Kenny came for a visit this weekend. It was really good to see him; he is looking well and is fitter than I have seen him in a long time. He has been having health problems and it was a real relief to see him walking and biking. Over the last year he has had numerous broken bones in his foot, but they seem to be healed now and he only has some residual pain when he walks too much, or is tired. He says he has lost some weight and it shows. He is probably doing better than he appears, as he has been on a very stressful business trip and he had been putting in a lot of hours in preparation for it.
He was originally scheduled to come in early afternoon Saturday, but his meeting lasted longer than expected, so he arrived at about 9 PM Saturday. Marilyn and I had not eaten supper and Kenny had only had a hamburger much earlier in the day, so we decided to stop on the way home. Since we all like Rudy’s and the new freeway from the airport to the west side of Austin is close to being complete, I headed off to the Westlake Rudy’s, in a big, open park-like area, and we had some BBQ brisket. We got home about midnight.
Our original plans for Sunday morning were to get up early (7:30) and head down to the Upper Crust Bakery. However, when I tried to wake Kenny up at 7:30 I had no luck, so I let him sleep. About nine he finally got up so I made him some breakfast and coffee. Then we headed out for some bike riding.
I decided not to go to Upper Crust, it would require riding on streets with heavy traffic and I had not seen Kenny ride since we were teenagers on the farm. He says he has been riding, but that may only be in the park with his dogs.
We went over to Highland Mall and spent some time looping around in the parking lot; he looked like he could handle a little, more so we headed down to Epoch’s Coffee Shop. He did real well on the bike and riding in traffic.
Here is a map of our ride together. I did not have my GPS so it is from memory.
Shortly after we arrived home, Larissa called. We talked on the phone for some time mainly filling Kenny in on the details of her upcoming wedding, finally the conversation changed to her new apartment. At this point, we switched over to using the computer and enabling the video. Larissa gave us a tour of her new home with all the new appliances and furniture. It really looks nice.
After this Kenny, Marilyn and I headed down to the Barton Creek Greenbelt, we entered at the 360 Access Point. Marilyn walked with us down to the creek, Kenny and I continued southwest to the cliffs along Barton Creek. Here is a rough sketch of the course we took.
The greenbelt was beautiful and many people were out enjoying it. The weather could not have been better; the temperature was in the mid seventies. We meet many hikers out for an afternoon walk, on the cliffs south of the creek; we could see climbers practicing their climbing and repelling skills. Dozens of bicyclist past us on the trail, we got a lot of opportunities to watch them go over rocks from the size of your fist to large boulders that required them to raise the front wheel of the bikes a foot or more off the path.
Finally, we returned to the spot where we had left Marilyn and hiked out of the creek. I was really proud of her. She has been sick for the last month and this was her first major trip.
After exploring Barton Creek we went to The Shady Oaks for some food and stories about the old times. This continued after we left The Shady Oaks and well into the night.
Kenny left us and continued his journey to Omaha at 5:45 this morning.