Where Am I?!

1. I'm in Harlingen! We arrived late this evening for our surprise inspection and will drop in on them in the morning. Won't they be amazed? They certainly know we were just in Wichita Falls on Monday and Tuesday, and may or may not be aware we were in Gainesville Tuesday and today. But they won't be expecting us to come all the way across the state! It's great, because I've never been to the Valley before (like, omigawd, gag me!), and the supervisor here is a crazy fun guy, and we get along great, and I owe him some payback for fingering me at Conference when Grapevine came along looking for skit victims,* and we'll probably get taken out on the town and finally get to do some serious drinking.

Or:

2. Our section director called as my boss and I were eating lunch (some kitschy, exotic little Denton establishment known to the locals as "Cracker Barrel") and said, hey, Gustav's looking pretty ominous, and the state's going into emergency operations; it's likely to hit Louisiana instead of Texas, but even so we'll have to deal with evacuees; you guys need to change your flight and come home to Austin. And as nice as it is to be back, I'm a bit grumpy about it because (a) I don't get to sleep in a Hampton Inn bed for the next two nights, (b) I really was looking forward to Harlingen, (c) I have to go into the office tomorrow and Friday, and almost certainly Saturday, Sunday, and Monday as well, and (d) the baggage handlers broke the telescoping handle off my suitcase on the return flight.

Go ahead. Take a wild guess.

Never mind. Here's that picture I promised of the Red River, although (e) it really didn't come out, since I took it standing in the shadow of I-35. That's Oklahoma on the opposite shore, that is. And the river really is amazingly red.


Here's a picture, which was supposed to capture the pretty rolling countryside, which I took a couple of miles further south. I was initially annoyed because an 18-wheeler happened into the photo, but ended up thinking this one was much cooler. Guess what that big thing is that the truck is towing?

It's a windmill turbine. Who knew those things were that big?!

See? Life isn't completely full of disappointments.

------
*Inside work reference. Sorry, can't be helped.