In which members of Our Society travel through the wilds of Tejas...

...tour a Prison Museum, find a Secret Alley, one of our members learns the language of the Birds through eating a Glowing Fruit & the Society fetches a storm cloud home 

Our Party for this outing was Myself, Thax Aka. Lord "Odd" Ballington, Lady Victoria, and Major Dammit Flavio.

Our adventure began on Friday night, after tending to a mundane day of mundane tasks in exchange for filthy lucre. We are certain that this unsuitable arrangement shall be remedied at some future point in time and we shall no longer have to mingle with the working classes.

Major Dammit Flavio arrived with our friend Lady Victoria and the four of us ventured to Spec's, where we chose apertifs with which to toast our safe arrival once we got there. We ran into our friend Lee, the Green Fop, who is similarly hindered with day job which hampers adventuring, and we commiserated about fate, spoke of the joys of Absinthe, and other sundry topics of a more cheerful nature. We wished him good evening and made our purchases.

Then we set about finding supper, some of us having a hankering for Thai. Our first stop was Titaya's but sadly it was overrun, being an establishment that is not only delightful to mispronounce but also delicious to dine, so we put our etheric devices to work and found a Madam Mam's close by and drove there. There was no line or wait, everything was good, and then we headed on home to gather Lady Dog and luggage.

The drive was uneventful, but long. Though it was very dark, I did go ahead and drive us past the lovely old building in Navasota that has captured my fancy. Though the building was darkened, the gas lights out front were burning merrily and giving such a nice ambience. The next time I have a spare half million burning a hole in my pocket, she will be mine!

With no further delays, we got to Huntsville around 1:00 AM and checked in to the La Quinta in Huntsville, even without it being next to its customary companion, Denny's. We availed ourselves of the ice machine, Major Dammit  got us some mixers at the nearby convenience store, and we got into PJ's and had nightcaps and somewhat loopy conversations. It was quite late, so we went to sleep shortly after that.

The next morning found dawn breaking unpleasantly upon my brow with the jingle of my phone alarm. I got up, washed up, dressed and made up mostly in the dark (not half bad, once I saw myself in full light) and headed over to the prison to make a brief social call. The hotel front desk gave me some directions  that took me through town rather than over the highways, and I got a glimpse of the old town square and the lovely grounds of the Sam Houston Memorial Museum. 

The roundabout way from the hotel had taken me past the prison museum, our day's destination, so I knew where we were going. The museum was small and rather depressing, but had some interesting things, including the pearl handled gun used by Bonnie &/or Clyde, various other weapons, and "Ol' Sparky."

The Houston steampunks who had organized this apparently fell apart before the event with car troubles and various flake-age, no one was there at 10, the time the gathering was to start. We ourselves did not arrive until a bit after 11, and from the reactions of the desk persons, we were the first Steampunks of the day. As we were looking around the museum, one of our group read an update from someone in Houston who was on his way, but being after noon by then, we decided to finish our tour and find some lunch.

As I was making my purchase in the gift shop (an 'ol sparky' shot glass), two Houston Steampunks arrived. I said "Hey!" and waved, but they either didn't see or deliberately ignored me, and also did not see Mr. Ballington or Maj. Flavio...so we went ahead and took it as a snub and took ourselves to lunch.

Lunch at Grand Buffet, where Lord Ballington and I had stopped before on the way to our cruise in May, and then we went down to the old town square to check out the old fashioned candy store and soda fountain. We parked a block from the square next to the old jail and found a very sweet little 'pocket park' with a spring and some sculptures, or perhaps somehow magically-petrified savages. It was very nicely landscaped and just pretty as it could be. At the bottom of the pool, I saw some small glowing pinkish-purple objects. I thought they were those opaque stones you see in fountains sometimes, but turns out they were small fruits that were falling into the pool from a nearby tree. I tasted one, and it was bitter and sour*. Then I found I could understand the Language of the Birds. And such language it is! Filthy little beasts, entirely consumed with base pursuits better left undiscussed in polite company. At any rate, we had a nice little wander, the dog enjoyed herself very much, and then we walked up to the town square.

We window-shopped along the way, stopping to peruse local real estate listings & advertisements for the Ghost Tour, and finally got to our ostensible destination, Farmhouse Sweets & Eats, with a charming pink pig painted on the front window, wood floors and high tin ceilings and a real old-fashioned candy counter & soda fountain inside. Vickie and I wandered the store and left Thax and Flavio seated at the table out front where Thax enjoyed a cigar and Flavio his pipe. I got a couple of chocolate truffles, but the rest of our group was pretty stuffed from lunch. A young man inside the store asked about our dog and was surprised to hear that she is a 14+ year old mixed breed rescue. He seemed to think she looked like an Australian Shephard. He was very complimentary and kind, really liked our dog. :) While we left our gentlemen unattended, a couple of the local women who had been enjoying a treat indoors went out and asked Thax and Flavio about themselves & got pictures with them. As we were leaving with our chocolates, one of the ladies asked "Are those your men?" and I said "yes," She replied "Well, we just stole them for a bit," (or somesuch) and I said "That's OK, they're easy!" It was funny. Turns out she'd told Thax and Flavio that her name at the bars was "Trixie"...aha.

Anyway, we sat and visited out front for a bit, another lady passed by and offered to buy Lady for a million dollars and said she looked like some dog from a show she'd seen. That was funny. As we sat and visited and Thax finished his cigar, it started sprinkling a bit. Vickie said we should bring some of that home with us, so I agreed and it was done :)

We finished walking the square, taking pictures along the way of various odd and pretty things, including a corner that was landscaped and planted with mustang grapes. Also sour, by the way.  

On our final turn before returning to our car, we found the most wonderful alley between two buildings. It had trumpet vine partially growing across the top like a green roof full of singing birds, and there was still a gentle sprinkle of rain coming down. The walls were made of red brick, many of which were carved with peoples' names and various messages both spiritual and vulgar. It was a really magical-feeling little place.

Then we found a little old cabin and wandered around the small but very nicely landscaped lot surrounding it. There was a trellis that was overrun with jasmine vines and tiny red roses. Sadly, the jasmine has already bloomed this year, but I think it would be lovely to come back sometime when the flowers are blooming. I bet that's just heavenly.

The raincloud we'd selected to bring along went ahead and rained on us for part of the way back to Austin which was lovely. Temps in the low to mid 80's followed us almost to our house, and then the cloud finally started raining here sometime early this morning.

Once we got home, we headed to La Palapa for supper and ran into Lee again, along with his lovely lady Tina and her son Damien. We sat together and visited about Goth and Steampunk and music and Faire and every good thing. It was such a nice coincidence to run into them like that.

We ended up finishing most of Flavio's bottle of Dr. McGillicuddy's root beer shnapps and playing Cards Against Humanity with Chief Joseph, our native guide, until late-ish. It was a lovely end to a really very nice trip.

And that's been the weekend. A really good one, all 'round. I'm thinking next time, we should take all or part of Friday off, arrive in time to take the Ghost Tour in proper Steampunk Garb (of course!) skip the prison museum (depressing), and try the Sam Houston museum instead.  I hope other Lady and Gentleman Adventurers shall join us upon that occasion.

If I'm not very much mistaken, our next blogged adventure should concern our Unicorn Hunt. I very much look forward to sharing that with you all. Pip, Pip!

--------
[*I believe they are actually "hog plums" but I like my story better.]

PS: here are Lord Ballington's photos of our journey:: https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.10150989742670750.439401.825595749&type=1