Oh Man! Wylie and had the best trip! Nov. 20 was my dad’s 60th birthday, and naturally, as we Blevi do, we had a big throwdown in the PHX. Wylie and I went out for the whole week, since we didn’t want to miss Thanksgiving! So, we hopped in the car right after work on Friday the 20th (around 4pm) and started driving West. We drove and drove. And drove. Wylie was very good at spotting nighttime wildlife–I think he saw a coyote and a fox and several deer by the time we were back in Bryan. I was not so skilled, but champed Wylie at car-napping fo’ sho! We ended up stopping for a (chilly) few hours’ sleep just outside Kent, TX.

It was exciting to get to show Wylie where I am from and give him a chance to see the desert and saguaro’s and, most importantly, The Thing!!! (He was less impressed than I had hoped, but if you are ever on I-10 just East of Tucson, you should definitely stop. It is well worth the $1 and you can get some DQ while you are there.)

We made it to my house about 26 hours after we left here, and that was pretty good time, I think! The week was jam-packed from the start–we tackled “The Mountain” at Mary Coyle’s (which included 7 lbs of ice cream), saw the Hoover Dam (and the new bridge that will be done soon), had a great time in Las Vegas (we saw Big Elvis, had frozen hot chocolate, and absolutely fell in love with Love–the Cirque de Soleil that features the Beatles). It really was an amazing trip–complete with Steak & Lobster for Thanksgiving dinner! (For $12.99, of course. It WAS Vegas!) It was really wonderful to spend some time with my family and for them and Wylie to get to know each other.We were also able to meet up with two of my super BFF”s along the way…and that was awesome.

Things are starting to slow down a bit at the SCS this week and next as the students have finals and leave for the holiday break. I am happy to be filled with a good dose of Blevins Family fun and frolic, and Wylie seems to have survived and reports that he is willing to return for more!! Hooray!

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First, you may notice a little weirdness with the layout here, I upgraded the program that runs 10gallonhat.com, WordPress, and it made things get a little funny, and not in the good way. I plan on fixing it real soon.

Second, tomorrow Teresa and I are going boating! I will be kayaking, and she will be taking a ducky down the mighty Nantahala river. It is our first time boating together, hopefully it will be good. I think it will be good. The river is fairly easy, and duckies are nice and easy to maneuver down the river. I should have gotten a water prof camera for the day, nuts!

This past weekend, the one before Easter, I drove down to Auburn to spend the weekend with Teresa. On Saturday we had wonderful weather so we decided to go to Chewbacca State Park. Okay, it isn’t really Chewbacca State Park, but it sure sounded like it, and that made me want to go even more.

First, we snuck on to the park, Teresa said all the cool kids were doing it and if I didn’t do it also I wouldn’t be cool. I so want to be cool, so I went with her and snuck under the barbed wire onto the park. We walked along a nice little stream with some fierce rapids. Along the way we saw the little frog laying on the arrow sign. We thought it was dead, but you could see it’s little sides flutter from it’s heart beating. We left the little frog, walked past some toads, and ended up at a man-made lake where people were swimming and frolicking. We had no time for that for we were here to see a waterfall of some kind.

Thankfully the waterfall did not disappoint. The water level in the lake was extra high so the river flow was stronger than normal. We hung around on some giant rocks for a while and watched silly children lose their shoes into the water and attempt to retrieve them. Soon it was time to leave and we bid the waterfall adieu and headed home.

It was a good little hike through some of the wilderness that is Auburn, Alabama.