Texas July 21-24

Tuesday was our first full day there.  I didn't sleep much at all, which didn't surprise me because of the room I was in.  I had the option of sleeping in another room, but I felt I needed to face that monster.  To be honest, I didn't sleep much at all in the three weeks I slept in that bed, because my mind kept messing with me.  But I fought through it, and I guess I slept enough.  

Tuesday morning I needed to work off some of the steam that was building in me.  Unlike Utah (when we left...we do now), Texas had a state order making masks mandatory in all public places. Yup, it even applied to the gym.  Okay, no big deal.  I'd abide by their rules and follow them if I wanted to be there.  And I complied...as best as a severe asthmatic can.  Even on the treadmill, I did my best.  I'll not go into many details because rehashing it makes me angry.  Apparently, I wasn't wearing my mask perfectly over the bridge of my nose and this meat-head manager was circling the gym like a shark in water.  He kept eyeing me and each time we made eye contact, I'd tighten my mask on the bridge of my nose again.  I knew exactly what he was looking at.  After an unfortunate run-in with him and after explaining my asthma and that my immunologist has told me NOT to wear a mask unless absolutely necessary, he did't give a crap.  I WAS wearing the mask.  But I guess I wasn't wearing it to his asinine standards, but more likely, he had a giant stick up his ass.  I was wheezing and gasping for air under the mask as I was talking to him, and that's when he kicked me out.  Yup, just kicked me out because I was "being difficult." I walked out, ripped the mask from my face, and stood against the building for several minutes in the 103 degree air as I tried to find my breath again before driving home.  

Masks are changing our humanity.

Let me say that louder for those in the back of the room:

MASKS ARE CHANGING OUR HUMANITY.

The next day, I went back.  Walked right in, looked the same meat-head in the eye, and put my mask on.  Little did the meat-head realize that I'd removed the vents, leaving holes.  But even with that ventilation, I couldn't run with the damn thing on so I resigned myself to not exercising the whole time I was in Texas.  Luckily, my sister has a membership to the Y and had a guest pass and they have far more brain cells than Planet Fitness people, and they said, "To hell with the state order.  Our patrons don't have to wear masks while EXERCISING because we know it's dangerous for many of them." Oops. I hope I didn't just get them in trouble.  (I'm so over this entire thing and fully believe it's being driven from an extremely shady agenda.)  So for the rest of my stay, I gladly exercised at the Y. 

I left the Y on Thursday and took a detour through Cleburne, which is the town where my grandparents lived.  I love Cleburne and if we were to ever move back to Texas (we won't) I'd live in that quaint town.  It's the Johnson County Seat and as with every county seat in Texas, there's an ornate courthouse in the town square.  The kids and I made a habit of pointing out the courthouses each time we drove through a town with one.  

The next couple of days were spent pretty low-key.  Mom hasn't been able to do much because of health issues, so it allowed us ample time to sit around and watch a lot of movies and eat a LOT of ice cream and do a lot of swimming, which is mostly all we did those first few days.  Hailey gave Bear dog a bath, but not even five minutes later Bear dog went for a swim in the pond and came back in reeking of pond water.  Philip, the bee keeper, had about a million frames of comb ready to harvest, and it was pretty dang satisfying watching the process.  There were gallons of fresh honey (literally gallons), and I don't know how we will go back to eating store-bought honey once our stash is out! There's nothing like honey fresh from the comb.

Driving back from town, I had to stop and snap a picture of these beautiful longhorns.

I love TEXAS!!!!