So the summer is coming to an end. Margaret and I spent the day celebrating. She humored me by letting me see the Shackleton movie at the iMax theater. It’s only playing in a few cities around the country / world, and it just happened to be here. Very exciting. It was only 40 minutes long and featured a bunch of Frank Hurley’s photographs and video recordings, as well as an evaluation by three modern mountain climbers of the hike across South Georgia Island. They filmed it all in the Antarctic and Kevin Spacey narrated. I was thoroughly excited, though Margaret only seemed pleased with the shots of baby puppies and akabazillion penguins. It was indeed a lot of penguins.

After the movie we donned swim suits and played in the public Addison fountains. After a strange and unbearable noise (sounded a lot like a tsunami warning system, but Margaret didn’t think that’s what it was) broke out in the park we retreated to the “party pool”, which was deserted mid-afternoon. I mildly sunburned my back, but it’s nothing compared with the thrice-peeled lines in my armpits from tubing. That’s almost healed. We went out for a very yummy filling sushi lunch and lounged around for the rest of the late afternoon.

I feel really bad leaving Margaret here by herself, as I went a little crazy alone for a week. Even so, I miss my home and my family and my friends, and I am terribly excited to “relax” for a couple of weeks in crazy Astoria. That is, if I can fit everything in my bags. I’m having trouble with that because I sent a whole box of books down in Margaret’s car that I am trying to transport home in my suitcases…but it will work.

Great news! I actually have a plane ticket to come home! Not only do I have a ticket, I get to sleep in my own bed before galavanting off to Beach Week. I’m flying outta Texas at 8:45am Thursday and should be back in Oregon in the early afternoon, putting me in Astoria before dinner. So don’t worry family, I’ll be crashing the beach party in full force.

I also want to wish Mandee a happy retroactive birthday and Brooke a very soon-to-be birthday. If you want any Texas trinkets speak now or forever hold your peace. I wanted to get myself a cowboy hat, but I’m too nervous to go back to Fort Worth lest I be tempted again by those tricksy boots.

I love you all and will see everyone very soon (Astoria people very soon and Vassar people shortly thereafter).

So the other day Margaret and I transcended space and time. I’m not even kidding.

We drove to the iMax theater on Webb Chapel Road to see ‘Batman Begins’ (good movie, by the way). To do this we drove west from our apartment along Beltline then south on Webb Chapel. This took approximately 25 minutes, and we arrived just in time for the movie to start at 4:10. Ok.

Previews lasted about 20 minutes, they weren’t so much previews as some presentation on “look how amazing iMax theaters are!” with really weird laser graphics and flashy lights. Luckily I did not incur a migraine. So this has the movie beginning at 4:30, let’s say, which would mean it ended at 6:50. After shuffling out of the crowded theater, taking a bathroom break, and allowing time for me to gush about how amazing it is that there is going to be an iMax movie about Shackleton (I love Shackleton so much) and how upset I am that I can’t see it because it only plays at 10am and we’re supposed to be working then…we are in our car no earlier than 7:00pm.

The ride home is supposed to be a nice box. We drove due west and then due south, so we just need to go east and north to get home. We are at Webb Chapel Road and Forest Lane, so we start east on Forest. There are a number of N-S streets we can take to get to our apartment, the largest and most memorable of which are Midway, Inwood, and the Dallas Tollway. Midway is a nice street (it’s where our Albertson’s and Blockbuster are both located), Inwood is actually the one our apartment is on, and the Dallas Tollway is just east of our apartment but it is huge and impossible to miss. Or so we thought.

Here’s the actual time warp: at 7pm we begin driving east on Forest. Five minutes later, at 7:05, I look up and see a big highway. The Tollway already? No. This says “Central Expressway” and “75″. Why didn’t I mention this major expressway among the roads we would pass on our way home? Because the Central Expressway is on THE OTHER SIDE OF DALLAS. It is twice the distance east of our apartment as we were originally west of our apartment. I kind of scream a little and Margaret is confused, naturally assuming that we’re lost. We pull into some little roads trying to turn around and at 7:07 we park in a lot and pull out our map. I crossed my fingers that I was mistaken, but I wasn’t. We were definitely at the Central Expressway and somehow in 5 minutes we’d driven past Midway, Inwood, and the Tollway, actually going 3x as far in an easterly direction as we’d meant to go.

Somehow in 5 minutes we covered three times the distance we covered in 25 minutes the first time. All the while going 40mph. I tried to Google map it just now, but it didn’t really work because it assumed we’d take the LBJ freeway E-W (it’s right parallel with Forest) when we didn’t, so it projected that it would only take 11 mins to get from the iMax to the Expressway. But still. Think about that. Supposed to take 11 mins on a freeway and we did it in 5 minutes along a road that was under construction with traffic lights that stopped us lots. So there you have it. We transcended space and time. There’s no other explanation.

After a weekend spent water skiing and dining with Margaret’s ever gracious family, we’re safely back in our ant-infested apartment. We slept in this morning and had a 4 hour drive and have just stayed up later than we probably should have, so it’s about time for some well-deserved sleep. Just wanted everyone to know we’re safe and happy and that I’m setting my alarm to go back to the gym in the morning…I’m not anticipating a pleasant reunion. Very difficult to believe that in less than a week I will have figured out how to pack all of my things for the airplane to Oregon…

Yesterday was lots of good fun. We successfully navigated to the rafting place, a major accomplishment in itself. The river was actually in Gruene, which is maybe pronounced like “green” we’re not entirely sure. We took tubes with nice hard bottoms (to protect us from low water) down the river. I only brought my 15 proof sunscreen, and needless to say we suffered a little for it. I turned out ok except for burns around my swim suit lines, worst in the general arm pit area. Margaret, on the other hand, has incurred what we are calling “chaos zebra” marks, which are very random squiggly burns on her knees, chest, and stomach. Basically every part exposed to the sun (we were reclining in the tubes on our backs, so our tummies were pretty exposed).

After tubing and burning we had the best frozen coffee drinks ever at a little coffee shop in Gruene (I heart little coffee shops) and headed home, running to get into the Alamo for the last 30 minutes it was open. We had dinner at an Italian restaurant on the river walk, and while eating a giant thunder storm broke out. The walkways were really slippery so we bought some more gelato and then walked home barefoot to protect ourselves from slipping. We stayed up talking and planning and went to sleep chilly from sunburns. Hopefully we’ll heal with minimal peelage.