Hiking Fools - Sun., May 5

What do you call a group of people who love to hike, make silly puns, sing a few bars of whatever song happens to pop into their heads, and play pranks on each other? Hiking fools (AKA San Antonio Hill Country Hikers).

Sunday morning I dragged myself out of bed to make the 8:45 a.m. start time at O.P. Schnabel Park Trailhead in northwest San Antonio. The park is part of the Leon Creek Greenway.

Meanwhile, Bob did a ten-mile run on the Riverwalk from our RV park into downtown San Antonio and back.

Once again our hike leader, Paul, took us on a mostly shaded hike. Did he stick to paved trails? Nooooo. He must know the park like a truck driver knows interstates. He had us traipsing through the woods on deer trails, gravel and rocky paths, over the "river" and through the mud. But we didn't end up at grandmother's house. We ended up right back where we started 5.7 miles later. Thankfully in the description of the hike, Paul told us to wear hiking boots or sturdy shoes. Especially nice to have on my boots for the steep rocky section of trail and for the mucky mud.

The heavy rain we had last week created more than mud. Wildflowers bloomed, grasses sprouted seeds, and the trees were vibrant green.

The hike wasn't the breakneck pace of last Friday evening's Tobin Park walk. Today we took time to smell the blooming sage, look at deer who were looking back at us, and take pictures. In honor of Cinco de Mayo, one guy broke out singing "La Cucaracha."

I am amazed by the variety of scenery in San Antonio and that we keep learning about new places to be out in nature. The locals on the hike talked about how much they like San Antonio's greenspace initiatives and vote for them whenever they are on the ballot. The greenspaces are well used by animals, birds, and people in the region. We saw many deer on our hike. The mud revealed tracks of deer, raccoons, people and dogs.

Runners with marathon numbers were on some of the paved trails. We were told they were running a half marathon. It must have been very popular because when we finished our hike the runners were leaving. Police had to direct traffic; the start/finish of the half marathon was across the main highway from the park we were in.

Surprise, surprise: I have photos from the hike today. Don't I always? Here they are...

Wooded glen.

Most times there is no water here.

Rain lilies.

One of the many deer checking us out.

This huge rock wall reminded me of a hike we took at the Ledges
area in Cuyahoga Valley National Park in Ohio.

Our hike leader, Paul, said there usually isn't water here. All of us were impressed by this pretty, seasonal "lake."

Instant lake, just add water.

Wildflowers on the rocks.

Isn't this inviting?

Check out those roots!

Egyptian goose.

Paul talking, Kim, Carmen and Eduardo.

Paul capturing a moment.

Can you say "spring cleaning?" That's what we did all afternoon. It was way past time to clean our 5th wheel carpets so we rented The Rug Doctor machine from WalMart and Bob, bless his heart, made many passes of the carpet cleaner over all the interior carpet. When he had done enough, I took over and made a couple more sweeps of the living room carpet. It looks so much better!


Sunday night TV is 60 Minutes and Amazing Race. We finally sat down and relaxed with dinner, then later with a bowl of ice cream and cookies. Well deserved. Thank you, honey, for being the "heavy lifter/ muscle" in the carpet cleaning. It's so nice to walk on the carpet now.

So ended our second busy weekend day in a row. Even the cats are exhausted!

"I wanna hold your hand paw."

We love each other.

The end.

The Most Fun Event We Didn't Do -- Sat., Mar. 9

Do we go tonight? Don't we? Important questions when the weather forecast is 90% chance of severe thunderstorms, wind gusts to 20 mph, and a chance of large hail and heavy rain. Some of the events take place outside, rain or shine, and some inside. I'm a fairweather person. I wouldn't mind taking an umbrella for the rain, but with wind gusts to 20 mph the umbrella would become useless in mere seconds.

Oh, wait, what's the event, you ask? Sorry, I forgot to mention that detail. San Antonio's Luminaria 2013 at Hemisfair Park. The event runs from 7 pm to midnight. Did I mention it's free? (Except for souvenirs, food and drink, that is.) You are welcome to dress to be seen. Costumes are common at Luminaria, and lit costumes are especially welcome. I am so interested in going, maybe next year. Description from their website:

"Luminaria is San Antonio's annual night celebration of art and artists. It is free of charge and showcases all art forms including Visual, Music, Theatre and Performance, Literary, Media, and Dance.  Luminaria takes place in downtown San Antonio in both outdoor and indoor venues."

In addition to all the art events going on in Hemisfair Park, the Institute of Texan Cultures (in association with the Smithsonian Institution) is free from 5-8 p.m. tonight. So much to do, so little time.  

In years past, the Tower of the Americas was decorated with lights. See photo of Luminaria  marketing postcard below. The photography on the postcard was done by ArtGives.org. The Luminaria event is produced by the artists of San Antonio.

What makes the whole event possible are multiple sponsors: City of San Antonio, Bud Light, 80/20 Foundation, H-E-B, Valero, Rackspace, Bank of America, AT&T, John and Florence Newman Foundation, SAWS, CPS Energy, Creative Civilization and CE Group.

So, Luminaria, 2014 is another year. We'll do our best to come see you then.

Tonight we will be watching our Netflix movie selection: Two-Lane Blacktop. It's a 1971 flick with Dennis Wilson of the Beach Boys, Warren Oates, Harry Dean Stanton, James Taylor, and Kris Kristofferson about two drag-racing drifters who are more devoted to their '55 Chevy than they are to each other. It's an American road movie. We'll see if it's any good.

Before closing, the cats wanted me to include the following photos:

Window's open, great scents and birds!

"Iz u takin' pix of us agin?"

"I tries to sit like my peeps, but my legs aren't long enough for the footrest."

 Have a good evening. Travel Bug out.

Strut Bearings and Mounts -- Tues., Mar. 5

Yesterday I took my Escape pod into Grande Ford in San Antonio for an oil change. While they were at it, I asked if they could please see what might be causing a "clunking" noise under the front end of the car when I turned the steering wheel at low speeds.

Upon checking the suspension, they found my car needed to have the strut bearings and mounts replaced. It must have needed them for quite a while judging by how long I've been hearing the noise and seeing the "wear" on my left front tire. Unfortunately the price is quite a set back at $600.00. I couldn't leave my car with them overnight because I had to drive back to the 5er.

This morning, we took my Escape back to the dealership. They needed it all day. This afternoon I got a call from Grande Ford telling me while they were making the repair they found a cable chain (?) that was ready to break. That necessitated them ordering the part to fix it.

When the package with the part arrived at their repair shop some of the components were missing from the package. They had to send it back and order another part because the components that were missing were essential to the repair. My car won't be finished until tomorrow.

That had a domino effect on my plans for tomorrow. Peri and I planned to do a 10K Volksmarch in New Braunfels, Texas. That has been successfully rescheduled to Thursday.

Amazing how dominoes fall in order. The other domino, which had to be taken off the table due to the expense of the car repair, was our trip to New Orleans. We had planned to leave Saturday and visit with Bob's great aunt who lives in New Orleans, then spend three days exploring the area. We will have to reschedule that trip into the future. "Time keeps on slipping, slipping, slipping into the future." (Lyrics from Steve Miller Band.)

Today the chores descended upon me: vacuuming, laundry, chopping pecans and walnuts for oatmeal and salads, making hard boiled eggs for egg salad sandwiches, and backing up my computer.

Talk about tight camping sites...a MH just backed in behind us. There are only a couple of feet to spare. I was nervous as they backed in because it's a rental MH and they were getting really close. I went outside and the young lady asked me if it was okay that they parked so close. I told her, "Yes," but only because if they didn't, the nose of their MH would have been in the entry drive. They are from Switzerland. I don't know how good their English is.

Looking out our back window.

 Here are a couple of bird photos from our 5er window.

Common grackle.

Female cardinal with nut in her mouth.

Let's call it a day shall we. Have safe travels.

Travel Bug out. 

Go Fly a Kite! -- Sun., Mar. 3

Color My World (Lyrics by Chicago) or maybe I should say, "Will it fly high like a bird up in the sky?" (Lyrics by Billy Preston). I'm referring to the 85th Annual Kite Festival in Austin, Texas.

Jim and Peri invited us to go with them. The conditions were perfect. The skies were a light sapphire blue and a nice breeze was blowing to make the kites soar.

The Kite Festival is very popular in Austin as you will see in the following photos. We parked about a mile away from Zilker Park and walked over. The nearer we got, the more kites we could see. We entered a world of color, crowds and commotion.

Dragon kite.

Kites and people were everywhere. We were constantly scanning the ground for kite lines, watching our heads to make sure a kite wasn't coming down on top of us, keeping a watch on lines at neck level as people tried to start the kite flight. I would guess thousands of people were there today.

All the little dots in the sky are kites.

Butterfly and panda kites.

Pirate ship kite.

Father of the little boy.

Son learning how to fly a kite with the help of his father.

 

Another pirate kite.

If you're not into kites, then maybe hula hoops?

Wow! Four hula hoops at once.

People watching is always interesting. What are the young folks wearing now? LOL.

Then back to kite watching.

Jim, Bob, Peri

These are the big kites!

Bob's like, "Oh, c'mon, really?"

Watch out for the Red Baron!

Austin skyline from Zilker Park. Crowds and...

More crowds.

Flying fire truck.

Lots and lots of people!

Jim capturing the festival.

The following photo is deceptive. I took it because the guy is flying a little tiny kite (about the size of your hand) with a fishing pole. The kite looks like it's very high in the sky when, in reality, it's about ten feet from the end of his fishing pole. His kite is the red and black one at the top of the photo.

After spending an hour in the park, we headed to lunch at Chuy's Fine Tex-Mex. Bob had been to Chuy's in San Antonio, but I hadn't eaten at one until today. It was very good. The decor was fun with some Elvis posters and rock 'n' roll memorabilia.

One mean-looking parrot.

I tried a Southwestern Enchilada that was made with blue corn tortillas, hand-pulled chicken, cheese, green chile sauce (spicy!) and a fried egg. The dish came with rice, a salad and refried beans.

Southwestern Enchilada.

Bob's lunch--I think it's the Deluxe Chicken Enchilada.

All of us enjoyed our food and cleaned our plates. Well, I had a little help with mine because it was a lot.

We walked the mile and a half back to where the car was parked. As you can see people are still pouring into and out of the park.

We had planned on a 10K Volksmarch, but since we had already done 5K just walking on our own, we did a 5K Volksmarch instead. It seemed like a very short walk after all the 10K walks we've been doing. We chose the Lady Bird Lake walk because it had a 5K option. Bob and I had done the 10K walk two weeks ago, but we like the walk so we did the short version of it.

Bob and Susan with Austin skyline. (Photo by Jim D.)

Red bud tree.

Kite flying crashing in a less-crowded park.

These purple flowers feel just like velvet.

Salvia leucantha

Stevie Ray Vaughan statue by Lady Bird Lake.

Greater scaups.

The ghost bike has been decorated!

Austin, Texas -- state capitol dome.

State Capitol in Austin, Texas.

We drove by this sculpture.

After our Volksmarch, Jim drove us around downtown Austin. Bob and I were able to take the three photos above from the car window. We had fun exploring Austin and spending time with Peri and Jim. On the way back to Peri and Jim's 5er, a Dairy Queen jumped in our path and we had to stop for Blizzards. Just couldn't get around it.

When we made it back to the 5er, we played a number of games of Sequence. Peri and Susan had quite the winning streak. Toward the end of the evening, Bob and Jim won three games in a row so they didn't get skunked.

Sometime during the week Peri and I plan to do the New Braunfels Volksmarch. That's it. Enjoy your Monday wherever you may be.

Susan & Bob