Does your "normal" make you grin?

 Isn't it always about the ice cream!

 My "normal" is grinning ear to ear this week!  Families are out and about in Landa Park, the miniature train has a small waiting line, and my very favorite - cars with floatation devices piled on top and hanging out of windows fill New Braunfels. If you look closely, wildflowers are poking their blooms out of the hillsides and beg for a photo opp.  This is my "normal" and even before I had my current job of Convention and Visitors Bureau Director, these sights always helped me "fill up" my happiness meter.


You see, I am a true believer that the only "high touch" experience left in the world is achieved via travel.  

Dad in Kit Karson Park - three week Road Trip in 70's 

This is a learned belief/joy (normal).  My mom and dad (who you met in a previous post) were my tutors.  I cannot tell you how many historical markers I have read at my father's insistence, of course, this was a welcome and desperate stretch of the legs as we escaped from the Volkswagen pop up camper (despite having our own 8 track player in the back).  Now, did I realize this was my joy then - of course not! 

These were often marathon trips with my folks, two to four weeks long while we zigzagged across the country.  My parents were supper tolerant and usually let me take one or both of my life long BFF's (Sara & Janice) with us.  We had great, awful, and life changing travels together, add in my brothers and their extended family and friends and there is a license for all sorts of "joy" that to this day make me laugh so hard it can bring me to tears.         

The road trip seems to be alive and well with New Braunfels as one of the great destinations that generations of Texans choose to find their "grin". 

Did you "staycation" or did you participate in the annual Hill Country " coastal migration". Seems we are always fascinated with what we don't have in our own backyard.  We are frequent coast visitors
and enjoy the change of scenery, water, surf, and most of all shells.

Doesn't matter where you go - just get out and go; whether you are on a PB&J budget or a steak budget -
See Texas First and find your grin!   

Enchanted Rock Road Trip