Oh those beautiful Bluebonnets and Indian Paintbrushes

Oh those beautiful Bluebonnets and Indian Paintbrushes! Our last views of them until next spring as we will be traveling into LA and MS today so no more Texas Bluebonnets. I am partial to them due to my love of the color blue. I did buy a silk bouquet of bluebonnets before we left Texas so I can enjoy them year-round. ;-) Due to the longer winter weather this year, our travels north this year show the Bluebonnets only starting to open. If you click on the photo it will enlarge for you so you can enjoy their beauty.

 The photo above is out the front window of the motorhome as we traveled east on I-10 from San Antonio to Houston yesterday. The funny shaped yellow smears on the window are bugs who have met there demise. Hour after hour we passed the fields of Bluebonnets and Indian Paintbrush. So beautiful.

Another day at the Apple Genius and dinner with our friends Ruth and Gavino

Yesterday we spent another day at the Apple Genius... and they were able to recover my CHAP Convention folder but couldn't get my Firefox bookmarks back. We came back to the motorhome and Doug fixed my computer. I now call him my "Personal Genius!"

Late last night our friend Ruth got home from helping her daughter-in-law in Dallas who had just had a surgery. So tonight we met Ruth and Gavino for dinner and fellowship at La Fogata. It was a beautiful evening to eat on the patio and the food was delicious!

 On the way back to the motorhome we were high up on the I-410 Loop to I-10 toward San Antonio. We are 200 feet above the lower road and the view of downtown San Antonio was beautiful.

 The sunset to west was just beautiful from the overpass.

A fun day in the old town of Gruene, TX

We spent a day away from the motorhome and computer problems. We drove up to Gruene, TX (that is pronounced like the color green) which is about 30 miles north of San Antonio near New Braunfels. We love the old town and had a leisure but busy day starting with lunch at the Grist Mill - one of our favorite places to eat. The restaurant is in an old rustic mill building nestled in amongst the live oak trees high up on the banks of the Guadeloupe River. It is next to impossible to get a photo of it because of the live oak trees. They have some of the best food in Texas!

The town of Gruene is one of the oldest in Texas and many of the old buildings still stand. They are interesting stores including an old General Store. The tan building in the photo to the left.

These photos are of the Gruene Hall, the oldest dance hall in Texas. Usually there is a lot of two-stepping going on in here, but today it was quiet due to it being lunch time on a weekday. Many super stars like Willy Nelson and George Strait got their start here.

Oh my! 4 1/2 hours at the Apple Genius!

Oh my! We spent 4 1/2 hours at the Apple Genius Bar. Those stools sure are hard! My Macbook Air was not handling my mail program correctly. It is working correctly now BUT the correction lost all my bookmarks and I had to re-enter or reset all passwords, reset all my broadcast groups, etc. What a pain. Apparently there was a glitch when we transferred my backup info back in December from my backup hard drive when my MacBook Pro died. I had been living with my barely functioning email program until we got to an Apple store. While at the Apple store, my external hard drive chose that precise moment to also die or the reformatting the genius did killed it (that is our guess). So we are off today to get a new external hard drive and Doug will attempt to recover my internet bookmarks.

Computers can be soooooooo much fun when they decide to be temperamental! I am so glad I have Doug to straighten mime out or I would be camped at an Apple store with a genius 24/7. Ha, ha!

Today we are off to Gruene, TX and New Braunfels, TX for some good Texas food and a visit to the oldest dance hall in Texas and Camping World for some RV supplies. Homer will be riding along on this ride.

San Antonio - Alamo Cafe

We had a delicious lunch with Gavino today after church at a different Alamo Cafe than the one where we usually go. The Alamo Cafe on 281 north is so much larger and so beautiful in a rustic adobe and wood way. Doug and I ordered fajitas and we brought enough home for two meals for us!

Below is the inside foyer where we waited for our table. The ceiling changes colors by day and night. We willl have to return to this restaurant! They make the best tortillas on site!

Travel to San Antonio & beautiful Bluebonnets

Today we started our slow trek north. We traveled four and half hours to San Antonio where we will stay  for a week. Along the road, we started to see the beautiful Bluebonnets which are just starting to bloom. If you want to see the photos larger, just click on the photo.

Last week in the Valley

It is our last week in The Valley until November, Lord willing. We spent the week eating at favorite places and visiting with friends we won't see until next winter. Our weather is finally nice and warm here in the upper 80's so we are enjoying it - what we should have been enjoying all winter, but this was the 7th coldest winter on record. I guess we can't complain after last winter when we swam all winter and only needed an umbrella on 4 days.

Above, Doug is enjoying dinner on the patio at the Republic of the Rio Grande Restaurant. The birds were in the fountain taking baths while we were eating but I was too slow to get a photo of them. ;-(

 On Tuesday, we walked over to Progresso, Mexico to gets some medicines and to buy some gifts. Above is a photo of Mexican customs and the view down Main Street where all the shops and street vendors are located.

Above is a street vendor making a special necklace for us as wait.

So tomorrow we head to San Antonio where we will stay for a week and then it on to Pigeon Forge, TN for almost a week for a Tiffin motorhome rally with some 90+ other motorhomes. Then we stop for a few days at Nada's brother's place in northern Virgina. Then on 4/11 we will drive to Hershey where we will be for most of the summer. We sure hope it warms up in PA by April 11th!

Kiskadee on our bird bath

A kiskadee on our birdbath today. We actually have a pair of them and I do believe they are making a nest nearby because they are taking chunks of green and dried plant matter from the planters that have my petunias and pansies. This one bird sat on the edge of the birdbath squawking away while the mate gathered plant matter. Then they gathered it and both flew away with it. They are such a pretty bird even for a yellow bird (can you tell yellow is not my favorite color!) We will miss their song and the song of the little wrens that sit in the tree outside our bedroom slide! We also have a red bellied woodpecker who lands on the palm tree trunk and then goes into the area on top of our driver's side slide and under the protective awning and picks bugs. We can hear him tap, tap - a slow tapping as he gets the bugs. Since he isn't doing damage by a rapid pounding of his beak we will gladly let him get his bug meal!

Of course, some photos of Trevor

Of course I have to post some precious photos of our grandson, Trevor. Vicky just sent these to us. He looks like he is growing tall. We can't wait to see him in mid- April. ;-)

 Vicky's mom found Vicky's Mr. Potato Head and gave it to Trevor. He is really having fun with it!

Lunch on the Rio Grande with the bike club

 The bike club from our resort rides on Mondays and Fridays. On Fridays the go later and stop somewhere for lunch. Several of us wives, who don't bike on the road, sometimes drive and meet them for lunch. Yesterday, they went to Riverside Restaurant which is right on the Rio Grande River. It was such a beautiful day - 82º sunny, but witha pretty strong wind. Here are some photos of the bike crew that rode yesterday (and the wives who joined them for lunch). The group varies in size ( from just a few to as many as 30) depending on people's schedules and the weather.

In the photo above starting from the left are Garry and Barb (our next door neighbors here at W & I), Curt, Paul, Emily, and Tom. In the photo below you can also see Doug.

 Curt took a photo of Doug and I, too.

There goes the tour boat out for its cruise up and down the Rio Grande River. If you go back to my January posts you can see pictures along the Rio Grande from when we took the cruise with our friends, Ruth and Gavino, from San Antonio.

Last days in south Texas for 2014

We had to make on last trip to Rudy's BBQ for some brisket with our friends, Maryanna and Jon, from PA. We will see them back here next winter. They are going to head west through AZ and Utah and onto Rapid City for the summer while we are heading to San Antonio, Pigeon Forge, Reston, VA, and then Hershey, PA. We had to purchase our summer supply of Rudy's Sissy Sauce for our BBQ and Brisket for the summer. ;-)

 Doug's softball team played in the playoffs. Here are photos of Doug batting in the game and also scoring a run. Notice the runner does not have to touch home plate. They just need to run across the line to score. It helps to alleviate collision injuries at home plate for all these Winter Texans. ;-)

At the softball end-of-season banquet, they gave the guys gold medals in celebration of 25 years of the leagues existence. We figured out this was Doug's 5th year of playing winter softball and it was a doozy of a winter! Cold (for south Texas), dreary, and also wet. After last winter when we swam all winter and only had 4 days of rain in 4 months, I guess we can't complain about this winter. Hopefully, next winter will go back to "normal."