Friday, February 15, 2013

I Love My Husband -- Feb.14 and Feb. 15

First off, the kitties hope you had a happy Valentine's Day.


When I woke up Thursday morning I was greeted by a large stock pot turned upside down on the dining room table with a card on top. Hunh? What is this?

I lifted the pot and found this...

Gorgeous African violet in my favorite color...purple.
Our homes in Oregon, and then Washington, had garden windows and I always had filled them with African violets of all colors and types. I love to garden. There is no garden when you're full-timing. Bob is so sweet to buy me an African violet. He knows I love them. Now I have a little "garden." He put the plant under the stock pot to keep it away from the cats, not sure what they would do with it. Such a cheerful surprise.

Sunnie had to check out the African violet, then he left it alone. Bowie hasn't bothered it at all.

For Valentine's Day I kidnapped Bob. We went to the Cameo Theater to see a jukebox musical production called "Buddy: The Buddy Holly Story." A jukebox musical is one that has previously released songs, rather than music written specifically for the play.

We arrived at the Cameo Theater an hour early so we could park for free on the street rather than pay $10 for lot parking. We picked up our Will Call tickets I had purchased through Groupon. Our seats were in the second row, left of the stage. Made for great photos, especially since no one was sitting in front of us.

Being an hour early, we had time to explore St. Paul Square Historic District and I was able to practice photography at night.


Cameo Theater
The old railway station.
St. Paul Square looking magical at night.
Tower of the Americas at dusk.
Bob amidst the decorated palm trees.
Historic engine on display.
You can see how big this engine is by how small I look.
Click to enlarge.
They  have a room named after us (ha!) so we had to take a photo.
It was fun wandering this three-block area and capturing it in photos at night.

Church and Tower of the Americas.
Church spire and almost half moon.

Office building?
Windows on back side of church.
Close up of light fixture on office building.
A little before 8:00 p.m., we headed into the Cameo Theater. You can tell this is a historic theater.

The stage set up for Act I.
Artwork in the theater.
Soon the house lights went down and the action started. The play followed the country western start of Buddy Holly and the Crickets in Lubbock, Texas. Buddy Holly didn't want to play country western music, he wanted to play rock 'n' roll!


From Lubbock, Texas, Buddy went to Nashville but still didn't want to do country western music. His manager suggested he go to New York City, which he did. The band ended up at The Apollo Theater in Harlem where the "honky" boys became a big hit.


This play has so much fun music. We were clapping along and by the end they had us all on our feet clapping and dancing.

The Big Bopper
In the photo below, Buddy Holly meets Maria Elena. He tells her he is going to marry her. Buddy Holly was a young man who knew what he liked and wanted.

Maria Elena, the Crickets and Buddy Holly.


The Clear Lake Concert--the night before the music died.

The Clear Lake Concert in Clear Lake, Iowa, was the last concert Buddy Holly, the Big Bopper and Ritchie Valens played. The next day their plane crashed and all perished. "American Pie," a song written by Don McLean, include the lyrics "the day the music died" which referred to the fateful plane crash.




High energy musical numbers.
The Big Bopper and Ritchie Valens.

Ritchie Valens really getting into it!
The sax player.
Ritchie Valens on the fiddle.
If you are in San Antonio, go see this. It's high energy fun. But you better hurry. It ends Sunday, February 17. Hopefully there are tickets left.

We had a great time!

Today I cleaned, did some editing work and played with the kitties. This afternoon, Mona Liza and Steve of LowesTravels.com pulled into the park. Mona Liza and I played tag on the computer until I got a message that she knocked on our door but I wasn't there. Oops, she went to the wrong trailer...our door wasn't open as it was a bit chilly outside.

I walked over to their site and knocked on their door. They invited me in with open arms and handed me a glass of wine. We chattered like parrots. I told Mona Liza I had crackers, cheese, chocolate and wine back at our rig. She came over to see where we really were. Earlier, she had knocked on our neighbor's door. After a quick tour, crackers, cheese and chocolate she had to head back to their rig and marinate meat for dinner. We plan to get together with them on Sunday.

Tonight we'll be watching Shark Tank and a documentary about the world of advertising called Art & Copy. Do you ever wonder how companies come up with slogans like "Where's the Beef?" or "Got Milk?" This movie is going to explore that world. I've worked in marketing so I'm looking forward to seeing this.

Today, the cats were wild things. Sunnie decided he needed to be high up, so he climbed to the shelf above the refrigerator. He does this from time to time. He must have a need for tree climbing practice.


Strategizing: "How do I get down from here?"
"I'll jez walk down de cupberd."
...and one more kitty shot.

Sunnie on guard! Bowie snoozing.
That's all for yesterday and today. Tomorrow we're off to Austin, Texas for two 10K Volksmarches. We'll meet Jim and Peri for the first walk, have lunch, then Bob and I will tackle another. We were going to spend the night in Austin and do another walk Sunday, but the Austin marathon is happening Sunday morning. We will go to Austin for the weekend another time.

Sunday, we plan to get together with Steve and Mona Liza for a hike or walk.

Stay tuned loyal readers. More fun adventures await!

Travel Bug out.