Gina's birthday was 2/16, when I was out of town visiting my sister Denise. Mom & I had planned a trip back before Thanksgiving to join her & her church group to see the play "Wicked". Our original plan was to leave on 2/17, see the play that evening, and come back on 2/18. But I had training in Austin on 2/14-2/15, so Mom & I took out on Sunday. She enjoyed the whole week with Denise. I spent Sunday & Monday night in Austin, but joined in the "mi casa es su casa" experience Tuesday evening. We went to see the Oscar nominated shorts and the recently renovated Japanese Sunken Gardens near the Zoo. HUGE fish in those ponds and a very nice waterfall. Unfortunately I didn't take my camera on this trip. We also took a nice little train ride around Brackenridge Park. Kaden would have loved that!
To make it up to Gina I presented her with tickets to the Alley Theater production of her choice for Valentine's Day and I had a surprise in store for Friday evening to celebrate her birthday. It was a FantaSeas dinner cruise. It was supposed to be a wonderful adventure, as reflected in their website.
About 5PM the fog started rolling in and I got really depressed. It was so thick that visibility was, well, like this.
Despite the chilly, moist weather, Gina seemed excited about going on The Big White Boat.
I took along the Gorillapod that Denise gave me for my birthday, and it took 3 shots to figure out how to use it properly. But eventually I got the hang of it - the lovely couple eager to venture forth on a delicious dinner cruise -- even if we weren't going to be able to see much along the way.
We set sail a little after 8PM and the buffet dinner did look inviting. There was an open bar on both levels and some folks were getting pretty hammered, which probably helped them deal with the experience better than I did. Just 15 minutes into our journey, the lights suddenly went off and the engines stopped. They came back on within a minute or so, but then flicked out again. The next 5 minutes the crew was running around like chickens with their heads cut off with flashlights. There was no communication about what was going on for a full 15 minutes. Fortunately each table had a little tea light candle or we would have been sitting completely in the dark.
Finally, the cruise director announced that we had gone aground in the muck due to the poor visibility. She said that Clear Lake is only about 6' deep and the propellers were stuck because the captain had apparently gone over a sand bar in shallower water. Sheesh! Aren't they supposed to have sonar for piloting a boat with a hundred people on it???
So, we sat there in the dark awaiting the tow boat to arrive. They wouldn't even feed us while we waited! At 9PM I pulled the diabetic card and told the chef I needed to eat something or I'd pass out (I did have a nasty headache) and he brought me a plate. Everyone around me was like "HEY! Why is she getting to eat?" Shortly after that they started letting folks line up for the food. Finally the tow boat arrived and dragged our sorry asses back to the dock.
Had it not been for Zoraida and Antoine, our charming tablemates, this whole thing would have been unbearable.
We disembarked at 10:30PM and I intend to write a strongly worded letter to FantaSeas!
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