I've joined Club Scrap's Yah-Hey-n-So's Summer Camp. (The name is some kind of Wisconsin in-joke.) I could've been in any of six cabins (numbered 1, 2, 3... you get it), and which did I get?
CABIN FIVE.
I hate five. It's an obstreperous number. One has Three-Dog-Night dignity. Two is lovey dovey. Three is mystic (but not as heady as seven). Four is a little boring and stubby, but at least it's balanced and you don't have to worry about it. Six is just awesome - all those curves and multiples and such. But FIVE? Five just stomps around (5! 10! 15! 20! 25!) and digs its pointy pentagrams into your side and has the same vowel sound as WHINE.
You know how much I hate "five"? I hate it like the colour orange.
(So maybe it will be lucky again.)
Because I'm determined to contribute something every week this time (especially since now you have to play to get the prizes - no more coattails), I need to print some photos. (I still think they shouldn't require photos on scrapbook pages, but I guess I can make the rules when I start a scrapbooking/craft empire and regularly give away loot for free.) So, I'm getting these FW photos doctored up a little sooner than expected.
Saturday began with a trip to the Fort Worth Botanical Gardens. There are many things to see there, including the Japanese gardens and a little cafe and nightly symphonies, but we just went to the Republic of Texas Rose Garden. It was lovely.
Mom was having a very good day.
We took special note of the pergolas. Dad's plans for the backyard involve three pergolas that look like this:
According to the OED, you can pronounce pergola as PURR-guh-luh or PURR-gluh. Mike, however, says purr-GOAL-uh. While the Brits do not have his Aussie back on this, Merriam-Webster does list purras a secondary pronunciation. Mike says, "Everyone is Australia says it that way." And I say, "Everyone is going around saying 'pergola'?" And he says, "Yes, it's a known word. Used a lot."
If you are Australian and reading this, let me know if you say "pergola" a lot and, if so, how you say it. Also let me know if you call those little Italian boats gone-DOUGH-luhs. :)
Don't you just want to stick some imaginary fairies in that picture? (Real fairies get vengeful if you try to stick them to anything.)
The usual flower photos were taken with the macro lens.
I really liked the turtles in the pond. After we took this photo, and were running to catch up with Mom and Dad (who really know how to hoof it when out and about), Mike mentioned how the circular polarizer would be good for the glare on the lake. Oh yeah. Oops.
It's probably good we didn't linger. It was over 100 and the humidity... urghle. The heat is so scary-white in Vegas that I forgot it really could be worse.
Except for one gorgeous night, when the temp suddenly dropped 20 degrees out of nowhere, this was the situation for the whole trip. We'd run around for an hour or so, then we'd come home and nap. Sometimes we'd nap twice. And we wouldn't step outside again until the next day. It was a jungle out there.
But we had fun.
This is Mike's desktop background now:
After the Gardens, we drove around in search of food. I think Dad wanted barbecue from the Stockyards downtown, but I was the vegetarian killjoy. Plus, it was hot. (So hot.) So, all of my photos of the rather nifty Stockyards are from the car window (and in my Flickr stream). We never went back because, again, we could only leave the house once a day. There wasn't enough time to take more naps.
We ended up at Joe T. Garcia's, a Fort Worth institution. Apparently, sitting outside if the Preferred Method of Dining at JTG's, but it was HOT. We were happy to be by the window.
My parents hadn't been there for 20+ years, and this was our first visit. I've heard a lot about this restaurant, and now I've read a lot about it, and this is what I'll carefully add:
The "Small Dinner" is a decently tasty meal for a good price in pleasant surroundings. Mike, with his "Joe's Nachos" (which he enjoyed), will agree that the food is better than it looks. The food is also better than some of the other casual Mexican dining joints in the area that people seem to like.
I think DFW has its own spin on Tex-Mex that is very different from what you get in Houston and south Texas (e.g., Victoria, Corpus Christi), and Joe T. Garcia reflects that while not being constrained by it. We really enjoyed the chips. They were not Fritos. (Sorry Dad. I think anyone who eats a lot of Tex-Mex in the area knows exactly which restaurant I'm talking about.)
We also may be prejudiced by the so-called Tex-Mex we get in Las Vegas, which we usually love, but which might also be called Cal-Tex-Mex. So, if you've been to Vegas and you hate Guadalajara's, Gonzales y Gonzales, Lindo Michoacan, Garduño’s, Cabo, and maybe Viva Mercado, then you might not like Joe T. Garcia's. Then again, you might like it, as it's nothing like those places. It's just more like those places than, um, other places.
Look, just try it. It's an institution. Come during the weekend brunch hours if you don't eat enchiladas or fajitas. (Here's the menu.) Cash only.
(The large cheese nacho - yes, singular - and the beef taco that come with the small dinner aren't pictured. The nacho comes before the main plate and the taco comes after. Or maybe that's just what happens when you're there during an insanely busy time, like 3 p.m. on a Saturday.)
Dad drove us through the Stockyards again afterward. It's full of restored old buildings - very neat - plus some on the outskirts that have yet to be saved:
Then we came home and napped. Later, we ate Alouette with toasted sesame crackers and watched Twilight Zone. Then we slept some more. I slept more during this trip than during a typical fortnight during the school year. It was great.
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