Very Long Day - Sun., June 16

Our day started early with a 6.1 mile hike at Dwight D. Eisenhower Park in northwest San Antonio. The hike start time was 7:45 a.m. to allow us to walk during the "cooler" part of the day. That meant we were up at 5:30 a.m. to get ready. Ugh.

After bowls of oatmeal with blueberries, cinnamon, nutmeg and ground flaxseed, we drove to the park and met the group a few minutes before hike time. We start on time. Today's pace was just right and allowed some picture taking stops, even though I had to run to keep up after I took the photos.

Once again, we were hiking with the San Antonio Hill Country Hikers meetup group and Paul was our leader. He set a reasonable pace and we kept up pretty well until the steep rocky section. That slows me down quite a bit and I stop to breathe. Eventually I catch up again. Bob stays with me.

The tower at the top of the hill was a good stop. Climbing to the top of the tower rewards you with a cooling-effect breeze. Because of the recent rains, more wildflowers bloomed in the past week and they are gorgeous.

Start - everyone's fresh and perky.

Blue morning glory (Ipomoea indica).

Maximilian sunflower (Helianthus maximiliani)

Powering up the steep part of the hill.

Lookout!

Dayflower (Commelina erecta)

Dayflowers with Englemann daisy (Engelmannia pinnatifida).

Rest stop.

Dwarf cinquefoil (Potentilla canadensis)

Still trying to identify these flowers.

Field of dayflowers.

Purple horsemint (Monarda Citriodora)

I was lagging farther behind.

We opted to hike two loops with the group. Paul stopped at the parking lot after we completed one loop. Some people had other obligations for Father's Day so they left.

The rest of us geared up for Round 2 and off we went, taking a different trail this time. There were a couple of steep, rocky hills and those combined with the heat did me in. By the time we were to the top I wasn't feeling too well. I rested more and we continued to try to catch up with the group. We finally found them back at the parking lot. Thank you, Paul and Jake, for another great hike.

I will continue today in another blog.

To be continued...

Xeriscapes and eXploring - Sat., Apr. 27

Last April Bob and I did a Volksmarch in Kerrville, Texas, which took us through Riverside Nature Center. The nature center had some beautifully arranged xeriscapes with cacti, mesquite, and other plants that do not require a lot of water.

Xeriscaping is basically landscaping that is dry (Greek: xeros).

I bring this up because today we Volksmarched in Castroville, then drove out to Brackettville, Texas. Along the way, we saw many areas of xeriscaping and south Texas brush country.

Let's start in Castroville. The town is rife with history.

Our 10K (6.2 mile) walk started at Sammy's Restaurant and headed to the outskirts of town, down to Medina Creek, through Castroville Regional Park, past a large, old cemetery and through the historic part of town. Wildflowers, trees and cacti bloomed in red, purple, white and yellow along the way.

Castroville is an Alsatian town with roots in the Alsace region of France at the border with Germany. Many buildings reflect the architectural style brought over from Europe.

Castroville's early residents were mostly farmers. Our walk took 2-1/2 hours because of all the historic markers and photo ops.

Here are photos from our Castroville walk. The temperature was 76 degrees with 90% humidity.

Alsation Steinbach House Park, Castroville, Texas

Mexican hat wildflowers (Ratibida columnifera)

Walking in a neighborhood.

Red yucca (Hesperaloe parviflora) blooming in someone's yard.

Medina River, Castroville, Texas.

Red sage.

Palo verde tree (Cercidium microphyllum)

The "Walking Trail" was a part of our Volksmarch.

Scissor-tailed flycatcher in Castroville Regional Park.

Castroville Regional Park

Castroville Regional Park has an RV campground with two park hosts. It's not a very big park and looks quite crowded. Bob  and I had thought about moving there at one time. It's outside the city and has a large pool. Before we saw it, we thought as a regional park the RV sites would be large. However, after seeing the sites, we don't think we'll be staying here. Rigs were packed in like sardines.

These look like overflow sites.

The main RV park in the trees. Very close quarters.

Little-leaf sage (Salvia microphylla "Hot Lips")

An interesting piece of Castroville history: Since 1847 the community has celebrated St. Louis Day (a Catholic observance of the feast of St. Louis) on the Sunday closest to August 25. Through the years a picnic became traditional on the church grounds following high mass. An evening dance ended the day-long celebration.

After the 1920s, the picnic and dance were held at Wernette's Garden, now known as Koenig Park. A dance pavilion was built in the park in 1953.

A 

St. Louis Catholic Church

Susan and St. Louis statue

Purple orchid tree (Bauhinia variegata)

Beautiful wagon planter display in a yard.

Mexican Flame Vine (Senecio Confusus) with a skipper (?)

Bob in front of the original St. Louis Church (1846). In 1868 Sisters of Divine Providence opened their first permanent school in Texas in this building.

In the Dubuis House below, the two original rooms were erected in 1947 by Claude Dubuis from Lyons, France.  Father Dubuis, the first priest in Castro's colony, was captured not once, but twice, by Comanches in 1847. He escaped unharmed both times and went on to become a bishop of Texas. This house is the first example of Alsatian architecture in Castroville.

The Dubuis House

The building below is now City Hall, but it wasn't in the beginning. It started out as the Medina County Seat Courthouse. When the county seat was moved to Hondo, this building was converted to a school and now City Hall. Its walls are made of 18" thick native limestone.

First Courthouse of Medina County.

Geyer-Rihn House - it looks so inviting.

Fields of wildflowers still in blom.

Poppies

 Koenig Park where the St. Louis Day celebration is held.

This year is the 131st annual St. Louis Day Celebration.
This festival has a long history in Castroville!

Freeze frame. "If I don't move, they can't see me."

Double click on the historic marker below to read about how Castroville started.

Medina River

We stopped in at Haby's Bakery for snacks.

The mural on Haby's Bakery (below) was done in February 2000 by Patrice Hoff, professor of visual arts at college Jean XXIII in Mulhouse, France. The wall is a tribute to Alsatian-Texan history. The mural includes a portrait of Henri Castro (founder of Castroville), the St. Louis Catholic Church, the town of Eguisheim, France and outlines of Texas and Alsace.

Mural on the side of Haby's Bakery.

At the end of our walk, we stopped for lunch at Sammy's Restaurant.

Fortified, we headed west on U.S. 90 to Uvalde and Brackettville. See part 2 of today's post for more.

Welcome to Spacerguy, who dropped in from a parallel universe, and One Texan's Travel's [sic].

Un-Comfort-Able -- Sun., Mar. 31

Dis-"Comfort." That's how I'm feeling today. You see, I made a boo-boo and it made me feel un"comfort"able. It's also a play on words.

I was all pumped up to do an Easter Volksmarch in the historic, antique-y town of Comfort, Texas. The local Volkssport Club was sponsoring an event that sounded so much fun. The walk was to start at Comfort Park in Texas Hill Country, criss-cross the historic town, and go along Cypress Creek under majestic Cypress trees. In addition, decorated Easter eggs were being placed along the trail and, if we found one, we could trade it in for a prize. Doesn't that sound wonderful?

We drove almost an hour to Comfort this morning, got to the park and no one was there! I was so disappointed. Bob says, "Are you sure you have the right day?" I had the flyer in the car, opened it up and, guess what? It was yesterday, Saturday, March 30. It said so immediately under "Easter Walk." I was sooooooo disappointed! But I should have known. Who would go to a Volkswalk or volunteer to work at one on Easter Sunday?

Well, we made lemonade out of my sourpuss and thought quickly about what Volksmarch we could do  in the area. There was a Volksmarch in Boerne (pronounced burney) we hadn't done yet: the Cemetery Walk. The walk starts at the "Comfort" Inn. (At least there was some comfort today!) Because the walk box is in the lobby of the motel, we could check in and pick up the walk instructions even on a holiday. So that's what we did.

And here are photos of our 10K (6.2 mile) walk.

The Boerne water tower.

View of Texas Hill Country--a bit hazy because of high humidity.

Nice residential areas:

We crossed Frederick Creek.

Front yard full of pink evening primroses.

White-lined Sphinx hummingbird moth (Hyles lineata)

Pipevine swallowtail butterflies on thistle.

Cemetery we walked through.

Very old headstone

Another old headstone

Courtyard of a Mexican restaurant in Boerne.

Field of bluebonnets.

Church

Cedar waxwing.

Easter service in the Boerne town square.

Interesting information on the Theis-Bergmann House

Wow, smart mule.

Turtle

We like this sculpture!

That was it for the walk. We headed back to the 5er.

A brief re-cap of Saturday: We took Mom and Jan to the airport at 4:00 a.m. for a 6:00 a.m. flight. Went home and finished sleeping. We woke up around 10:30 a.m. Nice!

Bob had a project he wanted to do. Our water pressure in our 5er has slowed way down for no apparent reason. He had changed our water filter at the park spigot already. Today, he wanted to remove the panel on the backside of the water pump which necessitated completely unpacking our "basement" and removing a panel which covered the working parts of our water pump. He took out the original filter and made a trip to Camping World in New Braunfels to get a new filter. When he returned to the 5er, he installed the new filter. We continued to have the same problem with low water pressure. What makes this perplexing is when we turn on the water pump, our water pressure is strong and normal. Thank you, Bob, for working on that.

Saturday night we watched our latest Netflix movie selection: Ruby Sparks. I enjoyed it and gave it 3 out of 5 stars. Bob rated it a C. It's a chick flick with a geeky guy as the main character. He is an author/misfit/introvert/psychology patient who writes about his dream girl and she appears in his life exactly as he has written about her. Quirky-cute movie.

Tomorrow starts the A-to-Z Blogging Challenge. I did it last year and enjoyed it so much I decided to do it again. The goal is to blog every day (except Sunday) in April starting with the letter A on April 1, B on April 2, etc. Sundays are blog-free days (unless you want to write on Sundays). Some bloggers choose a theme for all their blogs, others write about random topics. It's fun to visit other people's A-to-Z blogs during the challenge too.

Travel Bug out. Happy April!!