Armadilllos and Such Like.....

We arrived in Austin, Texas on Wednesday to celebrate the wedding of my Godson Danny, which will take place today at The Moss Ranch near Enchanted Rock State Park. We haven't had much opportunity to explore Austin, but we did drive to the ranch yesterday. It's about two hours away from our apartment in South Austin.

(Side note:  I can't say enough good about AirBnb.  We needed a place to stay where we can manage Babygirl's medical needs:  Comfy surroundings, a fridge and a stove, clean bathroom and so on, and we found a very cute, reasonably priced 1 bedroom apartment less than 10 minutes from our hosts, 10 minutes from downtown, and across the street from not one but THREE amazing Taco Trucks.)

We attended rehearsal dinner last night, not because we were needed but because we are just, well, family. It was fun to reconnect and to meet a generation of young'uns I've been watching grow online but haven't seen IRL so far.  Danny is the last of my 'neices and nephews' (from my 'brother from another mother,' Rich) to marry, and the first whose wedding I've been able to attend.

The venue, as I said, is 2 hours away, but only 88 miles.  Google Maps helps sort out traffic, most of the time, but letting Google decide between one deserted hill-country road an another in the dark may not be the wisest course of action.

Google sent us off in the opposite direction from which we had arrived.  Having seen a map, I knew that this was, however odd, entirely reasonable, since we were in a sort of you-can't-get-there-from-here corner of the universe anyway.  But holy Lord, we went over some twisty dark roads with cattle guards and flood crossings and switchbacks and...

We saw a coyote. Since I'd already seen a roadrunner it seemed logical, and could the Acme truck be far behind?  We saw deer.  I saw an ENORMOUS skunk. We saw some WTF was THAT? And some deer, and Hubby scared the life out of me when an armadillo startled the snot out of HIM.  The second one was less alarming, giving us a bit more warning by ambling down the center of the road.

At one point I misheard my directions, took a wrong turn and was then redirected by Google onto a HolyHillsBatman back road.  At the third left turn, we spotted a sign:  "No Outlet. DO NOT FOLLOW YOUR GPS."

OMGoodness.  I wish we had paused for a photo, because, really?  Who is going to believe us?

We backtracked a mile or so, caught our road, and finally hit civilization and revived ourselves at a "Texas Stop Sign," AKA Dairy Queen.

Now we get to go back there for the wedding. Wish us luck!

DeeDee