Dallas to Abilene

I woke up before Josh this morning and got in a short run around Amanda and Liam's neighborhood; the weather is finally starting to warm up!!!! Amanda told us about a new paved trail that started a few blocks from their house and it led to a lake. Josh and I checked it out and in total biked about 10 miles to and from the lake. I'm sure it's pretty in the warmer months but it was still pretty gray outside, though definitely warmer!!

Josh took me to a little gourmet cupcake bakery to celebrate my birthday: I turn 23 today! We each got a cupcake and after they were eaten, I opened my present from Josh.. we had been carrying it around with us since Gainesville! Josh gave me a new telescopic lens for my Sony DSLR camera, and I am so excited to use it!!

We hit the road for Abilene in the early afternoon, and along the way we stopped in Eastland. We took some really silly photos with my new lens, and also some nice ones with this pump jack!

We did have a Couch Surfer host who had accepted us to stay tonight, but unfortunately she never gave me her phone number or house address so Josh and I weren't sure where we were going to stay tonight until my friend Matt mentioned that his grandmother, Karen, lives in Abilene and would be happy to host us... especially if we brought her pralines! We stopped at a few candy stores on the road but either they had never heard of pralines or they didn't have any, so unfortunately we arrived at Karen's empty handed.

Karen was very interesting to listen to! She told us all about her family's history: they had traced her grandfather back to Virginia and had some idea of his and his family's trek to Texas. We hung out at her place for a long time, just listening to her stories and asking questions, before she insisted on taking us out to a hole-in-the-wall hamburger restaurant for dinner.

After dinner, she took us on a historical tour of Abilene and of Abilene Christian University... she showed us the university building that had at one time been her first grade classroom, and the hotel building that was once the tallest building in Abilene! We got back around 10 PM and fell asleep almost immediately!

Today has been a fantastic day! My high for today is being constantly awed by the kind and trustful nature of everyone we have encountered. Obviously the most recent example of this is Karen letting us stay with her tonight! Josh's high was the tour with Karen; the stories and history was just wonderful. Josh and I had to think really hard to come up with a low for today... the only thing I can think of is that our original Couch Surfing host never replied, so it just shows that CS-ing can be a hit or miss thing. (Obviously, though, we are happy that they canceled!) Josh's "ho" is that we had such a hard time looking for pralines that we started to think that they didn't exist! My "ho" was Karen's sense of humor: I didn't expect her to be so sarcastic and witty, and numerous times I was laughing so hard!