Texas


We left Las Cruces headed for San Antonio, Texas on November 14th.  We traveled through Texas hill country and it really felt like we were in the middle of nowhere.  There are very few towns between Las Cruces and San Antonio.

  The scenery along the way was very different.  The hills they had to cut through for the roads very made of very different rock.  It looked like someone had built the walls from squares of rock.  The colors in the rock were amazing and it made the trip enjoyable.  We stayed in the North Llano River RV Park in Junction TX.  We were able to walk a couple of blocks and have our first Texas BBQ.  I spent most of the day enjoying the park immensely.  The park is right beside the North LLano River and is in a natural pecan grove. The city is sort of in the middle where the south and north LLano river split.   The same people who own this park also own the South LLano RV Park. In October of this year the South park flooded when the Colorado river became clogged with trees and debris in rushing  water.  When it let loose a huge wall of water, along with heavy rains in the area flooded the park.  Four people lost their lives when RV's tipped and many things were washed away.  A camp worker told me the owner lost his tractor and has not found it.  The river we were on was still high and water had risen up to the road right beside us at its worst.  It was hard to imagine.   The people and management were so friendly in this park.  She told me to collect as many pecans as I wanted.  

The pecans are very small but it was really fun collecting them and I had about 8 cups in a couple hours. 

I got myself a nutcracker and read up on how to go about shelling the small nuts.  I boiled them and it softened the shells somewhat.  I did about half of them and got about a cup of nuts to a lot more shells and rotten or dried nuts.  I think if they were collected a couple of weeks ago they would have been nicer.  Anyway, the taste was incredible!  So we are enjoying them as is as a special treat.  

The walk along the river was super nice. 

 

FYI this was not staged.  It is just as nature arranged it!

I even got to see a few of these cute little Black -chinned sparrows which was a first for me.

There was even entertainment in the evening.  A large group of deer came into a nearby field and there was a spectacular sunset.  I have never seen a sunset that was truly 360 in the sky.

Once we got to San Antonio we booked into Travelers World RV park.  It is super nice and backs onto a golf course.  There is a bike path very close by which I am itching to get out on and explore by bike.  I have walked some of it but apparently it joins up to the River Walk in downtown.  There is a wonderful Mexican restaurant across the street and a bus stop where you can go into downtown very easily.

 The tree in the above picture is called a live oak.  It is called a live oak as it is evergreen and does not lose its leaves like the deciduous ones.  Who knew???  These oak can live for hundreds of years and I could not even get all of this one in the picture.  It is about 150 years old and the base circumference is 12 feet.  The main branches are over 50 feet long. They produce sweet, edible acorns that are enjoyed by many birds and animals.

We walked along the Alamo and its amazing to think the mission was built in 1718.  There was a lot of history and it was hard to stop and read everything as of course there were a lot of people there.  I need to read up on it as I do not "remember" the Alamo very well.

 

this is part of the Alamo building

We went into downtown to enjoy the river walk twice so far as there is so much to see.

 This is the tower of the Americas building.   We went up and enjoyed a 360 degree birds eye view of the downtown.  Then we watched 2 short 4D movies which was pretty cool.

view from the Tower of the Americas

We also rode the 1/2 hour boat tour of the river walk area. It was nice to see all the buildings and have a tour guide to tell us the history.

This is an outdoor stage.  Across from it is the seating which  is kind of like an amphitheatre seating.  It is made from rocks and the seat part is grass.

This is called Marriage Island.  It is a little islet in the middle of the San Antonio River on the San Antonio River Walk that is used for weddings.  This little island is now the root ball of the huge cypress tree planted over 100 years ago

The buildings are beautiful .  Many pretty colors and details  Below you can see the faces that are under the windows,

There are many huge bald Cypress trees along the river walk. They are very old and beautiful.  In this picture you can see its knees which are odd shaped protrusions it sends up under the tree. 

This 15 foot high statue honors the first president of the American Federation of Labour  - Samuel Gompers.

This statue is called the Torch of Friendship and was given to San Antonio by the Mexican Consulate as a sign of friendship and to represent the roots many Texans share with Mexico.  It was made in Mexico and shipped to San Antonio in 6 pieces.  It is 65 feet tall and weighs 50 tons

We had an early dinner at a restaurant along the River Walk.  It was very enjoyable to relax and watch all the people walk by while enjoying our lovely meal.

 Yesterday the sun was out so we went to the Mitchell Lake Audubon Center. 

I guess these are some kind of wasps but I wasn't going to get too close.  The nest was built in a spiny hack berry bush which had tons of pretty little orange berries.  The fruit is eaten by numerous birds and mammals  It is also a larval host to the American Snout (among others) butterfly which can number in the billions in Texas. 

This is a Queen butterfly of which there were many.  I have never seen so many different and numerous butterflies anywhere else we have visited.

this pretty little yellow butterfly would not open its wings long enough to get a good shot.  But I have never seen such a yellow butterfly before!

I was chatting with my sister Tami the other night and she asked for lots of pictures of bugs.  So you can blame her for these  LOL

                                                                     Snowy egret

                                                                       Great egret
These are pictures of a silly little cattle egret that was just casually walking down the road.  I have never seen them up close and was quite confused as to which kind of egret it even was.  It was quite small and not real afraid of me.

 This is some kind of vine that crawls all over the trees.   The pods open to pretty silky white fluff

So many pretty things to look at.  I was so happy to have the opportunity to visit the centre.

       White Sands and Las Cruces New Mexico

 We spent a week in Las Cruces relaxing  and enjoying some delicious Mexican food.  We went to Old Town  Mesilla a couple of times just to walk along and enjoy the scenery and little shops.

 One day we took a drive about an hour east of Las Cruces to go to the White Sands National monument.  It is an amazing place of glistening white sand.  There are huge wave-like dunes of gypsum sand on about 275 square miles of desert.  The plants and animals that live here have developed very specialized means of surviving the weather, very little surface water and very mineralized ground water. The lizards are very light or white to blend in with their surroundings.

 These plants are called soap tree yucca.  The plants and animals that live here also have to adapt to a constantly changing landscape.  Rapid growth is how these yucca can keep their leaves above the sand to photosynthesis.   There are many trees that look like they are little bushes but really are tall trees that have been their trunks buried in the sand

 The winds make pretty sculptured dunes and blow the sand across the road so they have to plow it just like snow.  Only a lot warmer.

 I wanted to slide down the hill, but I was too cheap to spend 20.00 on a cheap little plastic disc.  I scouted around the trunk and found a piece of plastic and a chunk of cardboard.  Neither worked but it was fun playing in the sand anyway.

 The day started out very nice but soon started to get windy.  That's a lot of white when it starts getting airborne so we decided to drive to Alamagordo and check out the pistachio places.

You haven't lived until you have seen the worlds largest pistachio!  It was a fun place to see and there were lots of samples which is always great!  I ended up with a pistachio milkshake which we shared on the way home.

That's what all the blowing white sand looked like from a distance.

Another day we took a 20 minute drive to Organ Mountain - Desert Peak National Monument.  The weather in Las Cruces, while we were there, was really below average temperatures.  We decided once the sun was out we would go and it would warm up.  By the time we drove there, the sun was fading fast and the wind was increasing.  We also were at a lot higher elevation.
I could not believe how beautiful it was!  I tried walking on the trail for a while but it seemed to get colder by the minute.  Until - IT STARTED SNOWING!  We decided it was time to leave.

We did enjoy a Saturday stroll through the farmer's market.  We talked to a man who grows pistachios and bought some.  He sun dries them and they are the best we have ever had.  There was lots of nice local produce and amazing crafts.  There were all kinds of entertainers.  One man had a very well trained parrot that knew a lot of tricks.  One thing it could do was meow and bark.    One poor dog that was walking by did not know what was going on listening to the bird barking.
We left for Texas on the 14th.   More on that later!

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