Are we home yet?

My brother and his bride are getting ready for their postponed honeymoon. It's to Zimbabwe and the Seychelles Islands. The islands, I get. Zimbabwe? Sounds buggy, hot, muggy, and with an unstable government. But wait, they are from Austin. They are USED to that.

Yeah, we met them in Austin for a family get-together at City Park, also known as Emma Long Park, yesterday. That's when I realized Zimbabwe would be a piece of cake for them.

This is Texas's idea of a day at the "lake". First, it's not a lake. It's a dammed up stretch of the Colorado River. It's (maybe) 1/2 mile wide, narrow, with large Texas-sized (oil prices must be even higher than I thought) boats careening up and down towing water skiers. That creates a nice wave-action to stir up the mud that is the "water". It also adds that element of danger that all parents look forward to when taking their children on an outing.

But before we even got to the water, we had to pay our admission to get in. $8.00 per car was steep, but I figured, hey, it's Austin--that was probably for nice facilities, clean water and no bugs. Now, that I've made the connection between Austin and Zimbabwe, I know that the $8.00 entrance fee was so some city employees' kids had jobs making change from $10.00 bills.

We got our table. We set up our grill. We walked to the water. We stopped. We all bent over to pick stickers out of our toes. Yes, we were wearing shoes, but the stickers were on our toes and ankles. And if someone of my size stepped on one, it was embedded to the point of "now I want to go home". Which I did after five minutes. My kids were crying. I was carrying them to the water, telling them it would be fun once we got in. As the mud sucked at our shoes and the hydrilla scratched our legs, we realized "um, no, not fun".

We got out, went back (slowly and painfully) to the grilling. There we realized that the picnic table was ringed with fire ants. They were on everyone and every thing. The only way to get away from them was to spread out, sit on a chair and balance your legs in the air. Then, one of the adults would sacrifice for the others and dart around handing out hot dogs. If, at any time, your feet touched the ground, the ants would start stinging, you would drop your plate (drawing more ants) and--if you were one of the five children under 11 we had with us...you would burst out in tears. If you were ME, you would also burst out in tears and think of your smart hubby who said "no" to the trip when invited.

I have a theory about fire ants. Texas A&M should have stopped them at the border. Isn't that the point of an agricultural university? But they wanted them to ruin parks in Austin, so they let them through. (The civil engineers from there also designed the roads and parking lots in Austin as well, and if you know how they feel about UT, you'll know what the roads and parking lots are like in that town).

Add to this a temp of 97 degrees and 90 percent humidity, and you can imagine the fun day we had.

I do love Texas. But really, the lakes? the beaches? It's just not Southern California out there. What Texas should do is what Texas does best...large, wonderful swimming pools, lots of air-conditioned seating and barbeque, followed by sitting on a front porch in a rocking chair, watching deer and road-runners. On a ranch. With Joe Millionaire as your host.