Saturday Photo Scavenger Hunt---PUBLIC

This week's theme is Public. Here are some of the things we did out in the public areas of Seguin, TX, last week.

B is looking over the public memorial to POws---MIAs in front of the Guadalupe County Courthouse. We were trying to figure out if the pictures were carved into the stone or what. The surface was very smooth to the touch. B thought it was pretty and after I explained what POW and MIA meant, she was touched to the heart.

J took some time to love the world's biggest pecan in public. He has no qualms about standing out in a crowd.

This building is a house built back in the 1850s when Seguin was known as"Concrete City." They built almost 100 homes out of "limecrete" as they called it. It's a public historical site.

You can read about it on the historical marker.

That is my group of public photos for the week. Next week's theme is colorful. Ooooo! :-)

If you want to see more photos on the theme, o see TNChick's website.

Palo Duro Trip---Part 4

Here's a view from the rim of the canyon. When you drive up to the park, you're riding along in this pretty flat terrain, and then the land just drops down and you see this beautiful striped land. The horseback guide told us it's not usually this green this time of year.



Palo Duro is the second largest canyon in the country, formed in the same way the Grand Canyon was---a river. This river is (wait for this very long name) Prairie Dog Town Fork of the Red River.

This is a good shot of the visitor center to the right. This was about 8:30 at night, so they were already closed.

The next morning we went for our horseback ride. B took this picture of me.

Here's the rest of the group. We're all ready with our jeans! We were fortiunate that it was a cloudy morning with fairly cool temps.

Here's the guy who owns the business, and he gave us our initial instructions. The main thing was to Stay on the Horse. They would take care of us if we were up on the horse!

Palo Duro Canyon---Part 3

Here's some more pictures from our trip. One of the first things we did when we got to camp was cook dinner. Each adult lady was resposible for one cooked meal, along with 2 scouts. This one was my meal. Of course, no one took a picture of me, but here's Ricky and the girls. I am not the best fire starter, but the girls and I got it going just fine. In the end, we decided we needed a lot more wood to get the food all cooked over coals. B is the one in the black shirt, and the other 2 were my helpers.

This is after we pulled them off the fire.

This picture is before the cooking---we cut up potatoes & onions, and had baby carrots, salt and pepper, a little cream of mushroom (or chicken) soup, and our hamburger meat.

The deer were very tame! Firearms are not allowed in the park. We also saw wild turkey going through the campsites.

Up on the rock there, someone had put a wooden cross. I took this picture so we coud zoom in on it and look at it up close on my camera display.

That's the next installment! I may do another one right now.

Palo Duro trip---part 2

We spent the first night in Abilene. WooHoo! Larry and J had just left there the day before. Didn't know that town was such a happening place? I've even got plans to go back the first weekend in August. :-) These girls are hanging out in the lobby while we check in. The highlight of this evening? Swimming in the pool. Lis has the pictures of them jumping in that I'd like. I took my knitting ot the pool. It was "Knitting in Public Week." (I saw it on Facebook, I'm sure it was true.)

That night a terrible storm blew in. It rained very hard, and we all took turns at the window, watching the wind blow the waves of rain across the parking lot to the gas station. I did not sleep well! I was aware of a time that the power went out, and it was really dark.

After breakfast in the hotel, we went north towards Lubbock. This was the first time I'd seen wind energy farms up close. It's hard to tell how large these windmills are, but they are HUGE. There are a lot of them between Interstate 20 and Lubbock. (B took this picture through the car window.)

We ate lunch in Lubbock and picked up a scout who'd been staying at her grandmother's house there. We ate at Rosa's Cafe, which we have right in our own town, so nothing new. It was very crowded.

This picture is pne of the first looks we had of the canyon. I didn't get a good picture of the road winding down into the floor of the canyon, and I should have---it's pretty awesome. The CCC built it in 1933-1934. This state park opened in 1934.

We set up out camp, first thing. This tent was my home for 3 nights. :-)

And this is the view from our camp, looking at a canyon wall. It was awe-inspiring, actually. I kept thinking it was like Niagara Falls, in that you cannot do it justice with photos, and you can't imagine how big it is unless you're there in it.

So that's the next 5 pictures from our trip!! I will keep sharing 5 until I finish.

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I will go to "Music Americana" tonight to see J sing and dance. He has parts in "Codfish Ball," "Walking on Sunshine," and Chatanooga Choo Choo.

Have a good evening!

Palo Duro Trip---Part 1

I'm going to do our Girl Scout trip a few pictures at a time. We planned this 5 day trip for a long while and we saw so many cool things!
First stop---the DrPepper museum in Dublin, TX.

They gave us each of us a small bottle of DrPepper at the start of the tour. I'm holding 4 of them for the girls who are going to wait and have it later. B loves DrPepper!! In Dubin, they make DrPepper with the original formula---with Imperial Pure Cane Sugar. No corn syrup in these batches. They have a couple of rooms of DrPepper memorabilia that was a lot of fun to look at.

The guide told us about the machine they use for the rebottling. This is at the end of the process. The bottles are filled with syrup and then carbonated water. The bottles need to turn in a full circle 3 times to mix it, a process they used to have people do by hand, but now the machine will do. This lady was very gracious and helpful!!

One wonderful thing that happened was that we were offered the back room to eat our lunch in. We were planing on our picnic lunch in a park, but they had a room in the back with booths and bathrooms nearby. We ate while we waited for our tour time to begin.

Here we are at the end, posing by the statue outside. We are only beginning our journey, and we hadn't picked up the last scout yet. Lots of adventures still to come for our scouts!

To be or not to be

J and I started watching Hamlet on the Ovation channel Thursday night, and I was excited to see it was back on this evening. I had to miss the last 30 minutes! So now I'm finishing it up.

It has been 17 years or so since I've studied Shakespeare, but I still love it. I don't understand all of it, but I like it! I took two semesters of Shakespeare---one at Texas A&M and one at UNT---and I still have my BIG Complete Works of Shakespeare (somewhere). It's best watched, not read.

I'm glad J was interested in watching Shakespeare with me. He's an actor, so maybe he'll get to perform it one day. At Christmastime, he will try to get in a school production of "A Christmas Carol." He is not getting to take drama this year after all---he has to take a technology class instead because of the program he's in. Jamie wants to see "Twelfth Night" tomorrow, so we're setting the VCR.

This version I'm watching now was made in 2000, and is set in NYCity. Ethan Hawke is Hamlet. I'm enjoying it!

Here are a couple of pictures from the last few weeks.

When I top this hill, and start down this long stretch, I know I'm almost there. (Do you know where?)

I did a beginning of year activity in my classroom using this book. Each child brough a rock, as did I, and we will keep them here as long as we're in the class.

This is me on the first day of school. One of my students took it for me.

Here are all the new shoes! and legs, and knees, and khaki shorts.

Saturday Photo Scavenger Hunt, August 15th

This week's theme is artificial. Check out more photo hunters on TNChick's website.

Last Saturday morning, this is where I was. It looks like a resort, and I guess for some it is a vacation spot. But this is my Granbury, my hometown. I went back for my 20th high school reunion. The reason this picture is artificial is that this is on the lake, and it used to just be the marina. It was the turnaround spot for "the drag." But now, they've made a nice beach there, with pretty sand and the Tiki Hut (for snacks). It's right next to the Hilton. Granbury with a Hilton? A nice beach, on Lake Granbury, artificially trucked in.

J reminded me of his artificially altered photos. He has made a picture of himself look like the Joker. Kinda creepy! He altered this photo to give me artificial colors (kinda like Kool-Aid colors?).

Next week's theme is ripples. I'll try to keep up, but I've already started back to teaching school, so I'm busy with all that beginning of the year stuff. Have yourself a great week!

We now have time for a guest blogger! It's our B. She will be blogging about her trip to San Antonio in March. Her Webkinz elephant, Bananas, saw all the sights!

Hello! I want to tell you about my vacation to San Antonio. Here are 10 pictures of the beginning of our trip.

This is Bananas sitting on the bed at our hotel.

This is Bananas standing in front of the 2-story McDonald's.

This is Bananas standing on the Riverwalk.

This is Bananas drinking my coke at the Hard Rock Cafe.

This is Bananas in front of some guy's guitar at the Hard Rock Cafe.

This is Bananas outside the Hard Rock Cafe under an old car.

This is bananas in front of the Alamo.

v This is Bananas in front of a little stage on the Riverwalk.

This is Bananas and me and my dad standing by a well thingy by the Alamo.

This is Bananas eating a french fry at McDonald's.

Well, I guess that's enough pictures for one post, but I will do another post to show you more pictures.

Saturday Photo Scavenger Hunt, March 21st

Today's Photohunt theme is Yellow. We were in San Antonio this week, and I found some yellow there.

Yellow Umbrellas on the Riverwalk
Yellow Flowers at the Alamo

and leaves!And at Sea World

More Yellow Flowers

A Yellow Sign

A Yellow Display of DNA at the Witte Museum

And one Yellow Souvenir
We had a great time on our vacation to San Antonio. It is about a 3 hour drive from our house, and we spent 3 nights. I'll be blogging about it later!

Next week's theme is Hands. If you're interested in joining in or seeing more yellow today (it's better than "seeing red"), then go to TNChick's site!