Back in Carolina!!! (Miller Park)

Be it ever so humble...

Texas play

Sunday, December 22, 2019 at Browning (Mueller) Hangar just northeast of downtown Austin, TX

 We didn't manage to play as much this year in Texas. but we did squeeze in playtime about five times while we were there. Shirley had quite a few more pictures than I'm showing here, but I managed to screw something up while doing the download from her phone to my computer (I know, you've heard that before if you check the blog). Anyway, here are a few pics from play at the Hangar. There are about three groups of players playing there on most Sundays. Heart of Texas, Nelson Ranch, and Legation Boules Club all gather for intra-club and inter-club social play.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_YNX3iDhiPI

 Sunday, January 5, 2020, at Bee Cave Park in Bee Cave (Lakeway), Texas

 
 Shirley and I took our grandson, Myles, and a friend of his (Zachary) to play on the walking paths on Sunday afternoon. The paths of decomposed granite provide an excellent playing surface, and we get to tell passers-by a little about the game. Shirley kinda likes that.

Bee Cave Central Park


Tuesday, January 7, 2020, at Nelson Ranch Park in Cedar Park, Texas

Rudy Vallee

Gary Ragan

 We managed to get out to Nelson Ranch Park a couple of times while we were in Texas. It's a beautiful little park with a great terrain which includes about six courts and a walking path that could accommodate maybe a dozen more.

Bee Cave Central Park

Leaving Lincolnton behind

Beaver pond on our creek

Petanque court under water

We left our Lincolnton-getaway-home on Monday morning, 12/9/2019, to begin our journey to Spicewood, Texas, for the holidays. As many of you know by now, Spicewood, just west of Austin, is where our daughter, son-in-law, and three grandchildren live, and where we have spent the holiday season for about the last fifteen years.

Before we could get on the road for our 22-hour drive, we had one last bit of business to attend to in North Carolina. Shirley had a morning meeting scheduled with a representative of the NCDOT (Highway Dept.) to discuss the situation a group of beavers had created on the back part of out property which adjoins Highway 321 By-pass. It seems that the beavers had recently chosen to move in to Walker Branch and had built a nice dam to make their new abode more homey (for beavers and maybe ducks).

At the same time, their new home began causing problems for us, and, lucky for us, the highway foundation banking. The State of NC decided that the beavers needed to go and wanted to talk with Shirley (she inherited, along with our daughter Lynda, the property when Shirley's mom passed away a few years ago) about their plans. They offered to trap the beavers and destroy their dam which would alleviate potential problems with the highway and restore our bottom land to usable area for petanque.

We left town hoping that when we returned in January, things would be pretty-much back to normal.