Wine Tasting & the Coast!
Friday: Up at the normal time. Breakfast at Denny's with Sweetie, then he
went off to work and I went back home, finished loading the car, and
off. I knew none of the wineries were open till noon, and New
Braunfels was the first stop, less than an hour's drive. Stopped at
Hancock Center HEB and got stuff for Decemberween & Lynn's cookies.
I stopped in San Marcos at The Paper Bear, which is a giant card,
gift, and party store that has just about everything. I got two 7
pointed star taper candle holders & a little cute metal rat for
Lynn's bday. I also got my mascot for the weekend: a greeting card
with a Majestic Sea Goddess on the front. (In typical ironic fashion,
turns out She was merely art for the front of a ship's menu. However,
She was my guiding spirit for the weekend and all went well, largely
thanks to keeping in perspective that one person's Goddess is another
person's invitation to Alka Seltzer city.) I got a glass votive
holder & an orange spice candle too. Even un-lit it kept the car
fresher than a road trip ordinarily makes it.
First winery: Dry Comal Creek Vineyards. The owner is a retired
attorney. What is with all these lawyers turned winemakers? The lady
running the tasting room was a stitch, there were some other people
tasting & it was just fun.
Mapquest gave me some goofy directions, but I finally found the
Poteet Country Winery. I got great directions from a guy at a
Shamrock near Poteet (may the gods and goddesses bless him for life!)
and found my way back to 281/37SPoteet Country Winery was...enh.
Really neat tasting room on some very Texas land, and a whole row of
bizarre windmills to show the way. But the wines were pretty nasty.
The strawberry "reserve" wasn't bad, but too sweet for me. I got a
bottle for Lynn. I also got some Mustang White, which was the least
objectionable of the remaining wines. The lady in that tasting room
was having bad allergies & kind of an 'off' day, I guess. But the
tasting room was very rustic Texan & they had an old fashioned cash
register with the metal tags that pop up with the amounts. That was
cool.
The drive to Aransas Pass was pretty good, I took some back roads &
saw some scenery, lots of Xmas lights & such. Mapquest *really*
screwed up the hotel directions. Once in A.Pass, 35 basically runs
smack into the hotel. Seriously, it T's right into where my hotel is.
But Mapquest insisted I go right and then right again...which was
wrong. So I got lost as a goose, but then finally stumbled across the
hotel, got checked in, did some quick yoga, got dinner at the local
grocery store, and crashed early. The hotel was about 6 miles/10
minute drive from faire. And a straight shot, so no wierdness with
the state road 35 and hwy 90 interchange. The room was OK except for
a musty odor which was mostly fixed by going to the HEB up the street
& getting some spray crap, and also burning my Sea Goddess shrine
candle. And I really like the king size bed. I want one for home!
Saturday:
I woke up on Saturday morning with actual BAGS under my eyes. Not
just dark circles, but BAGS. Agh. Looked like Grandma B.
I blame the mold in the room. That is my story and I'm sticking to it.
First thing in the a.m., I went out to Ingleside Faire 'round 8 a.m.
I was hoping to meet up with sineater, skye_ds, and their 'rescuee', but I
never saw them. (Turns out they'd gotten to faire site at 5 a.m. and
were already well inside the faire grounds, so I never saw them.)
Anyway, while I waited in the car & kept an eye on the road in to
faire, I finished up Excalibur, which was book 3 of Bernard
Cornwell's King Arthur trilogy, which I amazingly managed to find all
of them in the library as I needed them.
Then it was 9:15, I was hungry and cold so I went back into Aransas
Pass where I'd seen a very promising-looking establishment for
breakfast.
Found God's Own Biscuits in Aransas Pass at the Bakery Cafe. They
were fantastic. I may mend my ways in hopes of going to Heaven and
having these things for breakfast every day!
Bakery Cafe was exactly the kind of place one should have breakfast:
odors of coffee, bacon, an cigarette smoke as soon as you walk in,
comfortably worn carpet & seats. Not yet shabby, but lived in. Sassy
waitresses with big smiles, TV turned to the news & weather station,
a table of ol' boys in their camo, getting a big breakfast before
spending the day out hunting or fishing. Local policeman sharing
breakfast with his sister, brother in law, and niece, gossiping about
the rent-a-cops at the local grocery store. In jokes & conversations
where everyone is referred to by first name. Great coffee. And, of
course, The Biscuits of God.
Went back to Faire, got there around 10:30. Turns out last-minute
helper/rescuee was sonar0m. He has decided he likes me and I'm cool.
Very worrysome. He says I talk like I'm on "South Park." I think it
was a compliment. (I never watch that show, but the 2 times I've seen
an episode it was all poop and puke and stuff...so I don't know what
he was talking about)--very worrysome that the boy likes me, though.
I am trying to keep a distance--I don't want skye_ds pulling a giant
sabotage like she did when Kaleon & I became friends and hung out
without her. It is bad enough that he likes me, hugs me hi and bye. I
will not make the mistake of socializing with him away from HFS
and/or her. And besides which, he is very young & immature. Nice kid,
but a kid nevertheless.
Ingleside Faire is a cute little faire. It's in a nice park, very
pretty setting for a faire. Like Excalibur in size & percentage of
garbed patrons, but with lots of trees. Very nice. I didn't see much
at faire that I wanted to buy. It was small and not enough variety in
booths. Mostly garb & jewelry. Oh well. There was a lot of basic garb
stuff, nothing I had to have. I did buy 4 soaps from one booth & got
some good advice on making clear soap--keep the mixture under 110
degrees through the whole process. I can't wait to give it a try--I
will make some clear soap yet!
skye_ds did 4 tarot readings on Saturday and made $40, so she was
happy. And someone gave sonar0m $5, for no apparent reason.
Their 'show' was to give children rides on the horses, kind of a fake
gypsy kidnapping thing. But they didn't do anything in persona or
tell the kids anything about Romany culture or anything, so it wasn't
really a 'show'. skye_ds stayed on Mirage & the little kids would get up
behind her, the bigger kids went on Jesse & sonar0m led them around.
sineater stood around with Arthur on his stand & made him do his few
little tricks.
In the tavern/food court area, I ran into one of the
alt.fairs.renaissance folks & we visited a bit: Selena (sp?) & her
guy & some other folks. She's an Austin Rennie type person. We see
each other at faires and that's about it. But it was very nice to see
a familiar face.
Actually, I saw many faces I recognized, but had no names or other
relevant things to go with them. I am not good about walking up to
familiar faces and saying "hey, I recognize you. Who are you?" Which
might be fun...but I never do that. Unless I can say "Hey, weren't
you a vendor at Excalibur faire in 2001?" or something I won't go
there.
Left faire 1-ish, went to Port A for lunch. I chose "Oceans of
Seafood"--a funky orange building. Not great. It looked like a great
place to buy fresh seafood to take home and cook yourself, though.
Walked on the beach. Collected shells.
Back to faire. Hung out until faire closing, helped sineater, skye_ds &
sonar0m a bit with putting stuff away for the day.
At one point, we were packing up for the evening and skye_ds was still
mounted up on Mirage. She said something about how her tarot cards
needed to be wrapped up and then put in a specific box, and I
said "Why don't you dismount and do that?" Fuck if she's gonna sit
her big ass up on the horse pointing and directing like we're her
damn slaves. She can treat sineater & sonar0m like that all she wants, but
I won't stand for it.
Back to hotel, changed clothes. Off to Corpus Christi to have dinner
and see the Brobdingnagian Bards , who happened to be playing an
Irish Pub in C.C. the same weekend as Ingleside. Coincidences are so
cool. BUT: I got lost as a goose, drove across the bridge about 5
times, gave up, had dinner at Blackbeard's. Another miss. Oysters
random sizes & shapes. Salad was iceberg lettuce & croutons. Good
dressing, though. Rather odd live music. Loud drunk Bikers. A giant
table full of even louder spoiled girls (sorority or high school?
Could not tell! Agh, I'm getting old!)
Back to hotel, crashed & burned.
Sunday:
Sunday I didn't go in to faire at all. Dragged sineater, skye_ds & sonar0m
to Cafe Bakery (or was it Bakery Cafe?) for breakfast. Drank wayy too
much coffee and got a little silly. But I think it was good.
skye_ds thinks I have a great instinct for finding wonderful, offbeat
places to go, but it's really very trial and error. Obviously, since
I never share my failures with anyone, she doesn't realize that for
every good restaurant, shop or off-the-beaten-path destination I
stumble across, I also endure some of the most embarassing, dreadful,
and just plain horrific experiences imaginable. Admittedly, however,
it's really nice that someone thinks I have this wonderful unerring
talent. Very ego-gratifying.
skye_ds was full of HFS bla-bla, is still pissed at Kim for Kim
thinking skye_ds is usurping the inner circle, or whatever. But sineater
managed to get her attention long enough for her to realize it was
time to go. I hugged everybody 'bye, then headed the opposite
direction for the Corpus Christi Aquarium. I had time to kill before
it opened, so I went to the marina, found where the bards had played.
Found it very easily in daylight, of course. Took pictures of a
piratey looking boat. Peed in the marina bathroom, that was swank.
Walked along the water a bit. Then went back across the bridge,
walked on Corpus Christi beach, made a little shrine with the shells
I'd found at Port A yesterday, took pictures of my Sea Goddess
shrine, walked around barefoot, then went to the Texas State Aquarium.
The Aquarium in Corpus Christi is very very cool. I know I'm going to
have nightmares about all the huge tanks full of large fish, but it's
totally worth it. Getting to the aquarium first thing on a Sunday is
a fine thing. No people at all. The staff was very friendly. I saw
water birds, petted sharks and rays, tripped out on some comb jellies
(I can't wait until we can splice comb jelly DNA into our skin and
blink and flash with iridescent colors like they do...) & other
jellyfish, and saw a really big fucking grouper who is going to give
me nightmares. OH! AND a blue lobster! I crawled through the kid-
exhibits, laid down on the floor of the underwater dolphin
observatory and got eye-to-eye with a dolphin. I got to see one of
them pee, too. That was...unique.
Then I saw the dolphins do some tricks for their actual 'show'
(depressing: they are both a bit over 19 years old, and both male. I
wanted to ask if they ever got female company. I wanted to ask how
long Atlantic Bottlenose dolphins live. But...I am afraid I would
have been more depressed knowing the answers) then went to lunch (a
hit), then on back to Austin, listening to loud 80's hair bands and
singing along the whole way.
It was a very pleasant outing. I communed with the Ocean. I did Yoga.
I ate oysters & proved to myself once and for all that Cooter Brown's
in New Orleans is the only place worth the trouble of ordering
oysters.
I wrote it all down in my much-neglected paper journal, too.
It was nice. More sleep than debauchery, but that's what getting old
does to a person, I guess.
I had a very pleasant weekend. I took 107 pictures. I am tired &
either sunburned or windburned or both. But it was a great little
mini-vacation and I had a good time.
No drama, but here are a few of skye_ds's latest crazies:
some woman in Oklahoma drove off a broken bridge in the dark, so now
skye_ds doesn't want to cross bridges. Plus "67% of the bridges in
Texas are unsafe, you know, and only the school bus drivers know
which ones." Um, okay then.
Some wierdness at breakfast, with skye_ds being pissy with sonar0m
because she didn't want him ordering more than he could eat. She did
that at Las Manitas, too, now that I think on it. Girl has serious
wierd food issues.
Some wierdness with skye_ds talking about being pissed at sonar0m's
parents because they aren't consistent with what they say they want
from him & what they bully him in & out of doing. Sounds like
leftovers from her own upbringing that she's trying to resolve
through him & his 'rents.
And there may yet be repercussions from me telling her, literally, to
get off her high horse & do some damn work.
But, overall, I think it was a successful trip, both just for me, and
in regards to how I relate to sineater & his complicated baggage.
PS: I didn't have nightmares about the aquarium, but I did dream that
we ate the little spotty shark from the petting pool and the octopus
from the kids' display. They were very tough & I was sad to be eating
them.
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