Tuesday, May 22, 2007

Texas Hill Country

Austin is as hilly as Dallas is flat. I felt it first hand this morning when I went out for my run. If you can believe my travel woes getting worse, I finally checked into my hotel at 1:00 am Monday night Tuesday morning. I was already on a late flight because I had to catch my girls' 5th grade graduation celebration yesterday evening (congratulations Samantha and Stephanie! more on that in another post ...), but this was way later than planned.

When sh*t happens, that's when I know I really need to work in a run. So at 6:00 am, the alarm went off. It took a few minutes to shake the cobwebs, but I was downstairs and out the door by 6:15. From my hotel overlooking Lake Travis, I ran back out through a nice residential area. I really like the look of homes here, many with limestone exteriors, wrought iron embellishments, lots of Texas stars, I even saw an iron armadillo weather vane! Halfway into my run, I paused outside this one house to watch 3 deer quietly grazing in the front yard.

The sun rose on a beautiful morning while I ran. It was 4 miles out and back of gentle rolling hills, and the deer were gone on the back stretch. Back in my room, I opened the sliding glass doors and looked out on Lake Travis. As far as the eye could see from left to right, there wasn't a boat in sight and the lake was a sheet of glass. Someday, I'd like to retire here. In the meantime, somebody's got to make the doughnuts ...

6 comments:

jeanne said...

congrats on your girls! they grow up too fast.

sounds like another lovely run. do you only travel to the beautiful places..to be with the beautiful people?

and thanks a LOT for mentioning doughnuts!

Rhea said...

Did someone say DOUGHNUTS? I'll have a strawberry sprinkle, please.

Runner Susan said...

are you running the coppell stampede this weekend?

Anne said...

Fifth grade graduation one year; college graduation the next...or so it seems to those of us who never seem to get enough sleep. Sounds like it was worth the lost hours just for the view of an unspoiled lake and armadillo weather vane.

Rae said...

Man, you must rack up some frequent flier miles!! We haven't been to Texas yet (except for DFW) but it sounds like Austin is beautiful. And one day I must visit Southfork. Seriously.

Deene said...

early morning runs are the best and give you lots of energy for the rest of the day. last week i noticed a doe walking acoss the lawn as i locked out the window from my office - cool!