Why I am Blogging

Do one thing every day that scares you,

said Eleanor Roosevelt.

I try to do something scary at least once a month. The rest of the time I force myself to try new things –a very long run or visiting a museum exhibition or checking out a new neighborhood or activity. I find many excuses for not doing something, but I also know, if you don’t go, you don’t know, so, most of the time, I “go for it.” The purpose of my blog is to inspire reader also to “go for it.” Feel free to respond and/or ask questions about anything -- if I don't have the answers, I'll try and find them.

ZIPLINING IN CYPRESS VALLEY, TEXAS

I am flying 45 feet up in the air, shooting across a 350-foot-long cable in Texas Hill Country, 30 miles from downtown Austin. I am doing a ziplining tour with Cypress Valley Canopy Tours (http://cypressvalleycanopytours.com), the first zipline canopy tour in the U.S. There are six ziplines on this course, and so far, I’ve done four, plus walked across three sky bridges (a very scary cable bridge suspended high between two trees and which wobbles on every step). As the first three ziplines were not Adrenaline-inducing, I asked how I could go faster; the guide told me to just stick my legs out straight.

All ziplines – no matter where they are – work pretty much the same way. (http://adventuretravel.about.com/od/treetopaboveadventures/a/Zipline_Canopy.htm) You don a helmet, step into a harness, and a guide clips you to a cable stretched between two trees. Then, you step off the platform and you soar along the cable pulled by gravity to the next platform as you look out at a bird's-eye view of the forest. When you arrive, a guide unclips you, you walk across a sky bridge to the next zipline, and repeat the process.

As you slide along the cable. you pick up speed, but there are no brakes. To slow down, you yank behind you on the cable, being careful not to yank your arm out of your shoulder. But on this particular long death slide, on which I’ve put out my legs to go faster, I’ve picked up so much speed that either I’m going to smash into the tree or facture my clavicle trying to brake.

Miraculously, my arm grips the cable in the correct position and I come to a perfect stop. Feeling proud of my successful completion, I look at the Cypress-lined creek far below. The guide told me to be on the lookout for grey foxes, armadillos and porcupines, but I spot nothing like that. I see only a monkey: me.

Feeing the Heat in Bikram Yoga

Oh my God. It is SO HOT IN HERE! When will it be over? I’m in a Bikram Yoga East Side class in NYC (www.bikramyogaeast.com). Yoga teacher Viraj Santini who’s barking, “Come on yoginis and yogis. PUSH! PUSH! PULL!” The room is over 100 degrees and sweat drips from my face onto my yoga mat. “Push your knees down. DON’T BE SO LAZY! You want benefits? Sometimes you’ve got to struggle to make progress. You think it’s going to come to you on a gold platter?”

Viraj Santini, New York City’s first male Bikram yoga teacher has been teaching a tough-love Bikram method for 14 years. (http://www.bikramyoga.com) But he used to be a stand-up comic, so at least he’s funny. For the first breathing exercise he says, “Open your mouth wide like you’re having a wisdom tooth taken out.” When we do Awkward Pose, a deep squat, he yells, “COME ON, BALANCE THOSE LAPTOPS!” On Triangle Pose -- arms straight out -- he says, “Spread ‘em out hard -- you shouldn’t have any cottage cheese hanging from your triceps.”

It’s hard to laugh in a room hotter than a broiling oven, but how can you not when he helps someone twist an extra inch in spinal twist and says, “I should charge you for that. I just gave you a nice adjustment. A chiropractor would charge $75.00.”

On the last breathing exercise, two rounds of exhaling 50 breaths quickly, he says to someone, “Did you have a deprived childhood? Didn’t you learn how to blow out a birthday candle?”

And then, it’s over. I can’t wait to leave. I hate this class – but I’ll be back because it works, and so far, it hasn’t killed me -- not yet.

Misery in Paradise: When Altitude Sickness Ruins a Vacation

I’d planned to cross-country ski and horseback ride in the snow at the C Lazy U Guest Ranch & Resort in Granby, Colorado (http://www.clazyu.com/). Instead, I was lying on a gurney in the emergency clinic at the Granby Medical Center (http://www.blogger.com/www.summitmedicalcenter.org/index.php/2409/Mountain-Clinics?parent_id=1310) suffering from an acute case of altitude sickness and dehydration, attached to both an oxygen tank and an I.V. I watched as the fluid went drip drip drip at snail’s pace down the clear tubing. The pain hammered non-stop through my temples, my forehead, between my eyes, and even the back of my neck. I felt weak, nauseous, dehydrated, had been vomiting non-stop since last night, and I had chills.

The nurse asked, “Would you like a blanket?” I nodded yes and she returned within seconds to tuck a heated blanket around me.

“Heated? Wow!”

“We want you to be comfortable,” she smiled. A smiling nurse? This was so different than the surly E.R. nurses in New York City who frowned if you asked for a blanket and resented the fact that you were injured. The nurse was so caring and attentive that I almost felt I was in a resort rather than in an E.R. at an oxygen-challenging 8,000 feet above sea level.

Dr. Jeffrey Lipke came into the room. He was somewhere in his thirties, movie-star good-looking, and with a smile that could melt a glacier. There were other patients in the E.R., including a teen who’d been injured in a snowboarding accident; still, Dr.Lipke seemed to have all the time in the world for me. When I explained that the day before I’d flown early in the morning from NYC to Denver, spent the day hiking in Boulder, then had a huge meal paired with different wines, he told me that you have to avoid alcohol and coffee at altitude, drink six to eight glasses of fluids a day and keep sipping when you exercise to keep your fluid level up. “I’m going to give you another IV bag, and then release you with oxygen,” he said.

Me? Walking around in public with an oxygen tank? How humiliating!

“Do you have any other questions?” I’d never met a doctor who asked if I had questions. Too bad he couldn’t be cloned.

Five hours later, I returned to my hotel, where the woman from the oxygen company set up a plug-in apparatus in my room. She told me she has to deliver about five tanks of oxygen per day.

“Do you want a backpack?” she askd

“What for?”

“In case you want to do something outside. Yesterday I gave a 13-year-old boy a backpack so he could go snowmobiling,

I told her I wouldn’t need oxygen tomorrow, that I’d be fine, but she insisted I’d need it at least for the next four days.

FOUR DAYS? Not me! I’d wake up normal.

But in the morning, my head still pounded, my stomach was queasy, and I could barely climb down a flight of stairs. I knew the only way my symptoms would disappear would be to get back to sea level, so I threw down the oxygen tube, re-booked my return flight, returned to Denver, and flew back to NY.

I plan to go back to Colorado, but next time, I’m going to mainline water, drink no alcohol or caffeine, and take it easy my first day. Let’s face it – anyone can get altitude sickness and if you’ve had it once, you can still get it again. So even though the E.R. doctor at the Granby Medical Center is a hunk, I’d rather spend my time playing outdoors, not lying prone on a gurney.

Powerchuting in Arizona – Thermals Not Necessary

My heart is in my throat as Pilot Randy, hands me a helmet, headphones with a mic, and straps me into the passenger seat behind him. We are in a 3-wheeled 2-passenger go-cart that has an engine, a propeller, and a parachute. It’s called a Powerchute (http://www.powerchutes.com) which conjures images of what my stomach may do with last night’s dinner. It’s not a plane and it’s not a hang glider, and Randy assures me that it’s considered one of the safest aircrafts in the world.

That doesn’t give my any reassurance. My friends think I’ve lost my mind, and my sister begged me not to do it. At this point, I’m in the hands of Randy Long, owner of Arizona Powerchutes (www.arizonapowerchutes.com) who has a perfect record with over 2000 hours of flight time. He’s got to know up from down!

Even though the weather in Scottsdale will reach 72 degrees today, at six am, it’s somewhere in the 40’s and I’m freezing. Dressed in Randy’s extra black down jumpsuit, hood with a neck warmer, and fleece gloves, I should be toasty warm, but my blood feels like ice and my teeth are chattering. Any second we will be airborne. I ought to jump out right now, or it will be too late. Is it really adventure I seek, or do I have a death wish? And how long ago did I write my will?

“We will ascend at 600 feet a minute,” says Randy through the headphones. Our seatbelts are connected in a one-man harness, so there’s no bailing now, not without dragging 200 pounds of Randy with me. “Ready?”

“Yup,” My voice is two octaves higher than usual.

“When we take off, depending on the wind, there’ll be a slight bump, so don’t worry. And then, we’ll be airborne.”

I turn and look at our umbilical cord, a forty-foot long parachute lying in the desert sand, 550-square feet of fabric. I have the strange sensation that we’ll be dangling like the tail of a kite.

When someone told me Powerchuting was flying in the sky, I remembered a recurring dream I used to have as a kid – I’d be riding my bicycle, and suddenly I’d be pedaling straight up in the air, flying over the rooftops. It was always thrilling. So I had to try it.

Now I’m not so sure. Randy guns the engine and our little contraption rolls down the patch of desert he’s chosen as our runway. I look back and see the parachute billow and arc above us. Suddenly we’re airborne. Just like that. I never felt a bump, and it must have taken all of 3 seconds, no more than the snap of a finger. Randy pulls on the throttle and the plane goes higher. The sun peeps over the mountains. We fly over a Saguaro tree. “Do you know your cactuses?” he asks.

“Not too many.” He points out Prickly Pear and Cholla, teddy bear and barrel cactus. He shows me creosote bushes and Palo Verde trees. We fly higher – not the 10,000 feet the Powerchute can fly, but 2,000 feet up, way above Camelback Mountain, a rock formation that looks like a camel. He points out the canal and Lake Pleasant. Pinnacle Peak, a hill I’ve climbed, looks no bigger than a pointy thimble. The Deer Valley Airport observation tower is no higher than a parking meter.

“Okay,” Randy says, “Your turn to fly. Push your foot down on this pedal, pull on the left cord and we’ll turn left.” We turn 360 degrees. “Good, now push the throttle all the way back.” As I do, the plane makes much less noise and I panic. We’re going to stall. We’re going to die. I take my hand off the throttle.

“Keep going, all the way back,” he says.

“Are you sure?” This is insane, but I do it anyway – he’s the pilot. We don’t stall. We’re idling and floating, almost like a hot air balloon.

“Okay turn right.”

I’m flying! I’m Superwoman in a black down jumpsuit instead of a cape, and I can make us go left, right, up, and down. This is what the Wright brothers must have felt when they glided over Kitty Hawk. We speed along at 28 miles per hour.

Randy takes over the controls as we descend to right above a dry creek bed, like a mini-canyon and about as wide as a two-lane road. Oh my God! We’re in the wash! Now I feel like Luke Skywalker, except instead of fighting the Galactic Empire, we’re searching for wildlife. “Look! Coyote!” Ahead of us, the beige-colored animal races through the bushes. We see a cow whose calf is scared out of her wits and doesn’t know how to escape us, a huge noisy bird of prey. The poor calf runs around in circles. “There used to be a javalina family in a cave up ahead,” Randy says. “I haven’t seen them recently – I think I scared them away.” We fly alongside the cave and I peer in – no Javalinas.

A jackrabbit races across the sand beneath us. We ascend high again and in the distance, I can see two hot air balloons being inflated, then rising up into the sky. We’re really high up now, and first a small plane flies beneath us, then a helicopter. We’re headed back towards Randy’s van and trailer. And just like that –no longer than a finger snap – again without so much as a jerk or a bump, we’re back on the ground. Randy hands me a “First Flight Certificate” and a Pilot’s Log Book page on which he has recorded one half-hour of flight time and one landing.

“All you need is eleven and a half more hours and you’ll be a certified sport pilot,” he says.

Me? A pilot in only 11.5 more hours? Now that’s a scary thought – even though I’m still high on the adventure. I know my ride was a snap because if Randy’s expertise. Still, it’s tempting, except for explaining to my friends and sister how going up in the air in a go-cart attached to a parachute is the most fun thing they’ll ever do, even though I really don’t know how to explain the experience. It’s a cross between being shot out of a cannon and riding on a magic carpet – or maybe it is just like my dream –riding a bicycle in the sky -- but this is much better because you don’t have to peddle.

Zorbing Globe Riding In New Zealand

I was in New Zealand, on my way to go ZORBING globe riding, an adventure in which you crawl inside an 11-foot high inflatable ball and go tumbling down a steep hill with such an adrenaline rush, they call it the 'astronaut-in-training' ride. I hadn’t eaten breakfast because everyone had warned me there might be dire repercussions, the ride was so intense.

It was a three-hour drive to Roturua from The Farm at Cape Kidnappers in Hawkes Bay, where I was staying, but I’d heard so much about this scary, fun adventure, that I decided it was worth the three-hour trip to get there. Besides, every time I do something that terrifies me, I feel empowered. Driving was scary enough – here I was in a foreign country on the wrong side of the road with directions that made no sense. I’d already been lost three times, and had stopped at that many gas stations to ask for better directions. Now I was lost again. I pulled up in front of a liquor store, so frustrated, I was almost hyperventilating. “Would you like a drink?” asked the store owner. It was ten o’clock in the morning, but I was almost ready to say yes.

Miraculously, it turned out I was only a half-mile from ZORB Rotorua.

“Did you bring an extra change of clothes?” asked the person at the desk.

“Why?”

“Because you’re going to get soaked.”

It was about 55 degrees outside. I didn’t want to drive back cold and dripping. “No one said anything about getting wet,” I said.

“Well, you see, it’s too windy to do Zorbit, so you’re going to do Zydro. You’ll like it much better because it’s our wildest ride. We put water inside the globe and send you zig-zagging down the hill. You can buy a t-shirt and shorts, and our changing rooms have a hair dryer.”

Wildest ride? I wondered if he could hear my heart pounding. I could.

You can still back out, I told myself as I read the agreement I had to sign: “Zorb® globe riding can involve risk of injury. If you decide not to take the ride, please just tell any Zorb® crew member and they will, even if you are at the launch pad, arrange for you to return to reception and get a refund.”

But what would I tell my friends? That I’d chickened out? I purchased a pair of shorts and a T-shirt and waited with five others for the van to drive us up the hill to the launch pad. No one spoke. From the top, the hill looked as steep as Everest. As I was first off the van, the attendant chose me to go first. He dumped about a foot of water into the huge white inflatable sphere and said, “Climb in.” I dove through the chute feeling like Alice and Wonderland going down the rabbit hole, landing in a pool of warm water. The attendant gave the ball a little push.

As the globe began to roll down the hill, I was splashed around in the water. My body twisted and turned sideways, then I sloshed forward, then backward, but never upside down. This wasn’t scary after all. It was fun. It was thrilling, even better than fast downhill skiing. I began to laugh. This must be what it’s like inside the womb if your mother is galloping on horseback, I thought. The started to spin faster, like an out of control toboggan. I stopped laughing and began to scream. It felt like a combination of flying down a steep water slide and being on a loopty-loop roller coaster. The ball was rolling so fast I was sure I’d inadvertently bounced right off the zig zag track. I tried to peer outside, but it was like looking in vain through a windshield during a torrential downpour.

And then, suddenly, the ball slowed. Whew. I wasn’t off the track after all. An attendant spun the ball so that the chute faced down. The water poured out like a deluge. “Come on out,” he said. I slid out, soaking wet, my heart pounding, but this time out of joy, not fear. The attendant gave me a thumbs up, and with a huge grin on his face, said, “Congratulations!”

Later that day, I waited for my spa treatment in the lounge of the Spa at Cape Kidnappers. I sat looking out at cows and sheep polka-dotting the velvety rolling green hills. Not too far away, a newborn lamb buried itself into her mothers’ udder. My therapist Manula introduced herself and led me into the treatment room. I lay down on the table and inhaled the intoxicating aroma of lavender oil. She dug into the knots in my shoulders. “You’re so tight!” she said. “What have you been doing?”

“Driving. And getting lost. But I think those knots are from Zorbing.”

“You went Zorbing?” She seemed to look at me in awe. “That thing with the huge ball where you roll inside down a hill?”

“Yup,” I laughed. “I earned those knots. Just call me ZORBONAUT.”

A Great Motivation to Get Out There and Run

Motivating Myself to Run by thinking of a Challenged Athlete

Sometimes I have to drag myself out of bed to go run in Central Park. Motivation can be really tough. Still, I try to get there and run on Tuesday mornings with my team, TerrierTri (http://www.terriertri.com/) and on Thursdays to do a bike/run brick with them. Other days, I run or bike alone, and that's when it's tough to push myself – especially if it’s cold or raining or stifling hot. Once I'm in the park running, I usually have all these negative thoughts: I’m not fast enough. I should quit. I’m slower than last year. What am I doing here? Usually, I make myself run through the bad thoughts and only quit if I’m injured – those were legitimate reasons.

But recently I went to a triathlon training night let by Dr. Jordan Metzl (himself an Ironman), who started the evening by showing us a film about a sweet eight-year-old, Cody McCasland. Cody was born with sacral agenesis which resulted in no tibias, and when he was 15 months old, his legs were amputated through the knees. Two months later, Cody was walking on prosthetics, completely mobile. But he wanted to run like the other kids, so when he turned five, he was given his first pair of running prosthetics and he’s been running ever since.

In the film, young Cody is asked on camera, “How fast are you?” He grins and says, “Very fast.” Then you see Cody teach his friend Cameron how to run. Cameron has just donned his first pair of running legs. “Run, Cameron,” calls Cody. When they stop, Cody tells him, “The more you do it, the more faster you’ll get.”

While only a first-grader, Cody has helped raise more than $100,000 for the Challenged Athletes Foundation (http://www.challengedathletes.org) and the hospital which provides his care. And though just a kid, he has inspired hundreds of individuals – both challenged and not (and has been on Inside Edition, The Ellen DeGeneres Show, and The Ophrah Winfrey Show).

So these days, when I wake up and start to bad-talk myself about how I don’t want to get up or go run or bike or do yoga, I just think of little Cody bounding across the lawn, sporting a grin as wide as his face, and knowing there are no limits to what he can accomplish. Inspired by his joy and optimism, I can still hear him saying to himself, “Run Cody Run!” And suddenly I have every reason in the world to get up and just do it.

Beware of Those Calling Themselves Mediums

I was at The Lodge at Woodloch (http://www.thelodgeatwoodloch.com/) a wonderful spa in Pennsylvania, with an extreme case of “spa brain” so I decdied to go to the only program offered that night, “Getting in Touch with Your Angels,” or something like that. The lecturer described herself as “a spiritual clairvoyant” and claimed she had a “special gift” to counsel those seeking answers from their guide about loved ones, questions related to purpose and direction, health concerns or even past lives.” In my normal mind, I’m sure I would have been skeptical about anyone who called herself the “people’s medium,” but when you have spa brain, you don’t think.

After dinner I made my way into the “fireside chat” room. What else did I have to do? Go up to my room and watch TV? The “medium’s” name was Michele, and she was about five foot one, mid-fifties, with blond hair, wearing platform espadrilles. This was the same woman a table away form mine at lunch. I’d seen her make 5 trips to the buffet table, dumping piles of food onto her plate.

She sat alone in the lecture room, except for a man she introduced as her husband. “I don’t know where everyone is,” she said. “Usually it’s packed.” She shifted her position on he couch. “Oh well, this will be intimate,” she giggled. After a while, a couple walked in, and then a second couple. As she told us who she was, I looked at five books she’d spread out like a fan on the table with titles: The True Nature of Love, Awakening to the Christ Consciousness; Messages from Beyond; Miraculous Encounters; Visions from Mary; and Echoes in the Wind. She’d written them all.

She told one couple they’d be moving soon. She told the second couple that they’d recently lost their dog. Both statements turned out to be true. She turned to me. “Do you have any Jewish blood in you?” she asked.

“Yes, all of it,” I replied.

“I see a small little man with funny writing about his head and a funny little cap on him. Is that your grandfather?” I told her that my grandfather had been a Rabbi (thus the funny letters – Hebrew- and the funny cap - a Yamakah). She said he was very proud of me and was telling her, “Margie’s special.” My grandfather died before I was born, so how could I not be hooked on a woman who said she was now speaking with him? So I signed up for a 30 minute reading – it was outrageously expensive -- $200 -- but I was very curious about my grandfather, and in my relaxed state, I knew if I didn’t sign up, it would be one of those things I’d always regret. So I did.

The next day I got there and entered the small room. It was very dark except for candles. She told me to be open to all this, and that if I helped her, it would help me. She explained how all these spirits would be with her –including her mother and father on the “other side” – that’s how she put it. She told me I was having the abbreviated reading (i.e., 30 minutes) and in the LONG version, there would be at least EIGHT guides or ancestors or whatever. I told her I was only interested in what my grandfather would tell me, that I didn’t need all those extra spirits. She told me she’d be doing this with her eyes closed.

She started by saying she saw a man above me, it was my father, and he was proud of me. Then she said she saw an older sister and I said no, I’d once had an older sister, but she was dead. And then she said, “Oh, I see a very sudden unexpected death.” It didn’t take rocket science to look at me, imagine my sister being not much older, and deduce that she’d died from an accident or something. Then she goes- she said, “I see cancer either in the chest or abdomen.” By now I was skeptical. One out of ten women will get breast cancer, so I knew she was guessing. I told her my mother died of beast cancer and she said, “Your mother is very proud of you and she’s telling you to get a breast mammogram.”

At this point I just wanted to get out of there. I stood up and told her she’d only gotten about 6% right and she passed right over that and tried to take credit for guessing that my mother had died of breast cancer.”But I told YOU that!” I said.

ARRRGGGGGG I was so angry for being suckered into this and I felt like a gullible fool. Next time, I don’t care how bad a case of spa brain I have – I’m
going to BEWARE of anyone who calls herself a medium.

PADDLEBOARDING AT LAKE AUSTIN SPA, TEXAS

Many people come to the Lake Austin Spa (http://www.lakeaustin.com/luxury-spa-resort.php) in Texas’ legendary Hill Country to mellow out. Not me – I came to try a new sport called stand-up paddleboarding, similar to surfing because the board is like a surfboard – just a little longer and wider; and like a surfboard, you ride standing up, balancing on your legs. The only difference is that whereas in surfboarding, you want the waves to carry you in, with paddleboarding, you can do it on a calm lake or river because the paddle is your propulsion. The sport is said to have originated in Polynesia and then moved to Hawaii, just like surfing. And while the sport is still in its infancy, it’s growing, especially in California and Florida. The best way to get started is to take a lesson (http://www.rei.com/expertadvice/articles/paddleboarding.html)

“Just think of your body as headlights,” said my Lake Austin Spa paddelboard instructor, Sandy. “You have to stay forward, because if you turn sideways you’ll fall right into the water.” This was not a good day to be capsizing – the lake was around 60 degrees. It was raining and the outside temperature was 50 something. Not only were the winds were gusting to around 35mph, but there were little whitecaps on the water, and it was drizzling. Sandy looked out at the lake. “Maybe we better cancel,” she suggested. But this was my last day at Lake Austin Spa, my only chance to try it.

I thought of the photos I’d seen in magazines of Jennifer Aniston, Matthew McConaughey and Pierce Brosnan paddleboarding and grinning from ear to ear. No way was I canceling. Besides, worse case scenario, I’d have a great core workout. You have to bend your knees the entire time, so it’s like doing one continuous squat; and because you switch the paddle from side to side on each stroke, it’s a killer upper body workout.

We started on the dock. I went from being on my hands and knees to a slight jump up. She showed me how to paddle on land. Then Sandy put my board in the water and held on as I first, crawled on to it, then stood on the water. It was easier than being on a Bosu ball. I bent down, picked up my paddle, stood again without falling and began to stroke, switching from hand to hand. Soon I was flying down the lake, it was that simple – of course, the wind was with me. When Sandy suggested we turn around, which you did by paddling only to one side, as in canoeing, we were against the wind. My paddleboard bobbled up and down in the rough water and I bent my knees more to stay afloat. “Get on your knees,” Sandy said. “You’ll be able to pull harder with your arms.” Good thing I got down because the wind and waves both picked up. It was like fighting through a hurricane. I’d paddle one stroke forward and the wind would blow us three strokes back. Could I make it back?

Patrick, in charge of water sports at Lake Austin suddenly appeared in a motor boat. “You okay? You want a tow?” he called.

“A tow?” I laughed. “Hey! We’re strong women! We’ll make it.” I kept on paddlng, my arms aching, my body shivering. And finally we reached the shore. I pulled my board out of the water and looked at the rough water. I’d done it! I could have bailed but I’d made myself do it.

“Good job,” said Sandy.

“In my next life I’m coming back as a gondolier,” I chuckled.

What the Guidebooks Don’t tell you: Ranch 616: Best Little Whorehouse in Texas

In Texas, an ice house is a place hunters went to get their game “dressed.” In the Texas Hill Country (http://www.tourtexas.com/page.cfm?p=regions&RID=3) many ice houses have been converted to open-air bars. Ranch 616, located on 616 Nueces St. in Austin Texas (http://www.theranch616.com/) might be the Best Little Icehouse in Texas – except it never was an icehouse -- it’s just designed to look like one.

Step inside and on the walls you’ll see not one but two Longhorn Steer, a bison head, rattlesnake skin, wild boar, beaver, and a huge stuffed fish – not to mention photos from the early 1940s of carhops and rodeos. But no Texas cowboy shot these animals. Ms. Arkansas did – that’s right, Jackie Williamson, who wielded a mean crossbow. Every stuffed animal, snake, and fish was shot by the fearless beauty queen.

Jackie’s son, Kevin W. Wiliamson, owns Ranch 616, and serves up some of the finest Ranch Style Cusine in Austin such as Crawfish & Cream Cheese Flautas or Mesquite Smoked Ribeye and Mango Firecracker prawns or Ranch 616 Lamb Three Ways (Australian Lamp Chops: Chicken Fried, Rosemary Garlic Grilled, and Tamarind Grilled on Goat Cheese Mashed Potatoes with Sauteed Green Beans. Try an exotic drink, wine, or choose from endless varieties of beer. And because this is Austin, the capitol of live music, you can tap your foot to bands on Tuesday and Thursday starting at 8pm; best, there’s no cover. Head on over, chow down on plus, and check out the local musicians.

Look up above the bar, where three paper mache dolls in brightly painted colors known as “Mexican Whore Dolls” hug the light fixtures. They call them Mexican whore dolls" and when I ask why, am told they mark a young man's first experience with "border sex." Some old school cowboy types who fancy themselves a "man's man" might consider that a badge of honor, but as for me, I hope it's just another tall Texan tale that I've learned flows
as freely as the tequila in a border town