piggies, and all size piggies playing “follow the leader.”  It was hard to refrain from climbing into the enclosure with the pigs to cuddle with them, but somehow I managed!

If you haven’t been to this zoo, I would definitely recommend you check it out.  There are lots more animals that I didn’t mention, but made the trip worth the short drive.  I did make a point of taking some pictures click here (I love pictures!).

Recently, my boss was generous to his employees and gave each of us a gift certificate to try his new favorite restaurant, 34th Street Cafe.  My husband and I opted to go there for lunch as neither of us are terribly fond of crowds.  My first impression was that it looked like a “trendy” place.  Which is not usually my thing.

The lunch menu consisted mainly of sandwiches, salads, pizzas, and soups.   Bill tried their Reuben sandwich with fries.  I opted for the turkey & Swiss, minus the onion with a side of new potato salad.  Pretty ho-hum, boring stuff.

I must admit, I was pleasantly surprised.  The turkey & Swiss came on a kaiser roll that was very tasty and the meats and cheeses on the sandwich were also very yummy.  I believe they used Boar’s Head brand, which is preferable for any sandwich!  The new potato salad was quite scrumptious as well!  It had bite size pieces of red potatoes and the fresh ingredients made it very visually appealing as well as tasty.

I don’t usually go for Reuben type sandwiches, but I had to try a bite anyhow.  I must admit, I was quite surprised at how yummy it was.  The rye bread had a nice texture and the melted Swiss and sauerkraut were very delectable.  The fries.  Whoa.

They were some of the best fries I’ve had in a very long time.  They were seasoned fries that had a hint of sweetness to them, but were also a little spicy.  I almost wanted to trade meals with my husband!

We still have a decent amount of money left on our gift certificate, so I think I’d like to go back for an early dinner sometime and try some of their dinner items including appetizers.  I’m a sucker for cheeses and I really want to try their cheese plate.  I know that doesn’t sound very exciting, but I love trying different cheeses with accompanied flavors, such as fruit or honey.

All in all, I would say that I really enjoyed eating at the 34th Street Cafe.  The wait staff were incredibly friendly and courteous and I enjoyed my overall experience at this place.  I’m looking forward to our next trip when I can try the 34th Street Cheese Plate.

Let me first give you a little explanation into why I like cemeteries so much.  It’s not the modern day, headstones sunk in the ground, type cemeteries; we’re talking either old from 1800’s - early 1900’s type old or just HUGE cemeteries that include both old and new.

To me, they are artistic – in their own way.  The old headstones - the colors they become, the different styles, the mature trees that surround them - I think they’ve beautiful.  I envision everything as a black and white photograph.  If it’s something I really like, I print the picture in black and white and add it to the collage of photos already in our living room.  So, to me, they are beautiful artwork.

Of course there is an abundance of history in Upstate NY, so I wanted to take advantage of this opportunity.  We went to several different ones.  Some in Albany and some in surrounding towns.  If I remember some of the names of cemeteries or towns, I’ll update the post.

I hope you enjoy them as much as I do.

Thursday was our travel day and things started out well enough but our travels came to a bit of a screeching halt; more or less, but we managed to make it to Albany easy enough.

It was the adventure that ensued once we took a cab from the airport to Shurtz** Car Rental off of Central Avenue in Albany. I had booked our rental car approximately 3 weeks in advance and was very excited to get set up with a car and start exploring!

Apparently, that was not meant to be. Shurtz** has this ridiculous policy that in order to accept debit cards, they first have to run your credit…..are you kidding me? I wasn’t going to let them run my credit just to rent a car!

My husband and I then tried to pay with my Visa. Unfortunately, this was the only major credit card we brought with us and there wasn’t enough credit available to cover the cost of the 5 day rental and the deposit. Of course. We then tried to get them to put the car rental on one card and the deposit on another. That, too, was a no go.

We tried to explain to the guy that we just flew in from Texas and we were stranded without a rental car. Tough bananas to us. They weren’t wiling to help us in the slightest. Fantastic.

Luckily, we were able to call my mother-in-law (who was about an hour and a half away) to come and pick us up. We had to carry all of luggage into a diner (if you want to call it that) until his she was able to get to us.

The moral of this story? Shurtz** sucks! If you need to rent a car, say away from them. I will not give them my business and I decided to tell my story to hopefully save someone else the headache. All I can say is thank goodness we weren’t truly stranded.

Stay tuned for further adventures from Upstate NY! We go to an incredibly old cemetery to get some awesome pictures! The trip only gets better from here!

**all rental car companies’ names have been changed to protect the innocent – in this case, US!

What can be said about the Frisco Shop’s breakfast that hasn’t already been stated a million times before? It truly is the best place for breakfast in Austin, at least in my opinion. The Frisco Shop has been open since 1953 and you can tell, many of their customers are regulars. Those customers have probably been going to Frisco Shop for many years! That’s a true statement to the quality and yummy-ness of their food!

This past weekend, the hubby and I ventured out around 8am on Saturday. I wanted to beat the crowd and get to the Frisco Shop before it got too busy. We got there at the perfect time! We seem to be accomplishing this quite a bit lately; lucky for us!

I had the #6 from the Frisco Shop menu. This includes two eggs, chicken fried steak with cream gravy, hash-browns or grits, hot biscuits or buttered toast and coffee…..$10.70. I had 2 scrambled eggs, hash-browns, and biscuits, with a side of gravy (extra for those delightful biscuits!).

First off, let me start off by saying that I’m not normally an “egg” person. The thought of what an egg is, exactly, freaks me out! But occasionally I do get a hankering for some eggs. The scrambled eggs I had this past Saturday were cooked to perfection! They weren’t too runny and they weren’t browned; they were a very yummy in between!

The chicken fried steak is some of the best that can be found in town. Again, just my opinion, but I think it’s an opinion worth looking into! You can tell their chicken fried steak isn’t one of those already breaded, frozen “chicken fried steaks” that lots of other places offer. This chicken fried steak is the real deal and I wanted to enjoy it and completely tuned out my hubby. No offense to him, but I was in chicken fried steak heaven!

The cream gravy is pretty good, as far as restaurant cream gravy goes. Of course it’s not as good as the stuff that I lovingly make at home, but it’s still mighty tasty. I can’t tell if it’s a package gravy or not; but it’s got to be. I don’t know of any restaurant that makes their own gravy from scratch (apart from maybe Hoover’s or Dot’s.). Frisco Shop’s cream gravy is wonderful on the chicken fried steak and those beautiful little biscuits.

Out the biscuits come, in a little basket all wrapped up in napkins. It’s like they are just laying there, tucked in their warm little bed until you’re ready to devour them; and devour them we did! I usually have a hard time deciding how I want to enjoy the biscuits on any given visit to the Frisco Shop. This past Saturday, I opted to have 1 with gravy and then a top half with some of their scrumptious grape jelly. Reminds me of mustang grape jelly like my great-grandmother used to make.

The only thing that I didn’t love was the hash-browns. Growing up, I don’t ever recall having potatoes with breakfast, so the idea is a little foreign to me. Don’t get me wrong, I do enjoy home fries, hash-browns, whatever you so lovingly call them, but these were not what I usually like. They were a little bland, which I believe is intentionally so it doesn’t overpower the other flavors and they were cold.

I blame their chilly temperature on myself, though. I was so incredibly fixated on those scrambled eggs and chicken fried steak, I showed absolutely no love to the hash-browns. By the time I was ready to sample the potatoes, they had lost their oomph! My husband loved his though! Every last piece of breakfast beautiful-ness was gone from him plate. Good for him.

Not only does the Frisco Shop offer up very yummy grub, they’ve got a great history! Want to see what other delicious selections they offer and read about their past?  Check out their website:

Frisco Shop!

If you haven’t been to Frisco Shop for breakfast, or ever, I definitely recommend trying it as soon as possible. And maybe, just maybe, you’ll catch the hubby and I enjoying the most wonderful breakfast in all of Austin!

This weekend, the hubby and I decided we would get to Lake Travis early to try and beat the crowds. It worked! We’ve gone to the same location on Lake Travis for the past few weeks and every time we go the water is quite a bit lower than the time before.

The first time we went to Bob Wentz Park, on the drive there, you could see a couple of big islands in the middle of the lake. You park your car on this big jetty type thing that used to be well under water (years past). And from there you had to walk about 50 feet (or so) to get to the water’s edge.

We were standing in the water (about shoulder deep) and noticed people swimming out to this small island not too far from the swimming area. There were children on the island, so I was certain it wasn’t terribly deep to begin with.

Two weeks later, we go to the same exact spot. We park in roughly the same location. I didn’t notice if the walk to the water’s edge was longer, but I did notice the water between that small little island and the “mainland”was MUCH shallower. Now I witnessed people walking over and it was merely up to their ankles/calves.

How much worse could it possibly get?! This weekend that little island no longer exists. And the parking is now at least 150 feet from the water. The lake is so beautiful and it’s a great way to relax on these hot summer days, but how much lower is it going to get before we can no longer enjoy it?

Check out the current conditions at Lake Travis: Lower Colorado River Authority

I’ve been going to Lake Travis for as long as I can remember. We’d pack a lunch and get to the lake early in the morning and wouldn’t leave until late in the day. I would get so sunburned! That was also back when you still drove across Mansfield dam. Those were some happy times.

I can’t recall ever seeing Lake Travis this low. I’ve had the chance to experience it when it was at a much higher level. Even though it’s not as nice as I remember from my childhood, I’m glad that I get to experience Lake Travis all over again with my Yankee husband;-)

Although most of my travels in recent times are in and around central Texas, there was a time when I saw new places, exotic lands, and fantastic destinations. The very first trip I ever made on an airliner was to British Columbia, Canada. I was 22 and I loved it! Seeing as how BC is far from exotic, I might save details of my travels to Canada for another time.

I was fortunate enough to spend roughly a month in Malaysia when I was in my early 20s. Most of my time in Malaysia was spent in Kuala Lumpar (“KL”), but I also got to visit Ipoh and Pinang. The Malaysia in my mind and the real country were nothing alike.

When told I had the opportunity to go to Malaysia, I was excited, but scared. I had never been out of North America. My thoughts raced as to what medical vaccinations I would need for my trip; luckily, I didn’t have to get any shots before I left the states.

Seeing as how I was there for a decent amount of time, I won’t go into detail about all the things I saw, felt and experienced. Some of the interesting things I experienced, was eating at US restaurants while there. Schlotzsky’s, A&W, TGIFridays, and KFC were some of the American chains that I had the opportunity to try.

You may be wondering why I ate at American chain restaurants while in a foreign country, let me say that some of the sights and smells of the cities weren’t really conducive to building an appetite for wanting to try something new. The piles of rotting vegetation outside some of the street vendors were awful! Nothing like smelling rotting vegetation outside a restaurant you’re about to eat in. No thank you!

So, this is why I stuck to American chains, at least initially. The first chain from the states that I tried was Schlotzsky’s. The regular size original was about the size of the smallest sandwich Schlotzsky’s offers. It didn’t have the usual ingredients as the original here in the states. It didn’t contain the cheese or black olive goodness that I’m accustomed to. They didn’t have ham on the menu, at least what I recall. So, overall, the food was similar, but no where near as good as the original here.

An issue that they have in many Asian cultures is timing food correctly for parties of several. When a dish is prepared, it is served whether all the other dishes are complete or not. Of all the American chain restaurants I experienced while there, TGIFriday’s was the worst.

The overall food quality was about the same…..mediocre at best, but the waiters/waitresses looked very excited to be serving this fat American. Another chain I visited was KFC. Normally, I’m not a KFC fan, but the one I tried in Malaysia was terrible. The chicken pieces were very small and looked like reject chicken parts. I don’t recall the taste of the food. I almost think I threw it away it was so repulsive looking.

The food I had at one of the local restaurants in Pinang was very yummy. They had both traditional Asian dishes, as well as some of my favorites from home. I ordered sesame chicken and Chinese broccoli with oyster sauce (YUM!). The food was very flavorful and I regretted not having eaten more traditional and local dishes.

After getting, roughly, ¾ of the way done with my meal, I found some surprises in my food! I won’t be too graphic, but let’s say that I found bugs in both of the dishes I had been so enthusiastically enjoying about 10 minutes previous. That was the end of my meal and that, my friends, is exactly why I ate at American chain restaurants while in Malaysia.