Six Flags and more

Well, it turns out I can take hanging with a teenager all day though it appears that my OG (old guy) brain can't handle the twisting, turning, and upside downing of the various roller coasters. I was in no way prepared for the first ride, Mr Freeze, which throws you headlong into a loop and twist before briefly pausing while you are hanging vertically and then dropping you back the other direction. My mind never had a chance to catch up with where I was so I got off of it feeling a little nauseated and never quite got back to normal. The park itself was not very busy and as the short cloud bursts moved through it became so sparsely populated that you could basically get on any ride you wanted without any wait. I can say that we tried almost all of the rides except for the shock wave and the giant pirate ship that completes a 360 degree loop with you in it.

Favorite: Batman
Least Favorite: Flashback

Yesterday I also got to try one of the 'breakfast' smoothies at Jamba Juice. I have to admit it was pretty tasty and I enjoyed the added texture the granola gave it. I originally wanted this chunky strawberry smoothie but they were out of fresh bananas and peanut butter so they could only make half the smoothie. I ended up with a blueberry one which is a reasonable compromise considering I love blueberries.

Last night I played my first game of dominoes in 20 some odd years with Carmen and Lyndel. I won one of the games and came in a close second in one of the others. Carmen whooped me in my first game when I stopped getting dominoes I could play after a fast start.

This morning I shut my alarm off at 7 and stayed in bed until 10. Uncle Bob called at 10:20'ish saying he was coming before 11 so I hopped in the shower and ate a quick breakfast. We spent the early part of the afternoon at the Dallas Museum of Art browsing through their European Collection, sculpture garden (meh) and the Americas Collection. I love the work of the realists from the Post Renaissance time frame on and most of the impressionist artists. For some reason I can't get into modern art; I might just be too lazy to try and figure out what the artist is really trying to say. I think I got enough art critiquing done in my 10th grade humanities class :)

We were able to get out of downtown before rush hour really hit and made it back to Plano in about 20 mins. Uncle Bob loves the coffee at McDonald's (27 cents for the senior citizen's special) so we stopped off at the one in the Wal-Mart on Spring Creek that is right next to the Schlotzkey's I worked at in high school. I tried the Hazelnut Iced Coffee which was decent but they put so much ice in it you hardly get anything to drink. Seems like a lot of single moms like to frequent McD's. You would think that based on the poor nutritional content and the semi-steep price that they would avoid it like the plague. However, since they don't I can only guess that it is that much easier than cooking or they are trying to assuage their guilt from being a single parent by spoiling their kids. Either way I don't want to be picking up the tab for their health care but I guess I don't get a lot of say :)

I got in a quick 20 minute run between the time I dropped Uncle Bob off and Chris got here. Who doesn't love running in 90+ degree heat on a lovely Texas summer day (i.e. really humid). After I got back from my sweat fest I looked through about 200 pictures from my childhood that Uncle Bob had given me. What a cutey I was! I'm going to scan them all in when I get home so I don't have to worry about them getting left out in the rain like the big box of pictures the owners of our old house in Huntsville sent us (wonder who did that....). Many thanks to Uncle Bob for putting that together. Memories and photos are very important to me.

Chris and I got out and threw the football some before dinner. If you recall I talked about how much I loved that in Alabama and I still do. Carmen made us some taco salad which was quite tasty and then we had fresh-from-the-oven home-made cookies with milk. Afterwards we went down to putt putt golf where we got in 2 games (for the price of 1, shhhh, don't tell) and got to drive some go-carts. I couldn't believe how well I did on the mini-golf...I got fatigued in the middle of the second game but came back strong. Chris still won so we ended up splitting that. Afterwards we tried the batting cages which I really sucked at. I used to be so good at hitting but today I couldn't even hit baseballs I tossed into the air. Guess I need to work on that!

Chris' curfew is at 10 so he had to get back home to Candy and I came back and played some more dominoes with Carmen and Lyndel. I squeaked into 2nd place on the last round...wahoo!

Tomorrow I hope I can wake up a little earlier and get to the gym. I haven't really worked out since I was at the hotel the first night of this trip! The last time I was here they only had the 'preview' version of a Golds Gym but now the real thing is in place so I'm looking forward to checking it out. Oh, and I'm going to grab some breakfast at Taco Cabana, too! I love their breakfast tacos but I can only get them when I'm here (which is probably a good thing).

D