Shirt-Art Imitates Photo-Art

One of those things I do most every day is check what they've got for sale on Woot. Got my last two phones, a few TV's, and dozens of shirts from there. This week they had another that I had to get.

One of my favorite shots from when we were in Texas was the bat bridge in Austin.

This shirt had a black and white (well, gray. Well, you know, gray is my favorite color) rendering of almost exactly that image, draped with plaid octopus. Another nice tie-in, the contest the shirt was coming from is about the South by Southwest festival, in affiliation with Do512. OK, I'll take one!!! Once again, I've got too many shirts.

Something I'd made mention of on that post, but never expanded on, was the fact that there IS a basement in the Alamo!!! Within the grounds of the Alamo, there's a gift shop. I'm pretty sure it was one of the original buildings. As I was perusing the shirts, a lady next to me asks one of the workers there if they have a shirt in a medium. The worker replies that she'll go look in the stock room, and proceeds to this elevator, that, as you can see, only has a down button!!! I say to the lady, "There IS a basement in the Alamo!!!"

Texas Flood

I could do a post about the torrential downpours we experienced....

While that may happen in the future, instead I'm doing the overflow of the top pictures I took!!! First up is another good shot of Coral the tiger, getting excited to see the keeper coming up to corridor.

The next three are from the hotel we stayed at in Austin, the Hyatt Regency.

I think it had the least floor space of the three places we stayed, as it had two actual beds and the other two places had pull out sofas, but it was far and away the nicest!!! Got some good pictures inside the room.

The next three shots are from the place we had in Galveston, overlooking the beach. Probably the best view we had of the three.

Sunsets of the gulf come out even better in pictures than in real life!!!

Second to last was the gray morning from inside our room, looking out. That one, and the last from the original 13 Shots post, plus one more, will likely be converted to black and white, and printed out to mount on the bathroom wall!!!

And the final shot, a selfie in the sphere atop the luggage cart on the last day!!!

Thirteen Shots from Texas

OK, here they are, a few more shots from this year's vacation trip.

I selected 20 of the best, and pared it down to 13. We flew into Houston. Our first day, we visited the aquarium. They have four white tigers there, seemed like an odd place to have tigers.

The second day we went to the Kemah Boardwalk. It was fun, but the roller coaster was shut down. Looking through the selected 20 I realized not one from there made the cut!!!

Day three we visited the Johnson space center. I have more shots from there, but only one made it here, the shot of some various mission logos.

Day four we drove over to Austin. Austin was far more photogenic than the places we were in Houston!!!

Unbeknownst to me, the lodging I'd selected in Austin were right next to a bridge that is home to the largest urban bat population in North America!!! Unfortunately, the first night we were out scouring the area for Texas Barbecue at dusk, and the next it was driving rain... and we were driving!!!

Part of the reason we'd headed to Austin was it's a lot closer from there to San Antonio, to visit the Alamo!!! Spoiler alert, there IS a basement in the Alamo!!!

The next day, the boy and I went stand up paddle boarding on Lady Bird Lake, then we were on our way again.

We also, as previously mentioned, we visited the Texas capitol building.

Another travel day, off to our final lodging for this vacation, Galveston on the Gulf Coast!!!

Doesn't seem like we actually DID much in Galveston, but we did finally get to go in the pool of one of the places we stayed.

The boy learned to do a full flip into the water there, more amazing because the water only hit 5 feet deep!!!

The water off the coast was incredibly choppy, due to a tropical storm that had blown through the week before. Also made for on and off rain and humidity the whole time we were there. When we were checking out, the rain was driving down hard again!!!

We hit another Texas Barbecue spot on the way out, and finally made it to the beach!!! Got my right foot soaked by the Gulf of Mexico!!!

The Frickin' Lions...

As alluded to on an earlier post, here's a shot of the lion casting I had been doing some work on.

Actually, the first shot is one of the beam being shot up into the sky. Not a great shot, but it came out pretty cool, seeming to split the clouds it's shooting into. Nice intense beam, huh???

And, of course, the second shot is how I pictured the lion shooting the beam from it's mouth. Dr. Evil would be proud... "The frickin' lions, with the frickin' lasers shooting out of their frickin' mouths!!!"