Reports From the Road #2: Hot Hot Heat

Today was a great day of spending time with our younger daughter, Amber,  and her mate, Matthew, in Austin, Texas. We had lunch out at a restaurant that had outdoor seating, played some games, fixed a wonderful supper in our AirBnB, and laughed a lot. I shot some photos of them together with my Minolta X-700 on Ektachrome E100 slide film, and I also wondered around the neighborhood with my Minolta XE-5 loaded with Ultrafine Extreme 100.

My cameras on the shelf in our rental.

I’ve never been to this part of Texas before, and I have to tell you that I have two impressions. First, it is unbelievably hot, much more so that I was prepared for. Officially, the heat index reached 98°F, but it seemed like being on the inside of an oven. It was hard to enjoy all the city of Austin has to offer when all I wanted to do was to get back inside. Second, the mosquitos are as oppressive as the heat. Mosquitoes seem to like me anyway, but here they were just too much. When I did venture out, I has to keep moving to keep from being eaten up. The mosquitoes also delighted in feasting on Amber. I’m sure that Austin is a fun place to visit in normal times and not in the middle of summer, but these are not normal times. Perhaps when COVID is over someday, we will come back. Perhaps in December . . .

Tomorrow we are hitting the road again, taking two days to get to Denver to visit our oldest daughter, Megan, and her mate, Devin. Our plans are to stop in Amarillo for the night, and while I was researching Amarillo, I discovered that Amarillo is the where the Cadillac Ranch is. Ah, I’ve always wanted to photograph Cadillac Ranch! This should be fun! Stay tuned.

Kevin