How to spend an off day in Austin

Hello Everyone,

Last minute ideas can sometimes work out the best. My idea yesterday to go biking instead of run errands turned out to be a solid one. It's a wet day in Austin.

It actually didn't start out that way, so even though I knew I had an easy day today, I didn't dawdle in the morning. I made my breakfast and packed up fairly early. It's always better to avoid folding up the canvas of the pop up when it's wet. It doesn't leak in or anything like that, but if it's wet too often, you can get mould growing on it.

Also, I took advantage of the dry morning weather to give Arthur a good run at the park. He'd had two consecutive days of biking, but he's always up for chasing the ball. It also meant that he'd be quiet in the truck for most of the day.

Feeling good about my start, I settled down into what I knew would be a morass of research about phones and phone plans. I like to do my research on big purchases like this, and even though I've been to Best Buy twice already, I still needed to look up a couple of comparisons (Google Pixel vs Samsung S7 vs Moto X4) and different phone plans (looks like Verizon has the best coverage). I want to keep my current number, but it seems I can't port it to a US plan, so I'll have to put it in storage, which is something else I had to research.

After all of that, I didn't feel so productive any more, so I headed to a different city park to get a workout in and to go for another walk (what the hey, I've got time). Without access to a gym, I've had to get creative about working out, but recently had the brilliant idea of getting one of those big elastic bands. You can do a wide variety of exercises with them, they are small and you can attach them to any solid post. I spend a solid hour with that and felt pretty good again.

This day is just a rollercoaster of emotions.

Speaking of big elastic bands, it reminds me of a funny story from my first day in Austin. As Arthur and I were wandering around those trails, we came to a crossroads. On the trails to the left, what should we see, but a roadrunner! Arthur gave chase, but was easily outpaced. I called him back, fearing that the bird might paint a tunnel in a cliff face and run through, only to have Arthur run smack into it.

wes