3/18/15 Are We Having Fun?

    We have been on vacation since Saturday.  It has been nice to change our routine, but I am not sure if we are having fun.  We are in a nice spacious condo, we stopped and got plenty of snacks and food, we have money to do activities, but so far, I can say I would almost prefer to be in Austin.  I am not a fan of all the hoopla downtown with SXSW, or whatever, but I do miss what we do.  Whether it be going to a bookstore, getting some "pan dulce" to enjoy over the weekend, maybe catching a movie at Alamo Drafthouse, going to eat at one of our regular places, or just sitting around the house with all the freedoms of having a good wifi signal.

    Wifi has been the greatest new thing of the last five-ten years.  Everything runs faster because of it.  Our phones have 3G/4G blah blah blah, and it works great around town and even in restaurants, but as soon as we get in the condo, it goes blind.  We bought Chubs a "cheap" phone since he is only ten a year and a half ago, but he is the only one sitting in here watching Netflix through his phone.  The wife and I have "better" phones and I can't even open Facebook.  Netflix, of course runs on most our TVs at home, and all our recorded programming is on those damned cable boxes, but we can't touch them until we get back.

    On top of that, the weather has not been above 75 for any amount of time, so going and getting wet on the beach is not gonna happen.  I was discussing it with Wife and in years past when we come on vacation with family or friends, we might let them take the lead and if they wanted to go to the beach, we would do it, and I might even get wet, to not be the lame one in the group.  But on our own, ehh, why go get wet and risk getting sick, or get all that sand in the car?

    Don't get me wrong, cruising around the island has been fun-ish, specially with the top down on our VW Bug.  Moody Gardens Aquarium was bigger than I thought, and it was free, after listening to a sales pitch at our timeshare, we did have a good time though the smell of fish was intoxicating.   We went and rode the ferry yesterday afternoon, and it was dark by the time we made it back from the other side where it drops you off.  It is a much longer ride than the ferry in Corpus, and the boats have a second story viewing deck, which we went and took some pictures from, but coming down Wife scraped the back of her legs (above the ankles) pretty bad.  The steps are covered with a very rough texture, almost like sand paper, to prevent people from slipping and Wife managed to step too close with both feet, and rubbed off a bunch of skin.  It's one of those situations where I look at her like "dammit, I should've left you in the car".  I know it's mean, but she had one job, walk down some stairs, and get back to the car.  Ten minutes later, we were buying peroxide and band aids and dressing material.  I was glad it didn't require a visit to the hospital.  I would have spit on it and kept going, but we are all different.

    I miss Boy too.  He wouldn't hesitate to force us into Houston.  He would just say I need some pants or a belt and that would be enough to get in that traffic from hell to find a good mall.  We were going to go to Houston Zoo, and I even got up early yesterday, but by the time we showered and ate, it was near 2pm.  I  refuse to get caught in the traffic so on the island we stay.  We ventured in as far as the nearest Buc-ee's as there was an outlet mall, but it was tiny compared to the one in San Marcos.  There was a sign of a large mall and the building was, but it was also abandoned.  There is no lonelier site than a mall that is just down to a Sears and a Gold's Gym.  The Sears had like 8 cars outside it, and the gym about 15 cars.  We didn't even get off, it was kind of scary and sad.