zimmers in texas

well it has been quite a while since we last "blogged" hasn't it. We haven't travelled anyway since our trip to New Mexico but we have more plans.
We had a few friends over the other Saturday night and treated them to a lovely lamb roast. The smell of the lamb all over the Acoma Pueblo had me craving roast lamb so I was on a mission. The problem is that you cannot buy lamb in the supermarket and I had to find a speciality shop to buy any. As it turned out it was exported from Australia and it was the biggest leg I have seen. It was de boned so we had enough for dinner with visitors on Sat night, cold lamb Sunday night, lamb sandwiches Sunday and Monday and lamb fritters on Monday night and lunch on Tuesday. I don't mind if I dont have lamb again for a while. Dinner was very nice with usual confusion over speaking American and Strine made even harder after the consumption of some good old Aussie wines.
On Sunday we visited the Bob Bullock museum which is a 3 storey museum showing the history of Texas from the Spaniards and Indian through to the discovery of oil. It really showed the difference since oil was found.
I have experienced more retail therapy and am still seeing things I am gobsmacked at. Two weeks ago I went to the mall with a friend to buy our Fall shoes. Apparently you have to have four or five different pairs of shoes for each season and it was time for the Fall purchase. I bought a nice pair of suede boots but they are not the cowboy ones so the cowboy boots may have to become part of my winter collection.
Apparently we all have to decorate our houses for the Fall and this is part Halloween, part Thanksgiving and part autumn leaves. Even the supermarkets have Fall decorations out the front. Our local has bales of straw and pumpkins decorating the whole front of the shop. To find our decorations we went to a shop called Garden Ridge and my friend bought a wreath for the front door and little pack of decorations to glue on to it. These are all in autumn colours and they group packs of pumpkins and corn etc. Garden Ridge is a bit like Garden Way only about 50 times as big. One area was completely Christmas decorations and another was Halloween then there was the Thanksgiving area. As well as these themes there was just the usual run of the mill furniture and decorations.
As you can imagine everyone is very big on decorating the outside of the house as well as the inside and there were things that looked like giant snow domes with ghosts and goblins for Halloween and Santa for Christmas. They were the biggest decorations I have ever seen. Another friend from work lent me some cute little Indian decorations to celebate Thanksgiving so I can put them on display in November.

Last weekend was the Austin City Limits festival which is a bit like Woodford with bands from all over coming to perform. We couldn't get tickets but apparently there was a band called Green Card with a few Australian members. They were reported as being very good.
We went to see Mt Bonnell which offers views of the Colorado River and Austin city. It really is a very pretty city. We went out to an Italian Restaurant and then on to a bar to listen to a blues singer with a couple from work. The singer had a fantastic voice but was rather drunk so it was a bit ordinary.

This weekend is the Old Pecan St festival. Pecan st is now called 6th and they block it off for miles and everyone sets up stalls with craft and food and drink. The majority of stall were jewellery but they had a whole range of things including hats and scarves for dogs that were all Texas Longhorn designs (this is the local footy team). Everyone (and his dog) wears Longhorn gear especially now the footy season has started. There were lots of food stalls selling aligator on a stick, pulled pork, brisket and a whole range of food I have never heard of. It was 98 degrees and very hot so we made a detour to an airconditioned bar for a cool drink and then headed out to a Mexican restaurant for dinner.

I celebrated my birthday last week and the TV station was very obliging by starting the new season of Grey's Anatomy and played a 2 hour session. It was great and the next night was Desperate Housewives. I went out to Outback for lunch and was talked in to trying a blooming onion. These taste better than you would think but I can't really see it catching on in Oz. Glenn bought me a digital photo frame so I have loaded my photos and now can see heaps of them, dont you just love technology.

We were planning on a trip to Mexico a few weeks ago but were not sure about the best place to go as various sources warned us against the border but we have now found a nice border town and are planning on a visit next weekend. We have now booked to go to Sth Dakota on 21st oct to see mount rushmore and Rapid City so until then Buenos Notches.