The Turner Family

Hello All, We have attached some pictures of and from our South Padre Island place. Two photos from the balcony, looking south then north. It was sort of hazy. Some days the visibility is great. There are often fishermen in the surf every hundred yards or so. Not too many swimmers yet. The apartment reminds me of something those "wild and crazy guys" from SNL might have wanted. The entertainment center seems to be from the 70s – in fact the whole place does. It's virtually all red, white and black. There were "decorator items" on every flat surface in the place. We concentrated many of them on or near the entertainment center, to get them out of our way. The two bedrooms are shown. The black and white squares on one wall are actually blocks of styrofoam glued on to the wall. Lots of mirrors in both bedrooms. We're told by others in the building that the place was redecorated a couple of years ago, and that it was even more weird before.    

I thought I'd post this article about running with your dog, since that's an activity we aspire for Izzy, and it features a Catahoula.

Snow's BBQ Texas Monthly Magazine has rated Snow's BBQ as the #1 place in Texas to eat barbecue. When deciding on such subjective matters as ranking the taste of food, it's difficult for me to conclude that one establishment is the best of all. It should also be said that we have not eaten as widely as the judges for Texas Monthly Magazine. However, I don't think the magazine was wrong in placing Snow's BBQ in a very small group, say the top 2%, of all that they have sampled. I believe their scouts visited more than 300 barbecue houses. It's not easy to arrange a visit, with Snow's schedule as restrictive as it is, but the memory of the brisket will make me want to find a way to return. We learned of Snow's BBQ thanks to an alert last year by Harry Turner. Harry sent us an article that Calvin Trillin had written in The New Yorker about a virtually unknown small barbecue house being named the best place in Texas. Each year Texas Monthly Magazine

Emilee with her friends Gabby and Emily just before the banquet. The gang had gathered for pictures. Great looking group. Can't believe she is growing up this fast!

It goes without saying that there are many famous barbeque restaurants in Memphis. Jim Neely's Interstate Bar-B-Q  falls in that group. We have eaten at Interstate once before, in January of 2002, on our first trip to Texas. At that time we had almost no barbeque experience, and so we just looked in the Memphis Yellow Pages and went to a place that sounded promising. Since then we have seen this establishment featured on several television shows and in many reviews of great barbeque houses in the US. As an aside, Jim Neely is the uncle of the Neelys who have a weekly show on the Food Network. Interstate was our second choice today. We attempted to eat at the equally renowned Rendezvous in downtown Memphis, only to find it closed for the entire New Years weekend. Memphis barbeque is quite varied with some dry rubbed only, some rubbed and sauced and some with sauce only. We're also told that the Memphis sauces are quite varied, as compared to Texas or the Carolinas where th

I just got home late last night from a fantastic trip to see Jason, Ahni, Meg and Garrett. They were such incredible hosts - showing me so much, taking such good care of me and opening a wonderful new world to me. Thank you so much! Here is a sample of our days together... Bougainvillea in Accra (across the street from Meg and Garrett's school) The drivers arriving at school to pick up students (but Meg and Garrett take a bus). Ahni and I picked them up early that day - Wednesdays are short days for them. Jason took the family to see his 'other office' - a gorgeous plane kept on the Burma Camp grounds. Where Jason flies... cute! It is amazing to me that a day at work for Jason sometimes means flying somewhere - even to a neighboring country - and then being home for dinner! Ahni and I atop the Defender! The perfect perch for driving through Shia Hills to look for animals... We saw baboons (right at the entrance to the park) We hiked to a high outcropping to get a grea

New Years found the weather mild, and the Belknap Turners itching to do something outside. Sorry I wasn't able to capture Cori and Tiffani in the photos, but it was a good 90 minutes at Fitzgerald Park's sledding hill nonetheless.