Turtle Creek

Today started early again. Despite having gone to bed after midnight, I was awake and alert at about 5:30am so headed downstairs to blog. Chris emerged an hour or so later and we read and watched TV for a while, then had breakfast and chatted some. Around 9:30am we decided to wake our respective spouses before they slept the morning away. Kevin needed to go into work to file a brief he’s been working on and Brett needed to go into the Department of Motor Vehicles to get his driving license renewed (it expired three years ago and he needs it to legally drive us to Austin tomorrow.) As my presence wasn’t required, I took Chris up on his offer of the loan of a bike to go for a ride along the nearby cycle-track.

I ended up having to borrow t-shirt, shorts, cycling-gloves, socks and sunglasses but once I eventually got underway it was great; the weather was mild and sunny and the track was well-surfaced and uncrowded. It only ran for two miles before being closed off for upgrading, but around where it ended there was a reasonable sized public park which I scouted around for a while before heading back. I believe the park was on the banks of Dallas’ Turtle Creek, which gives its name to the Dallas Gay Men’s Chorus (The Turtle Creek Chorale.) Anyway, I have a few pics of the creek here.

By the time I’d finished showering and shaving on my return, Chris was back with Carter – but not Brett. Apparently because his license had expired so long ago, he had to retake his driving test and so was still at the DMV trying to organise that!

Chris and I headed out for lunch at one of his favourite diners, where an appetiser of Chicken Quesadillas and a chocolate milkshake served as a substantial lunch for me. After that we took a drive around some of the nearby neighbourhoods after I had commented on the variety of architecture you see in local houses. As we were driving down Swiss Avenue (kind of the ‘Mansion Boulevard’ of Dallas) I spotted this house. Americans love to extensively decorate their exteriors for Christmas; trees, shrubs, windows, eaves, doors are all decorated with fairy lights. The lawns are littered with Christmas Trees, snowmen, reindeer models and candy-cane towers. However I think that gift-wrapping an entire wing is a bit excessive…

Brett was there when we got back with news that Steve was coming over for the evening, so we headed straight off. Steve arrived shortly after we got back to Brett’s parents’ place but by then we’d been invited to dinner at Sarah’s to see their new house. I think he’d actually just come over to collect a video cassette of the family’s home movies to transfer to DVD but then someone said… “well put it on and let’s see them!” The movies were entertaining, but mostly consisted of lots of children unwrapping Christmas and birthday presents and playing in gardens. I must admit I dozed-off about half an hour in…

After that, a five-minute drive over to Sarah & Andy’s where Sarah had cooked us dinner. We had a full dinner while watching Law & Order before heading home again.