That was the weekend....

 Saturday I ran over early and picked up the lab (and good that I did, as it turns out later...). Lynn and her husband got here around 10:30. As it turned out I didn't need to have cleaned the house for them; it was just "jump in the car, let's get on the road" (But I really did need to clean the house for me).

It's a bit over an hour to the Heard. Weirdly, it's in a dense but somewhat ritzy subdivision (which probably grew up around it. I KNOW I was there once before, probably with my dad when he was down for a visit in 2000 or so, and I wonder if the housing developments are new).

There's a small, older (2 years older than me, and some of the displays show it) museum. Mostly it's the sort of mish-mash of "nature" stuff that sometimes got donated to places like that in the 60s/70s by the kids of the original collectors - like, they have an extensive seashell collection. (Then again: Texas does have a seacoast, even if it's farther to get there than it would be to get to my mom's in Illinois). 

They also have some very nice geodes, and an interesting display of (live) snakes. 

The one thing I remember from the museum was a very large stained-glass style window that an agate collector had made with slices of agates set in a border from an old stained-glass window. I know it was there 20 years or so ago; I remember seeing it. 

We also spent some time on the walking trails

I'm not sure but this might be another species of Packera/Senecio, different from the one we have up on campus. I didn't take a lot of time to examine it but there are not a huge number of composites that flower in the spring. 

This is in a little grassland area. Not much was out but it would probably be nice in June, especially if we get enough rain. (But: the drive down there is horrible; I wouldn't do it on my own. I can't hack that traffic)

There were some enormous trees out there - big, old bur oaks. The area is a little damper (it's on a slope), an I'm guessing it was farmland before it became a museum, and presumably the people who owned it really like the oaks and left them. They're among the biggest trees I've seen, and are the biggest I've seen in quite a while.

There are LOTS of trails out there. We only took parts of a few of them. If it hadn't been getting late (and we hadn't had lunch), I'd have liked to walk out to a wetland area that had a boardwalk trail but it looked like it was over a mile, and it was almost 2 pm by then.

There was a big chunk of downed tree with some kind of beetle

We stopped at a Whataburger on the way back for lunch. I got a grilled chicken sandwich, which may have been a mistake. I don't know if that was what did it, or something else I had eaten at some point over the weekend but midafternoon Sunday I started to have abdominal cramps. At first I thought "ugh is this some menopause thing" but then I got TERRIBLE chills (and spiked a fever, briefly, of 100.5). Apparently I got food poisoning from something. (I threw out the dregs of the almond butter I had eaten earlier in case that was what had gone off). Passed a not-great night (I never vomit with these things, at least, and they tend not to last long for me). I felt well enough today to teach and to do some other work (And go get the new tires on my car) but this evening I'm kind of tired and wiped out. I think I take one more day off from exercise just to be cautious. (But I AM glad I picked up that lab on Saturday morning and didn't have to do it today)