January

A year ago today we were in Big Bend, seeing a part of Texas we hadn’t seen before. The next day, New Year’s Day, we drove up to Fort Davis and went for a hike in the Davis Mountains. Then we visited the McDonald Observatory, which was unfortunately closed for New Year’s. But I still got to go into one of the big telescopes, because, well, it wasn’t locked. No lights though, and I didn’t want to start flipping switches. Before leaving West Texas we also visited Marathon, another quirky little old town. We had coffee in a little shop that had stacks of the Santa Barbara Independent (!) to read. Another surprise that day, I ran into my old friend Quinton at a gas station near Abilene!

We also made a quick trip to Orlando for Ed’s birthday, right in the middle of grapefruit season. Yum! And we saw manatees!

I attended a fascinating class taught by Edward Tufte.

February

After our wonderful trip to Taos last year, we decided to try skiing there this year. On the drive there, we got to see the Cadillac Ranch covered with snow, and a herd of mystery animals which I later found out were pronghorns (Texans call them antelopes, but they aren’t really). We saw another herd of these later – they really are beautiful.

This time we rented a house on the Rim Road. A great house in a good location for skiing, but the roads were snowy and Rim Road is called that for a reason. Did you know I have a phobia about going over a cliff in a car? We did not die though.

The skiing was fantastic, not crowded. We also snowshoed one day. While we were having lunch in the lodge one day, our neighbor texting me a photo of our house with snow falling furiously. It snowed 13 inches in Dallas! I was sorry to miss that even though we were enjoying even better snow in New Mexico. When we got home, every other house in Dallas had a snowman in front.

We saw John Prine in concert over at SMU; he was very good (and funny, as we knew he would be).

March

One of our favorite restaurants burned down.

I took Mia to Dallas’ St. Patrick’s Day parade, which is pretty raucous and fun.

April

Ed and I took a Saturday morning bike ride over to the lake, had a great 22-mile ride, but on the way back as he signaled a left turn, he hit a reflector in the road and went over the handlebars, fracturing his collarbone pretty badly. It required surgery, and still bothers him. Quite a setback, as he was trying to get back into shape.

But, I got an iPad!

May

Mom and Dad visited for the world premiere of Moby Dick at the Dallas Opera, and I think they would say it was worth the trip. How the heck can you make a stage set about a whaling ship? Well they did it, and it was spectacular.

June

So hot. It got up into the 100’s early this year. I was going to try riding my bike every day again this summer like I did in 2008, but gave up.

July

Ed, frustrated by not being able to exercise and continuing to gain weight, decided to go on a diet. I, who had gained weight in sympathy, agreed to join him. We cut out alcohol and most of the usual things you don’t eat on a diet, and lost weight rather easily. Who knew?

August

Still hot, so I went to California! It was great to see the Steeles. I arrived during Fiesta, which was something I hadn’t seen before. There were cascarones (confetti eggs) smashed everywhere. In Texas you only see those on Easter. We attended several dance performances and ate some great food. I also went kayaking one day at Campus Point (with Kevin), went to the Botanical Garden (with Aidan), biked down Gibraltar Road and at Ealings Park (with Nico), went on a few hikes (with Linda), saw the movie Inception and went climbing (poorly).

September

By this time it should be obvious that we really like Taos. We went back yet again for two weeks. This time we rented two houses for two different experiences. The first week we stayed in town, which was nice because we could walk to restaurants and into town. The second week we stayed at an isolated house up a private road in the foothills near the ski mountain. This house was phenomenal, we liked every detail. It had a little writer’s cottage out back, and we tied our camping hammock out there. One night we slept outside on the second-story deck under the stars. In the mornings we could see the hot air balloons rise and then dip into the Rio Grande canyon. The only downside of the house was it was a one-mile drive down a very rutted dirt road just to get to the road to town, which was another six miles or so. The road was not bikeable (up anyway).

So this trip we went on several hikes and one backpacking trip. It was cold backpacking, but we were well-prepared. We even brought our iPads and watched a movie in the tent (just to say we did it). We went biking one day, Ed’s first time on the bike since his accident. He had a tough time; it was windy and he didn’t feel stable on the bike. We tried to bike another day, but after driving about 45 minutes, we got out to start riding and he felt it was too windy for him, so we drove back and I rode by myself up to the ski area, which is now an annual tradition for me. We also both bought new climbing shoes, and went bouldering. I feel better about my limited climbing skills now; it had just been so many years since I had climbed anything.

Yesterday one of my friends on Facebook posted “When was the last time you did something for the first time”? Well one thing I did for the first time this trip was fly fishing. Ed has wanted to do this for a long time. I thought I would be bored to tears, but I actually loved it. It’s nothing like regular fishing. You don’t stand in one place for long, you have to be smart and use strategy and skill, and the scenery is beautiful. And, I caught a fish!

Last year I was successful in my attempt to get cheap tickets for this year’s Austin City Limits Festival. They give out a few hundred for $50 (regularly $185), and I snagged two by watching Twitter and refreshing the page constantly. The festival was fun, we saw Black Keys, Spoon, Beach House, Broken Bells, Phish, Flaming Lips, Mountain Goats, Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeroes, Sonic Youth, Gogol Bordello, Pete Yorn, Lucero, Black Lips, Manchester Orchestra, Temper Trap, Deadmau5, M.I.A., Devendra Banhart, Portugal, the Man, Trombone Shorty, Robert Earl Keen, White Rabbits, Blind Pilot and Lance Herbstrong.

October

The two big October events here are the State Fair of Texas and Halloween, and we participated in both. The Phantom of the Opera was back on Swiss Avenue:

We were invited to Ed’s cousin Nicole’s wedding in Buffalo, so we combined that trip with a visit with Mom and Dad. I flew up ahead of time and spent some time with them, and then drove their jeep up to Buffalo and picked Ed up at the airport there. We stayed at the Roycroft Inn in East Aurora, something Ed has wanted to do for a long time. The inn was built by the Roycrofters, and Arts and Crafts guild. Ed’s sister Colleen stayed there also since we were. She didn’t know anything about it, thought it would be a regular hotel. The funny thing is that it turned out she used to work across the street from the place and didn’t know what it was.

The wedding was nice and it was nice to see all of Ed’s aunts and uncles and cousins again. I hadn’t been to Buffalo for a long time. We also went to see the Darwin Martin house, a Frank Lloyd Wright house. The main house is still being renovated, but we got to go into two of the other houses on the property. House house houses.

November

We went back to Austin to visit our friends Mike and Carla, and we had a relaxing traditional Thanksgiving with just the three of us. Last year it was just Ed and me, and we decided to do South American food instead of turkey with the fixings, but I missed it, so this year it was back to the old standbys.

For Erica’s birthday we took her and four of her friends out to dinner here in Dallas, which was fun.

December

It was a good year (fractured clavicles notwithstanding) up until the first of December, when Ed’s stepdad passed away. We made another trip to Orlando for the funeral. We were glad we have been going there more often lately, and Ed will always treasure the trip he took to Ireland with Bud et al three years ago.

Unexpected travel in early December means a rather frantic holiday preparation season (at least for me, who procrastinates until December). But I (kind of) got everything done by Christmas, and we had another relaxing day. We had to laugh at all the winter gear we got each other as gifts. We had lobster pot pie instead of fondue for Christmas Eve dinner, and prime rib for Christmas. Yum.

I think that’s it. I’ll try to do better next year.

It’s relatively chilly here. Ed and I play a game each spring and fall where we try to maximize the time we can do without both air conditioning and the furnace. This is easier in Dallas than it was in Houston as the number of seasons here approximates four instead of one and a half. We’ve had a cooler fall than usual, so no AC for a long time, but last night we gave in and turned on the downstairs furnace for half an hour. The indoor temperature was 59 with overnight lows in the 30’s predicted. This was a full month earlier than last year, when we had warm weather through November and up until it snowed on December 5th. We blame our whiny cats.

So, what is winter going to be like? Who knows, last year after the nice fall we had record snowfalls and a White Christmas. This year though, the squirrels are acting weird. They stripped our neighbor’s two front trees of leaves and small branches over a month ago. The garden columnist who lives down the street even noticed it. Ultimately I know it’s up to the Niños and Niñas, but if I were Poor Susan, I’d be predicting / hoping for more snow. Last year we were away for the 12-inch snow and so have yet to use our luge in Texas.

There is still hope for the East Dallas Bobsledding Team! The season is young!

And this is why people shouldn’t share cameras.

I got home and downloaded the shots, and saw that they were all terrible. Ed had changed the ISO speed to 400 for Halloween, and hadn’t changed it back. He doesn’t even really know how to use his camera (which I bought for him), and I guess he got tired of me complaining that he always set it to auto after insisting he needed full manual control. Anyway, it’s his camera, so it’s my fault for next checking, and next time I will.

I fixed the golden tree a bit, but I guess need to go back and try again. Hopefully the wind will cooperate.

(p.s. the kayaking was really fun)

Really, Ed and have caught ourselves skipping this weekend, it was so nice.

Halloween was great, we had hundreds of trick-or-treaters as usual. It’s actually pretty nice here, we get extra police coverage, and they (with the historic district’s approval) shut down the trick-or-treating at 9pm, so we don’t get the bored high school kids looking for trouble *.  At that point, we walked down two blocks to a party at a friends’ house.

Today we went for a bike ride, and then rode the motorcycle over to the lake to go sailing. This was our best day sailing yet. Perfect weather, so pretty. Wish everyone was here.

*I have been impressed here that there is never any Halloween vandalism. People put out expensive displays and decorations, and especially pumpkins. I have never seen a smashed pumpkin in Dallas.

Last weekend we took another October camping trip, this time to Queen Wilhelmina State Park in Arkansas. The park is in the Ouachita Mountains, a national forest area that spans into Oklahoma as well. The terrain is beautiful, and reminded us of the Appalachians. We drove there in the rain, and arrived in conditions that were less dark, but more foggy and windy than those twelve years ago.

Pitching the tent, we reminisced about the Savage River trip, when suddenly we heard “Tubular Bells” playing very loudly through the fog! That’s right, the theme from “The Exorcist”. We couldn’t see anything other than some vague flashing lights, but were able to nervously laugh it off because it wasn’t quite dark yet, and this time we knew there were other people at the campground, even if we couldn’t see them. Still, spooky.

The next day we noticed scarecrows and small train tracks around the mountain top where we were, and realized there was a “haunted railroad” ride in the park. What is normally a scenic miniature train ride for  visitors is turned into a train of horror in Halloween. The music came from the train.

We’ve already made up a double batch of chili and frozen the bulk of it. I also made a recipe of the stuffed poblanos we invented in Houston, using poblanos from the garden. Lots of bread, an interesting fall salad with arugula, beets, goat cheese and citrus dressing (I made it up, no recipe). One of my favorite fall dishes though is squash ravioli with sage pesto. Yummy.

For dessert, I made the apple cake from the Bakery Lane Soup Bowl cookbook. Erica asked for the recipe, so I’ve posted it here.

This reminds me, it’s also time to make squash risotto. The recipe in Cook’s Illustrated is delicious.