Holiday Greetings from Texas! 

We hope this holiday note finds you and your family well and enjoying the holidays. As usual, I’m a bit slow in getting the cards out and this blog updated. Here's a brief run down of events of the year.

January found us with a small problem left over from last December – a fawn trapped in the yard after following it's mother had refused to leave! After multiple attempts and some pretty creative temporary fencing we finally coaxed it through the gate on Jan. 19th. Some of our efforts would have made it on Funniest Home Videos! The dogs got so used to checking all the brushy corners of the yard looking for it that they still look disappointed when they don’t find it. (Blog post about that episode is here) 

In spite of life feeling a bit like we're in a remake of Ground Hog Day we’ve had a busy year, though it didn’t include as much of the travel that we’d hoped to get back to. I think everyone has heard about February’s Great Freeze. We survived that with little damage, and we had fun showing the grandsons some of the features of ice that they’d never experienced (but we knew well from our years in Oregon). We always have the RV as backup for power outages and water limitations, so we were pretty comfortable in spite of the severe cold. The only noticeable after effects were some frozen tree branches that had to be trimmed up. (Frozen February post is here)

In April we managed to fit in a week of camping at Goliad State Park. The trip had an inauspicious beginning: flooding of the trailer! A plumbing fixture had vibrated loose in traveling to the state park where we stayed. We caught it soon enough to recover without any permanent damage and the remainder of the trip was very enjoyable. The Goliad massacre figures largely in Texas independence as it followed the fall of the Alamo. In fact, about three weeks later Sam Houston led Texian forces to a surprise victory at the Battle of San Jacinto, his men screaming, “Remember the Alamo, remember Goliad!” The state park is beautiful, and there are two missions, battlefield museums and the town of Goliad itself to explore. The wildflowers were in full array, which added another layer of enjoyment. The original blog post for that trip is here.

We had a great time on the trip and happily mapped out another trip, but upon returning home our youngest dog, Watch, managed to tear ligaments in both back legs, requiring surgery. The downtime for recover pretty well wiped out the timeline we’d been looking at for a trip. Now we are happy to report he’s fully restored! Better than new in some ways, as he’s now held together with stainless steel screws and plates! 

The highlight of July was Raylan's birthday.  He's 7 years old this year! The robot on his cake sort of blends into Jax, but that was the theme of his party this year. He celebrated with a pool party at the apartment complex. 

In August we enjoyed a trip to Corpus Christi with Kendra and the boys. 

 

The boys are really into military ships and aircraft, so Kendra promised them a trip to the Lexington. The Texas State Aquarium is also in Corpus Christi, so we visited both and had a very busy trip. It was really fun watching the boys explore and exclaim about all their discoveries. 

 

We had a campsite site right on the bay so we could escape a bit of the August heat as well as enjoying the lights across bay. 

The whole trip was a great experience, though August on the Texas coast is about as hot and humid as it can get, and after two days of nonstop touring we were all ready to head home! The original post about that trip is on this page.

 

Steve’s mother’s health began declining in late August and it seemed like moving her to an assisted living would be the best environment for her. In August Steve drove to CA so he could move things with the truck and I flew later for a shorter time to help with packing. It was the dogs’ first experience with being kenneled and it went pretty smoothly. The move went well and her new home suited her, but her health continued to decline and she ended up in the hospital for a few days, followed by several sessions of rehab. As of early Dec. she’s mostly limited to bed, with some occasional sessions of short walks in her room or sitting in her recliner. The staff at the facility has been very helpful, and we’re glad she’s in a situation where help is available 24/7. 

In the fall  sisters Darlene and Diana visited. We had a good time catching up, though Covid restrictions limited some tourism activities, we did enjoy a dinner at the Gristmill, in the quaint and historic town of Gruene. 

Kendra’s battle with chronic Lyme has stayed in remission, but she still has many lingering health concerns to contend with. Fortunately she works at home, as does Scott. They agreed on home schooling for the boys, It seems to be working well for everyone.

In May, after many hours of deliberation Kendra purchased a new, not-yet built home in Kyle. The predicted completion was to be some time in the fall. 

It was fun to follow the progress of the construction but there were many delays, weather related as well as paperwork. The house was finally completed and papers signed Dec. 8. (which is Jax's birthday!)

Moving day was just a few days after Jax’s 10th birthday, so he elected to have our small family party at the new house. Here, he's standing in front of the wall hanging for his new room that was one of his gifts from Mom.

Kendra, the boys and their two cats are all relieved to be out of the tiny apartment they’d been living in during construction. The house marks the beginning of a new chapter for Kendra. 

The day she signed the house documents she also learned her company had been purchased by another company. The new company retained all the employees, but of course there will be changes. Life certainly can change quickly! 

 

So that's a short version of our year. If you want to know more about any of our adventures, please follow the links to previous posts that are imbedded in the text. 

We send warmest wishes your way. May your holiday season be filled with good health, laughter, joy, and peace. And please look us up if you’re out this way. . . We’re always open for visitors! 

Merry Christmas & Happy New Year!

An Autumn outing in the city

We were getting stuck in a rut, the dogs and I, that is. We've been walking our same lil' old country road several times a week forever. I had been thinking about exploring some places down in town, so while Steve is in California visiting his mom I decided to take the dogs and go exploring. It's only a short drive in to town, and as soon as I picked up my fanny pack and the leashes the dogs started bouncing around. They had no idea where we were going, but since I was loading both dogs up, we probably weren't going to the vet!

I had printed out a map of the small "wildscape" arboretum at the Discovery Center in San Marcos. It seemed like a good place to start our exploration. The Discovery Center is on the I-35 frontage road, just to the right of the Visitor's Center, and it sits right on the San Marcos River. Between the two buildings, between two flag poles, is one of my favorites of all the mermaids we have around town.

This one is cuddling a mer-piglet! It's a long story (see here for more detail) In short, many years ago there was a theme park here that featured girls dressed as mermaids. They performed underwater shows which also featured Ralph, the diving pig. The University now owns the area around Aquarena Springs, where the park was, and the area is now an education oriented project called The Meadows. Though they've been gone from the spring for years, the mermaids have remained a popular city theme. 

The dogs haven't been anywhere "civilized" for a while so it took them a few minutes to settle down once we reached the park.  Though the map said they opened the gate to the arboretum area at 8 a.m. and it was 9 a.m. when we arrived it was still locked, so we walked around the fence until we came to the back gate, which was open. Yea! 

We wandered around in the several beds of native and adapted flowers, trees and shrubs. While I admired the plants the dogs busied themselves with sniffing. There are posts with QR codes on the tops at several of the specimen  plants, but I didn't find the feature particularly useful as it sends you directly to a large database of native plants, but there wasn't much useful info available on the few I looked up.  

Still, it was nice to see some of the plants in their mature form. Good info as I plan to purchase a few things at their annual plant sale, coming up in a week or so.  I like to know what I'm getting myself into when I buy a shrub that will require pruning or other upkeep. The beds are rather overgrown, to be expected in a "wildscape" I suppose, but the paths are sort of disappearing in places, so I chalked it up to a probably shortage of volunteers/covid pandemic. 

It didn't take us very long to explore the fenced area, so we ventured outside the fence, on the northeast, toward the river, and worked our way up-river. We could look down on the river, and I noticed a nice, flat green area on the other bank, which was lower than where we stood. 

Working our way northeast we came to a cement path which took us across the river and back along the other shore - to the area I had been looking at. 

We passed few other people along our route, which took us back toward the freeway frontage road and another large section of the park. We saw a couple of paddlers and fisherman, and one older lady walking her morning route.  

It seems it was a good time of day to be out on this trail, with few people and a beautiful cloud-dappled blue sky that clear river water looks especially inviting. 

There are some very nice views of the river, some offering a glimpse of the clear water it has been famous for, and I'm sure in the spring the wildflowers along the trail would be nice too. As it is, autumn is beginning to creep in and though we don't get much in the way of "fall color" around here, there is a little yellow creeping into the dense greenery, and the seeds and fruits on some of the plants along the trail are beginning to ripen. 

This trail is actually a part of the 16 acre William and Eleanor Crook Park. I had seen the park on the map, but wasn't clear on how it all connected, or where to park to access it, so our exploration paid off! 

By the time we had reached this point in the trail the dogs were looking a little tired, so we started back toward the car, leaving plenty of trail to explore next time. 

If you happen to be on the trail here any time after 11 a.m., and you aren't being towed by two huge dogs as I was, you could pop across the road at this point and have a cold one at Ivar's River Pub. They have a great view of the river!

When we reached the far side of the bridge I noticed a bit of machinery displayed off to the side so we stopped to check that out. It is a portion of the historic Rio Vista Dam.  

The dam, built in 1904, was pretty much destroyed in a flood in 1998. Following the flood the area was developed to incorporate a variety of recreation activities, and this park and trail are a part of that project.      

 

Out on the road, near the parking area, one of the many mermaids featured around the city gazes peacefully toward the river. 

This one is covered with bits of mirror and colored tile. 

By this time we were only a few yards from our parking space, so we were soon loaded up and headed home. 

As I write this, both dogs are tucked under the dining room chairs and snoring. It seems they had enough excitement for one day! 

Gulf Coast Trip

Flexibility - that's our theme song.......We had plans for a summer trip, reservations made and everything, but fate intervened....again!

Our youngest dog, Watch, had been having trouble with his back legs so we took him to the vet. He had done well on our trip to Goliad but suddenly seemed to be having more pain. The short story is, he needed bilateral TPLO surgery on both back legs for torn ligaments. By the time he had recovered the summer was in full swing and so were the fires raging all over the western states, where we were originally headed. So, another summer at home!  The surgery and recovery were a long haul, but he's as good as new now (maybe even better!) and able to travel. 

When Kendra announced she had promised the boys a trip to Corpus Christi to visit the USS Lexington and the Texas State Aquarium, and invited us along, we jumped at the chance!  

It was a super trip in spite of the heat and humidity, we have enough of that at home so it wasn't a big surprise. 

Our first outing was to the USS Lexington - the boys were so excited they just couldn't wait to try out the guns on display at the entrance. 

We knew the temperature would climb really quickly so we toured the flight deck first. The whole deck is covered with a variety of aircraft, many of which are on loan from the National Museum of Naval Aviation in Pensacola, Florida.

The website for the Lexington has information on a lot of the individual planes, as well as the ship itself. One is currently being refurbished, and it was interesting to see the work that was being done on it.  There were opportunities to sit in, touch and pose with the aircraft, so lots of great photo opportunities.   

Touring the ship is a rich experience in history and what life on a carrier was like, but wow! are there a lot of stairs! 

Elevators are available in many areas for those who can't navigate the ships steep stairs, but the boys loved climbing the stairs as they have seen in movies and videos, comparing their preferred techniques with each other as they navigated the steep steps and railings. 

Getting all the way up to the bridge provide a bigger challenge than some of us wanted to tackle, but Raylan worked his way all the way to the top
- his reward was the ability to "adjust" every one of the many brass dials, knobs and wheels.

A quick lunch in the "mess deck cafe" gave us an opportunity to cool off before touring the below deck sections. The ship is a maze of small rooms set up to illustration various aspects such as sick bay, officers quarters, and displays of models of various military aircraft and ships, all contributed by military history enthusiasts.  The detailed work done on man of the models was very impressive!

A final touch for the boys was a session in the flight simulator, located on the hanger deck. The attraction's promo states "If you have nerves of steel, join the men and women in the Training Exercise “Screaming Eagles” and hope that it is just the eagle that screams!" I was a little concerned that the experience might be a bit much for little 7 year old Raylan, but he thoroughly enjoyed it, as did Jaxen.

By early afternoon we all agreed it was time to head back to camp and the cool comfort of the trailer. 

By evening the weather had cooled a bit and we enjoyed sitting outside, enjoying the view while the boys busied themselves in the sandy "beach" and playground down by the office. 

The following day we were up and out early as we headed for the Texas State Aquarium, again, we wanted to get ahead of the heat as much a possible. We started out with the dolphin show and when that was over we admired the many sculptures along the way - many made from recycled/found materials and some cast in bronze.

Raylan was especially fond of the "found" items sculptures - colorful sea creatu
res made of plastic items like bottles, discarded plastic gardening tools, parts of games, all found along the beaches of the gulf. 

We stopped at one pool area and enjoyed petting the rays - they have an interesting texture and I had no idea we have four kinds here in the gulf! Unfortunately, with all the reflections, they are hard to catch in a photo. Jaxen has always had a fascination with sharks, so he was quite excited at the opportunity to pet baby sharks, as well as watching some of the larger ones swimming in the huge tanks.

I was able to capture the boys watching sea horses from inside a bubble - a novel experience and a really good way to watch the little creatures.

We really enjoyed all the displays of the smaller animal life too - all well done, and with excellent posting of information next to each.  As Kendra commented, we're glad the boys can read all that themselves now!  

We were still a little tired from the day before so called it a day a little earlier than we might have otherwise, and Kendra and the boys had to drive back home so the timing worked out well and we all counted it a very successful trip. 

While we were in Corpus Christi we stayed at the Corpus Christi KOA Journey. Steve had  researched several camping possibilities and settled on it.  The campground is situated  behind Mustang Island, so the water is calm and there isn't any surf.  

The campground has nice grassy sites, some with individual dog kennels and some with fire pits and extra paved patio space. The restrooms, showers and laundry facilities are nice too. We checked out the little camp store which has bait and beer (all the essentials you know!) and a few other grocery items. The staff are all very friendly folks, and we really enjoyed our stay!