Tag: ATX

The Great Outdoors Garden Center

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Photo info: FUJIFILM X100T, 23mm, f/3.2, 1/160 sec, ISO200
 “Sunny Flower” Austin, 2020

Mariko and I made a trip down to South Austin to visit The Great Outdoors Garden Center. It is an excellent nursery! First, their COVID-19 precautions are good, all the employees are masked up, there’s sanitizer available, and they limit the number of people on-site at one time. That being said, the selection of plants is wonderful, with plenty of native species, and they even have a greenhouse full of houseplants. It’s probably the best selection of houseplants I’ve ever seen, although I admit to not going to many nurseries. They also have a large selection of wind chimes, which sounded so soothing and beautiful that we ended up buying a small one.

We don’t get out much because of the pandemic, but The Great Outdoors Garden Center was a relatively safe place to visit and shop. Besides the wind chime, we bought several small plants and succulents. Exciting!

Photo info: FUJIFILM X100T, 23mm, f/3.2, 1/160 sec, ISO200
 “Nursery Cat” Austin, 2020

Hiking Indiangrass Trail at Doeskin Ranch

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Photo info: FUJIFILM X100T, 19mm, f/5.6, 1/850 sec, ISO200
 “Indiangrass Trail” Marble Falls, 2020

Today I loaded up my backpack with 30 pounds (14 KG) of gear and went for another hike at Doeskin Ranch. This time, I added the one section of trail that I missed last time: Indiangrass Trail.

Photo info: FUJIFILM X100T, 19mm, f/5.6, 1/80 sec, ISO200
 “Cairn” Marble Falls, 2020

The 1.5-mile trail splits off from the Shinoak section and heads down into a nice little valley and even through a little forest tunnel. It was really cool! In fact, I’d say that Indiangrass trail is my favorite section of the Doeskin Ranch trails.

Photo info: FUJIFILM X100T, 19mm, f/5.6, 1/125 sec, ISO200
 “Cactus” Marble Falls, 2020

I mentioned that I had a heavily-loaded pack, and that is I will be carrying this amount of weight on our Big Bend trip. The only things I didn’t put in the pack were my external battery and cables, and extra underwear/socks/base layers.

When I first got on the trail, my hip started hurting a bit and I was thinking that maybe I should turn around and not stress it. After all, I did run 4 miles the day before. But I continued on a bit, and adjusted my shoulder straps to take more of the weight off of my hips. This was the trick, and my hip pain went away and I would go on to complete the hike without any discomfort. I felt great!

Photo info: FUJIFILM X100T, 19mm, f/5.6, 1/60 sec, ISO250
 “Trail Light” Marble Falls, 2020

So now I know that 30+ pounds of gear on my back is do-able, and so my confidence is high. Knowing that we won’t be rushed during our Big Bend hike is good too – we can take plenty of rest breaks. As long as the weather is nice, we should have an excellent trip!

Chicken Sh$t Bingo

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Photo info: FUJIFILM X100T, 23mm, f/2, 1/60 sec, ISO640
 “Chicken Sh$t Bingo” Austin, 2019

こんばんは。How’s it going?

My brother and sister-in-law were in town and one of the places they wanted to go was Ginny’s Little Longhorn Saloon to play chicken shit bingo. Mariko and I had never been there before so we were very interested in going and seeing what it was all about.

As you might have guessed from the name, it’s a game where a chicken is placed on a large bingo card, and the number he poops on determines the winning ticket. If you have one of the winning tickets, you get a share of the prize money. Surprisingly, my brother and sister won! We had no idea what the prize would be, but it turns out that it was a not insignificant amount of cash. What a score!

If you are in Austin, you should check out chicken shit bingo at Ginny’s Little Longhorn Saloon. It’s a real Texas experience, with live music and two-step dancing, and buckets of Lone Star Beer. Lots of fun!

Photo info: FUJIFILM X100T, 23mm, f/2, 1/125 sec, ISO5000
 “Winner” Austin, 2019

I hope you had a nice day!

またね～