Friday morning the weather gods knew we were returning to Denver, so they decided to prepare us with wind and cold. I walked out of the hotel to visit the South Padre Island Birding and Nature Center one last time, and my hat blew off.

Now this hat is not your typical baseball cap. It’s soft and a bit gathered, so it stays on my head. When it came off and I just barely caught it, I admonished myself that I was the kind of adventurous woman who kept going despite a little wind. But I wasn’t Friday morning. Shivering and looking longingly across the street, I told myself I’d already visited the center 3 times this week and that birds don’t come out in the wind anyway. (That is true of most small birds, but I don’t know whether shorebirds mind wind as much as songbirds do.)

So after we checked out, where did we begin our 12-hour trek back home? Why, at Yummies, of course. I felt a slight pang as we drove past Café Kranzler because I also wanted to try the breakfast there. But I just had to have more of that sipping chocolate.

Neither one of us felt that hungry as we looked at the menu. Perhaps it had something to do with the Thanksgiving dinner we’d had at the Hilton Garden Inn the afternoon before. I assure you I have never had crab for Thanksgiving before, and ripping the legs apart was messy enough to warrant a new napkin.

My favorite item on the menu was the gumbo, with its warm, earthy broth and lots of little shrimp.

And then after Todd and I had recovered, we ate our leftovers from Café Kranzler and drank a bottle of champagne.

So on Friday morning, we could have just lived off the fat we’d packed on earlier in the week. But I thought that might make us a little crabby, and we don’t want to be getting crabby with TSA agents now, do we?

With that in mind, I ordered these apple-wheat pancakes, with the emphasis on “cake.” After the European-style sipping chocolate (made with water rather than milk), the thick, slightly sweet pancakes hiding slices of apple were too much for me. I ate one and left the other two for later.

Our path to Harlingen airport was a leisurely one. We drove over the bridge to Port Isabel, past the sign that says “Watch for pelicans when flashing”—and we did, amazed at their dominion of the air. We stopped at the Harlingen Thicket, one location of the World Birding Center in the Rio Grande Valley. The wind had followed us there but had slowed enough over land that a black phoebe and a mystery warbler came out to play.

From there it was only 15 minutes to the airport, and what to my wondering eyes should appear but a backscatter scanner. Seriously, why does a small town like Harlingen need a scanner? Do the authorities believe that terrorists will swim the Rio Grande so that they can fly out of Harlingen?

I submitted to the scan with uncharitable thoughts racing through my head. Too bad none of those thoughts involved flipping the bird with both hands while I was in “Don’t shoot me” pose. Todd, of course, got the scanner AND the pat-up. Why? Because his wallet was in his back pocket, blocking the scanner’s view of his butt. But the TSA agent couldn’t just ask him to remove his wallet and step back through the scanner. No, he had to feel him up.

Todd told me later that he finds security theater offensive because it’s done TO him. There’s nothing he can say that will make these people respond in a reasonable manner. When I asked if he felt violated, he said he feels just as bad standing with his legs apart getting wanded.

Once in Austin, we discovered we had enough time to drive to Lockhart and visit Todd’s favorite BBQ joint in the world, Black’s. We lucked out on our cabbie, Remi Manukian, who was born in Armenia near Mount Ararat and later fled the Soviet Union. He entertained us on the half-hour drive with his blend of liberalism and conspiracy-theory conservatism, saying the way the United States is going now, it’s like being back in the communist bloc.

While the cabbie ordered ribs and also stocked up on turkeys, Todd sighed over the fatty brisket and got a little snippy when I asked for some sauce. “Really good BBQ doesn’t need it,” he said. Well, really good mashed potatoes don’t need gravy either, but I still prefer them that way. Besides, I wanted to taste it: it leaned toward vinegar, as did the nuclear coleslaw.

But he was right: the brisket didn’t need BBQ sauce.

Remi returned us to Austin with time to spare, and metal detectors never looked so good. I still can’t figure out why Harlingen needed backscatter scanners more than Austin.

Our flight got in at 8 Friday night, and we were very glad we’d parked in one of the outlying lots. Thanks to the weather gods and the low humidity, it didn’t even feel that cold.