Tuesday, February 21, 2012

Another Year

Yesterday was my birthday and one of the things we've talked about doing every year since we've been coming here is to check out a wild life safari park. Yesterday was the day.

It's the type of park that you drive through and the animals are not in cages but wander through the park. We were given a bag of food to feed these critters but were advised not to feed from our hands. The park is 4 acres and we were so busy looking around that we didn't do too good with feeding the animals. We made a second trip through the park so we could get rid of the food.

There were several different types of deer and antelope. We didn't have any way of knowing what each animal was but some were quite obvious.
















This is how the ostrich's takes a nap - it really is still alive. We watched it lay down and got a good laugh after seeing this.








The horns on these animals (below) were intriguing to us. We know one of these is a Texas Longhorn but don't have any clue what the ones with huge horns might be.



We took over 60 pictures and tried to figure out how to do a slide show but that didn't work so these are just a few of what we saw. Maybe that's not all bad either.

Thursday, February 9, 2012

Historic Bridge Walk

Earlier this week while on our morning walk, Sandy and I ran into a couple that stopped to tell us they were looking for this historic walking bridge. We hadn't heard of it so weren't any help but after getting home, I Googled it. Patrick and I did a dry run yesterday to see if it was within walking distance. Today, Sandy and I found it on foot.




The bridge goes over the Guadalupe River. In the last picture, the white "dots" in the distance are RVs parked under the overpass. This year there are more RVs than previous years.
On our walk back home, I took a couple pictures of something else "historic". A new house being built next to one that is on the National Historic Registry.

We toured this one last year during a tour of several other older houses; some are still in their original state and some were refurbished and are occupied by families. This one was left in its natural state. I don't remember the story behind the Lindheimer's but it had to do with some newspaper printing business and there are signs on different side streets letting people know how to find this place.


Our walk was only a mile longer than our regular walk and our legs and joints were letting us know about it by the time we got home.

Wednesday, February 1, 2012

Social Time

Each Wednesday at 4:00, weather permitting, we have a gathering of us Winter Texans to socialize and eat a lot of good things. Everyone brings some sort of hors d'oeuvres or other snack food. We get to meet out neighbors and get the latest news. The picture below shows today's gathering. Some had already left, but most of the crowd is still there. The gathering is held on the "upper" patio/deck area. There is a small pool and two hot tubs. One hot tub is hotter than the other. It is a nice area for the gathering. The big main pool and hot tubs area is behind the complex and about a 100 feet from our building. The "upper" area is much more convenient.