Texas Wildflowers

Thanks to a really wet winter, the Texas Wildflower season of 2010 is phenomenal!!! Joe and I decided to take advantage of the banner year by making a road trip to check them out. We started out by driving down to Waco and spending the night. From there, we headed to the Brenham / Chappell Hill area and also snuck in a hike at Lake Somerville on the way. After seeing what we could there, we headed west, south around Austin and spent the night in Johnson City. From Johnson City, we drove the Willow City Loop and then also saw the wildflowers around Mason, TX and Llano, TX. All told, we drove almost 1,000 miles and saw hundreds and hundreds of beautiful flowers.

The funniest thing that happened was during our hike at Lake Somerville. We were actually on the wrong side of the lake, but decided to do what hiking we could just to get out of the car and on a trail. While hiking, we observed some animal tracks. Joe stopped to look carefully. I guess they didn't look exactly like deer, so I asked him if it was wild boar. Joe said if it was, we were in trouble and proceeded to tell me how mean wild boars are. AFTER he had sufficiently scared the crap out of me, he then proceeded to try to convince me that there were no wild boars in this area of Texas and about that time, a deer ran past us in the woods to the right. I swear to all that is holy, I thought I would pee my pants and / or have a heart attack right then and there. Sigh...

Here's a few of my favorite photographs...

Outside Brenham, TX:


Along Highway 152 between Mason and Llano:


Willow City Loop:

Sammie Visits Texas

Last year, Emily visited us so, this year Sam visited. She is graduating from high school next month and it was nice that she decided to spend a few of her last days with the "old folks" - meaning her Uncle Joe and Aunt Lori!!! She and her grandmother shopped till they dropped and then we took a road trip to Waco to visit the Dr. Pepper Museum and the Texas Rangers Museum. On Saturday, we went to the Ft. Worth Rodeo, which was a lot more crowded than it was when we took Emily!!! On Sunday, it was Easter Mass and then brunch at the Cheesecake Factory. In the afternoon, we went to see a movie and spent the rest of the afternoon at home. I hope she had a fun trip, too!! It seemed a little more laid back then Emily's trip, but was still good quality family time for the Foley's.

With Uncle Joe and Grandma at the Dr. Pepper Museum:


At the Texas Ranger Museum:


At the Fort Worth Stockyards Rodeo:

Dinosaur Valley State Park

In the interest of time, I decided to skip a few catch-up posts. So, now instead of 7 or 8, it will be more like 4 or 5. There's a lot to be said for efficiency.

On a beautiful weekend in March, Joe and I headed to Dinosaur Valley State Park for an afternoon of hiking. We haven't visited too many state parks but on our 1st wedding anniversary, I bought Joe a book about hiking in Texas and this state park is in there. It's only an hour or two from our home, so we decided it was a great place to spend an afternoon.

As you drive in, there are two huge fiberglass dinosaurs. The 70-foot Brontosaurus and the 45-foot Tyrannosaurus Rex were donated to the park in 1970 by the Atlantic Richfield Company. They were from the Sinclair Oil Corporation's 1964-65 New York World's Fair Dinosaur Exhibit. The tracks were, unfortunately, under water as we have had a ton of rain in the last year. We'll have to return to check those out and we were there for hiking anyway!!!

We quickly discovered that to get to the hiking trails we had to cross the Paluxy River, which winds through the park. We decided to first cross at a narrow spot where a lot of other people were crossing. It was beneficial in that a lot of the slime was rubbed off the rocks and we made it across without incident. It was also beneficial because we saw some beautiful parts of the park that we would have missed if we had stuck to our original plan.

We did end up at the original river crossing point that we first passed on and decided that come hell or high water (pun intended) we were crossing here to head back to the car. With the help of a large stick that a stinky little boy loaned me, I made it across without incident. But, I seriously doubt I would have made it so easily without the stick. On the other side, we took a couple of pictures and then gave the stick back to the kid and headed to the car.

It was really a great day. I was totally exhausted at the end of it, but it was worth it. I hope we will have many more weekends like this in our future.

The fiberglass dinosaurs:


Our first river crossing point:


The Paluxy River from a scenic overlook on the Yellow hiking trail:


Joe on the hiking trail:


Our second river crossing point and a photo to prove we did it!:

Big Snow in Texas

Update post that would have been a lot cooler if it would have been posted 2 months ago!

It does snow in Texas - occasionally!! Usually we have one snow a year and it's one of those things that happens one day and is gone the next. This winter was a different story. First we had a snow storm on Christmas Eve - the first white Christmas in Texas since the 1920's. You would have thought that was it, but it wasn't. On February 11th and 12th, we got another snow storm. And this was not just any snow storm - it was almost...ALMOST...a record breaker. 18 inches. I can't even believe it!!!! The second biggest snow in Texas history. AND...the second snowiest winter in Texas history. Whew. Here's what it looked like:

Tree in our backyard:


Snow on the pecan trees in our backyard:


Looking down our street...the roads really weren't bad, but I barely made it out of our neighborhood!!!


Lined up for deicing at the airport - a day from hell for poor Joey!!!:


It was beautiful. And it even stuck around for a few days. But now it's gone and summer is getting ready to bear down on us. I will, no doubt, look back at this with fond memories when it's 100 in August!!!

George H. W. Bush Library

Post 3 of my catch-up posts


Our next weekend trip would help us on another quest - to visit all the Presidential Libraries. This time, we would take a road trip to College Station, TX to visit the George H. W. Bush Presidential Library, our 5th Presidential Library. I had actually been to this library several years ago, but very much enjoyed re-visiting with Joe. There were many parts of the library that I didn't remember - the replica Situation Room and Laurel Office at Camp David. Also, the old Studebaker car like the Bush's drove when they moved to Midland, TX. We're pretty sure we learned something while we were there, but it's been so long, we can't remember. LOL!!!

As always a few of pics...

Joe telling George a secret:


"YES - your question..."


The Studebaker - like the one the Bush's drove to Texas when they moved to Midland:


Replica of the Laurel Office at Camp David:


Replica Situation Room:


The second casting of "The Day the Wall Came Down" by Veryl Goodnight. This 7 ton sculpture of five horses running through the Berlin Wall was a gift of friendship from the American people to the people of Germany:

Carlsbad and White Sands

Post 2 of 7 or maybe 8 catch-up posts

We decided to start the year off right by taking a weekend trip in January. We chose Carlsbad Caverns National Park for a couple of reasons: 1) It wasn't snowing there and 2) It enabled us to get another stamp in our National Parks Passport Book.

In 2002, when Joe and I were on a cruise in Alaska, we stopped in the port at Skagway. While wandering around the downtown area, we stopped in the Klondike Gold Rush National Historic Park. While we were there, we saw this book that looked like a passport and noticed that beside it was a stamp. Turns out that the National Park Service sells these "passports" and provides stamps so that visitors can record their park visits. We almost bought it, but I thought it was really for kids and I backed out. For the next 7 years, every time we visited a National Park, I looked at the stamp and thought about the ones I'd missed. Finally, when we visited South Dakota, Joe couldn't take it anymore - he bought one. Now we're on a mission to visit as many national parks as possible and fill our passport!

So...we flew in to El Paso and drove a couple of hours north to Carlsbad Caverns National Park just outside of Carlsbad, NM. We decided to take the Natural Entrance Tour where you walk down through the natural entrance of the cave, descend 750 feet and arrive in the "Big Room." The trail is pretty steep in places, but it was quite interesting. The Big Room is a natural limestone chamber which is almost 4,000 feet long, 625 feet wide and 350 feet high (at the highest point) and after visiting a couple of caves last summer in South Dakota, the "Big Room" seems enormous!!! Here are my favorite pictures:

Part of "Crystal Springs Dome":


Wales Mouth:


Witch's Finger:


We finished our tour and ate a late lunch there at the Visitor's Center. Then we decided to head towards White Sands. Our intent was to drive to Artesia, NM and spend the night, but there was still lots of daylight, so we decided to go ahead and drive all the way to Alamogordo. It ended up working out really well, except that the road goes up and over this apparently beautiful pass - through Cloudcroft, NM. And although it was still daylight when we left Artesia, it was dark well before we hit Cloudcroft. We could see piles and piles of snow on the sides of the road and in parking lots, too. Clearly, we are going to have to return in the daylight, but it was not going to be during this weekend.

On Sunday, we headed to White Sands National Monument. The sand is gypsum and was deposited at the bottom of a shallow sea that covered this area 250 million years ago. It is quite beautiful and fascinating. You're allowed to walk wherever you want on the sand and they rent sleds so you can sled down the big hills. Here are my favorite pictures of White Sands. In the first picture, the white line you see is actually leftover snow!






We actually would have liked to spend more time at White Sands, but unfortunately, our weekend was coming to a close. We completed our loop by going back to El Paso and boarded our plane back to DFW.

Orlando

Post 1 of probably 7 catch-up posts

In December we joined some of the Foley's in Florida for a family vacation. This was a bit of "re-do" because just 4 short years ago we made a similar trip to Florida for a family vacation. In 2005, we stayed on Disney property but this year Joe's sister-in-law, Mary, found a house for us to rent. And this year we had a bigger crowd, too. Joe's uncle Bob and cousin Eric came to the parks with us and Sammie's (Joe's niece) boyfriend, Josh, joined us, too.

We skipped SeaWorld which we saw in 2005, but saw both parks at Universal Studios. And instead of park-hopping at Disney, we did one park per day. We did a few things we missed in 2005 and a few things that are new since then.

Here are a few of my favorite pictures from the trip:

A "grrrrr" from Eric, Joe's cousin:


Sammie tries crab for the first time at our "New England Christmas Dinner" at Auntie Rita's and Uncle Bob's house:


Cinderella's Castle was dressed in ICE this year:


Sammie, Emily, and Barb on the DisneyWorld Railroad:


Sammie and Emily in front of "The Tree of Life" at Animal Kingdom:


Sammie - DON'T PICK THE LEAVES!!!!:


Joe is such a good uncle! In spite of the fact that he really didn't want to, he rode the Kali River Rapids at Animal Kingdom because Emily really wanted to go. This was the thanks he got:


We actually had a really good time and, as always, enjoyed spending time with the family. However, I have some advice. If you're thinking about a trip to Disney - do NOT go between Christmas and New Years!!!! Do NOT!!!! Not only are there lots of vacationers there anyway, there were college football bowl games in Orlando during that week. Hence, we shared the parks with Miami, Wisconsin, LSU and Penn State - players, coaches, cheerleaders, band members, various other posse members, and families. It was p-a-c-k-e-d!!!!!!!!! If that's the only time you go, well then, plan accordingly. That is, go early - get your fast passes - and prepare to spend a lot of time waiting in line!