Post #785280 by Prikli Pear on Thu, Mar 22, 2018 7:35 PM

After we got back from New Orleans, Mr. Tiki just wanted to rest up a little bit. He found a copy of my book and thought reading it would help put him to sleep. Much to his surprise, it was not about poultry farming!

The next day, I took him to see the local sites. Schlitterbahn is probably the most well-known of our limited options. It's been named the world's best water park by the Travel Channel for something like two decades running. Katie Perry rented out the whole place a couple years ago, and they filmed part of Spy Kids 3D there.

New Braunfels was founded and settled by German immigrants in the 1840s, so pretty much everything has a pseudo-German name. Unfortunately, most of the cool, old buildings were bulldozed in the 70s and 80s to make way for generic strip malls, so a lot of the actual heritage has been lost. But Schlitterbahn has a lot of castle turrets, so that's something.

Mr. Tiki wanted to hit up the water slides, but Schlitterbahn was closed. They opened for spring break, but Mr. Tiki was in Louisiana during that time. That kinda pissed him off. He did think their directional sign was cool, and made note of the various other parks to check out in the future if he was in the neighborhood.

Then I took him by the Wurstfest grounds. It's a 10 day salute to sausage, with lots of beer. That happens in November every year. Mr. Tiki was not happy to hear that. He said if a town is going to play up its German heritage, it should observe Wurstfest every day. Hard to argue with that logic.

Back at the Lagoon of Mystery, I could tell Mr. Tiki was agitated with a lot of nervous energy. He took a look at my "underwater" ceiling and decided it needed more fish silhouettes. It's best not to argue with Mr. Tiki, so I broke out the paint and brushes and he added a number of fish and a few squid for good measure. Mr. Tiki likes to party, but never let it be said that he's a lazy house guest.

Painting a ceiling is tough work. Mostly it's being up on a ladder and contorting one's body to unnatural angles in order to get the job done. Mr. Tiki was pretty achy, so I fixed him a cocktail and suggested he go for a float in the pool to relax a bit. He thought that a fantastic idea, so that's how he spent the afternoon, basking in the sun. Mr. Tiki lives a life of most of us can only dream of.