Today is Sunday, June 26 and there are only 46 days until National Presidential Joke Day.  Between the existing president and the candidates who are running, I am sure you can all come up with your own ideas here.  Today we remember the birthdays of Arthur Middleton, Abner Doubleday and Alex Dreier.  On this day in1483 Richard III usurped the English throne, in 1848 the first pure food law was enacted in the US and in 1945 the UN charter was signed by 50 nations in San Francisco.  In the Malagasy Republic and British Somaliland it is Independence Day and in the US it is National Chocolate Pudding Day.

I am coming to you this week from Austin, Texas and yes, thank you, we are having a good time.  I have travelled here with my brother and two friends of ours.  The excuse we used for making the trip was to visit my uncle to celebrate his 90th birthday.  My cousin, his daughter, was gracious enough to host the event at her house.  It was a lot of fun.  We had not seen my cousin for a number of years and it was great seeing her and her family.  We had not seen my aunt and uncle for about six years, since they had moved to Texas, and it was good to see them.  I will say that they did look older than I remember them, but then my uncle said that about me, too.  It must have something to do with memory.

So, let me tell you a few things about the Lone Star state.  First and foremost, it is HOT!!!  Over the years I have learned a number of colorful phrases to describe how hot it is.  In deference to you all, I will not share them with you.  I will say that it is so hot that I have been sweating like a dog passing peach pits.  The second thing I can tell you is that it is flat, at least in the areas we have been to.  The only way to get any kind of view is when you are on an overpass going from one road to another.  Something that I have been happy about is that there are plenty of Starbucks.  Now I know that many will wonder how I can drink hot coffee when it is this hot.  The simple fact is that I really like coffee.  If I am going to sweat anyway, I might as well enjoy some good coffee while I am doing it … but I digress.

I can also tell you that people here drive as badly as they do at home.  What makes driving interesting is things like the entrances to highways.  At home, the entrance is always made by making a right turn onto the entrance ramp.  Down here the approach roads are one way and you make the entrance by going left.  It is a little disconcerting, but I hope to have the hang of it by the time we leave.  The speed limits are higher, the average being 70.  There were some areas where the limit went to 80.  And cars were still going by me like I had stopped to check my tires.  One thing that I find very interesting is that the big 18-wheelers either do the speed limit or go slower.  In all the time we spent driving on highways here I have not yet had a truck try to get into the back of my car.

One thing I saw in Austin that I found interesting, was the way the parking was set up in some areas.  The parking spaces were angled, but they were set up in such a manner that you had to go past the space and then back into it.  That way when you pulled out, all you did was drive forward.  It makes sense, I suppose, but it would take me a fair amount of time to get used to it.  For many of the people I see in parking lots at home it would be perfect for them.  They are always backing into spaces and they are not set up to make it easy to pull out.

We saw an interesting occurrence the other day.  As we were pulling out of the hotel lot, a car was driving along in the left lane of the road and a police car with lights flashing was coming up behind it.  I waited until the cars passed and then pulled out behind them.  We thought that the woman driving the car would see the lights and pull over, but she did not.  She drove on for several blocks with the police car behind her.  Finally, she pulled into the right lane and we expected to see him go zooming by.  Nope!  He pulled over behind her, lights still flashing.  She continued on and he kept following.  We finally got to a red light.  She stopped and he pulled up behind her.  Then he got out of his car, walked up to hers and rapped on the window.  We did not stay to hear what he said, but we could tell by his gesturing that he was unhappy.  I suspected that she would be, too, by the time he finished with her.

One of our day trips took us to San Antonio, where we went to the Alamo.  It was interesting to walk down the streets of downtown San Antonio and suddenly there it is.  There are stores across the street, a large hotel behind it and it sits there as if it was just another building downtown.  I had been here a long time ago as a young kid while on vacation with my family.  Some of it was as I remembered it and some changes had been made to the grounds.  One thing that was the same, and was a disappointment to me on the earlier trip, was that Davy Crockett looked nothing like Fess Parker, the actor who played him in the Disney series.  To this day that is one of my stronger memories of that trip.  My parents were always disappointed that that was the one thing I took away from that visit.

This week our fact tells us that the bloodhound is the only animal whose evidence is admissible in an American court.  The biggest problem is teaching the dog to talk so that he can testify.