Texas is HOT

It's hot out. Not warm, or even muggy. It's hill country hot, with mercury rising past the 100 mark well before noon and river levels so low that floating boat docks lay still on dry river beds. I can hear the cicadas singing their summer song, and if you're from Texas and the shrill of the cicadas has been the soundtrack to every one of your childhood summers and baseball games and barbecues, then you know the heat I'm talking about.

Still, it's beautiful, heat and all. We went to Don's parents' river house and drank in the green and blue, a small oasis in this months-long drought.