This past Monday was mine and Kelley’s second anniversary, and since we are surviving on one income right now we decided to 
make it a budget anniversary weekend.
Just to get the weekend kicked off early and enjoy the energy that Fridays have to offer, Kelley decided to take the last day of the work week off. We packed a picnic and headed for Salado. Neither of us had ever been to the little town, even though it’s a short, hour trip north of us. We arrived in time to enjoy a nice lunch picnic beside the gurgling, cold, clear water of Salado Creek (on private property we soon found out—oops!), then made our way by foot and by car around to the shops and stores. This got old really quick, though, because neither of us wanted to shop, and we quite frankly did not have the money anyway. I have to say that there was a pretty decent variety of shops, but it was all mostly geared towards older women. The Wee Scots Shop was cool, with a selection of tartan ties, hats, and kilt hose. And the sweet, old lady behind the counter gave us more than an ear full about the history of the place. We marked the date of the Gathering of the Clans that occurs annually in Salado, and decided to book it out of there. It was still and hot in that little shop!
All in all it was a fun day, though, in the historic, antique village and we capped it off with some drinks at a local, neighborhood bar, and dinner at our old standby, Matt’s El Rancho. 
The next day, Saturday, we set out (late again) on bikes and struck out for the heart of downtown. It was a marvelous day under the blue, October skies. It was not too hot and not too cool. We rode where ever our little feet pedaled us, and eventually found Shultz’s Beer Garden. With an out of town game, we thought the usual game watching spots would be brimming with people, but Shultz’s wasn’t busy at all, which we were happy about anyway. We enjoyed a strong pint, some fried pickle spears, and then hopped back on the bikes. We rode through the Capitol grounds and made our way over to Dog and Duck Public House, one of our favorite pubs. From there we tooled around the city, stopping anywhere that took our fancy, and lingering for as long as we wanted. We had no where to go, and nothing set in stone to do. We found ourselves at the end of the night at our favorite pizza restaurant on South Congress, Home Slice, chomping down on pepperoni and margherita pizza by the slice, and sipping sweet cokes drawn off the fountain beneath a canopy of trees and filtered starlight.
I couldn’t have asked for a better anniversary weekend. It was light hearted, easy going, and stress free. It only made sense for us to spend Sunday watching a tear-jerking, depressing movie to cap the weekend off.
Stay tuned for my review of Never Let Me Go.
To be continued…
Kirk out.
