The B12 (XII) Forum, home of the 'Front Porch, y'all' at College Football Fan Site, CFB51!!!

yup, as is Round Rock

but, I'd find a quiet place near a golf course

maybe near Taylor, there's a dog track of a 9-hole course and decent BBQ

Taylor is nice.  Pretty soon it'll be getting swallowed up by the metro, though.  The crawl is crazy, and since the lakes and hill country effectively bound Austin to the west, most of the new growth is headed east.

To me, a small city would be about 50,000.  A town would be 10,000, a small town maybe 2,000, and a tiny town 500 or fewer.

But it's usually arbitrary unless some state defines it.

In New York, "towns" are geographical subsets of counties.  Despite the label, they are actually townships.  Incorporated communities smaller than towns are villages.  Usually a village is contained within a single town, but not always.
At West Point, the community outside the main gate is the village of Highland Falls, pop. 3,900.  It is contained within the Town of Highlands, which has a population of 12,492, in Orange County, pop. 401,310. (Population figures per the 2010 census.)
Orange County's name is a good hint about which Europeans settled the area first.

I knew a lady in Wyoming who did long distance races on horseback, 100 miles was typical.  She said every 20 miles there was a vet stop to check the T of the horse, and if it was high you were DQd.  I asked if they checked her T and she laughed.

She said she had to lead the horse a certain part of the journey, especially up hill, and it was grueling.  I chuckle at Westerns that show folks galloping long distances, a horse simply can't do that.  A western antelope can though, amazingly for an herbivore.

As my lead character in my books was usually mounted, I had to sort out how far he could go in a "normal" day.  I made some comments about getting grain to feed the horse when possible.  Herbivores normally are quite inefficient at getting Calories.

reportedly, Grizzly bears are great sprinters

Today is National Chili Day.

I guess I will not have chili today.  I don't have all the fixin's on hand, and the roads are slick enough to make it not worth my while to go out and get them.

We have been out of school the past two days, doing the "distant learning" thing that is about 1/3 as effective as face-to-face classroom instruction.

Maybe I'll hit Ike's Chili this weekend, or get the stuff to make my own, and have a belated celebration.

I nearly always have the fixins lying around during the winter months.

I always have the chile peppers and spices anyway, and luckily had a couple pounds of chuck frozen that I thawed this morning.  Cubed it and got the whole pot simmering by about noon, it should be good to go by 6.  I also had a couple pounds smoked brisket frozen, it's almost thawed and I'll dice maybe half of it and throw it in with a couple hours to go.  The rest of the brisket will either become tacos or enchiladas over the weekend.