Happy new year, everybody! Normally I'd have already posted long digressions about the year that just passed, or the one that just started, or shared statistics and figures about my writing output for the last twelve months. But yesterday Allison, Georgia, and I became accidental tourists of a sort. We'd gone out to a lake-house owned by friends to ring in the new year in what was to have been an overnight stay, but we had such a good time we decided to stick around a while longer. We've just gotten back into town, and are exhausted, but it was a great little trip.

The highlight for all of us, I think, was the excursion yesterday afternoon to Longhorn Cavern outside of Burnet.

Here's me and Georgia, about to venture underground.


And here's all three of us, almost an hour and a half (and a mile and a half) later. If I look at all perturbed in this shot, I'm not, just a mite flagged after carrying and/or corralling a four year old the whole way down and up. We're at one of the deepest points of the cavern here, I think.


Our tour guide was a retired geologist, and knew a lot about the cave formations, and about the history of human interaction with them. Our friends (of lakehouse fame) had both been on the tour a number of times before but with different guides, and hadn't received even a fraction of the detail they got on this trip. If you're in the area and are interested in taking the tour, be sure to get on one of the tours hosted by Al Gerow, the on site geologist. (He was also kind enough to answer a bunch of questions for me after the tour ended, and to recommend some reference stuff. Expect spelunking in some of my stories, sooner or later.)

Anyway, regular service will resume shortly, but in the meantime, Happy New Year everyone!