2021 7/6-7: Stu enjoyed two lovely days with Rebecca and Miguel at a site he arranged at McKinney Falls State Park, not far from Austin. Shirley, Rob, Joshua, Stephanie and Jacob joined Rebecca, Miguel, Sierra and Dylan for an impromptu dinner around the campfire. The next two days, Rebecca and her family swam and jumped off McKinney Falls. Nice time.
The high points of the trip included a visit to the McKinney Falls upper falls, “famous” as a perfect swimming spot with an exciting falls we could jump from if we were brave enough! Sierra first shamed Rebecca into jumping with her, then persuaded Miguel to jump with her again.
When there is an Upper Falls, there must be a lower falls. I bicycled over to the falls and arrived just after everyone else went back for lunch. It was a lovely setting for a civil engineering project. Two families of about 6 kids were building a dam across the stream below the falls. After they left, I took over and finished the project, disrupting Texas water flow forever.
2021 7/7: Stu arrived in Austin and shared a wonderful Ethiopian dinner with Nicole and her friend Carl. This was Carl’s first experience with Ethiopian food and I can share that he washed his hands well before dinner.
2021 7/10: Miguel adopted a new (for him) historic smoker, larger than any I’ve ever seen, it was easily big enough to cook for an expanded family. The first test on Saturday found lots of satisfied family and friends enjoying lunch/dinner.
2021 7/11: Sierra and Stu are assembling a mobile puzzle, just like a puzzle but it moves and makes noise from the built-in music box. I knew before I sent it that “some assembly would be required” and expected to help Sierra when I next visited. I didn’t know the assembly was well beyond the capabilities of a used-to-be engineer. The print was so small that only Sierra could read it and we were stumped until Rebecca suggested we photograph the directions and magnify them on the iPhone.
I can almost see Sierra’s look of curiosity turn to understanding as the seemingly unrelated pieces are more or less assembled according to the directions. Finally finished, she had her bath and returned to see the glue set up and the box ready to wind. It was hard to determine who was more pleased.
I’m hoping she can place it in her bedroom and wind it before she goes to sleep.
There were many best parts of this leg of the trip for Stu. One of the best of the best was the several hours Sierra worked on building a music box. We shared patience, frustration, satisfaction, and patience, as we read only the fine print Sierra could see, peered at the iPhone enlargement Rebecca made so we could read directions neither Sierra nor I could see, and finally wound and listened to the music box.
I don’t remember ever having such patience with Shirley, Josh, and Rebecca.
During Stu’s stay in Austin, Emma Long Park become his temporary home. This trip he had a large site on the Colorado River to enjoy with only the sounds of the birds at night.
Emma Long Campground lies along a beautiful stretch of the Colorado River ideal for water 
and kayaking. The ski and wakeboard boats make weekend kayaking harrowing, but perfect weather greeted Stu for his last full day. The campground didn’t like the idea of my leaving. She displayed her anger with a wind storm that blew branches off nearby trees and slightly damaged my car.
Stu finished his Austin visit with “good byes” and hopes that COVID lets us meet again soon. I enjoyed Emma Long Campground as a home base and especially enjoyed a full day of Kayaking to the popular Ski Shores restaurant about 1 1/2 hours of paddling down the river.
Stu finished his Austin visit with “good byes” and hopes that COVID lets us meet again soon. I enjoyed Emma Long Campground as a home base and especially enjoyed a full day of Kayaking to the popular Ski Shores restaurant about 1 1/2 hours of paddling down the river.
Click Here to follow us to Leg 3: Philadelphia, Longwood, New Jersey and New York.