Morning has Broken - Sat., July 13

I was out of the 5er before the sun came up to do a Volksmarch in Universal City, Texas. Taco Cabana was the start point for this Randolph Roadrunner Club's sponsored event in the U.S. Volkssport headquarters town.

Another gentleman and I started out walking together at 6:45 a.m. and followed the start directions. We were half-way down the road when a red pickup truck pulled up directly in front of us. A man jumped out and said we were going the wrong way and he would give us a ride back to the corner where we were "supposed" to have turned. This completely bamboozled us because the directions were quite clear where we they wanted us to go. When he told us to go the way HE said, we skipped instructions 2-7 and were now at #8. Nonetheless, we went the direction he told us to go, only to see the road where we SHOULD have been connecting up in instruction #7 to the road we were on. I still can't figure out why he did that. He had about ten people very confused during the first light of day. (You're probably scratching your heads by now too!)

The rest of the walk went smoothly. I walked very fast and passed a number of people who had started before me. It was a pleasant walk, although quite warm and humid. We meandered back and forth through the neighborhoods.

Here are photos from the walk.

Purple martin houses.

Mural on an elementary school.

Another mural on the same school.

In the San Antonio area there are many run-off areas for heavy rainfall.

Universal City neighborhood.

Another neighborhood we walked in.

It's fitting that the AVA club we're walking with today is Randolph Roadrunners. I had to triple check that the bird on someone's roof truly was a roadrunner. First, roadrunners are usually on the ground and, second, I didn't expect to see one in the heart of a neighborhood, falsely assuming they liked being out in the desert or scrub. The roadrunner looked like it was just waking up. Kind of like I felt. (The wires in the background look pretty cool, like a musical staff.)

Rumpled feathers upon waking up.

Eyes not quite open yet.

Big ballet stretch.

The 10K (6.2 miles) walk took one hour and 35 minutes today. My best guess for the temperature at 8:20 a.m. was 88 degrees.

A couple of days ago, I watched another bird take a bath in the water puddle on our neighbor's slide out. Can anyone help me identify this bird? I looked in my Audubon Society Field Guide but didn't find it. Thank you, Betty, this is a Texas Blue jay.

Texas Blue jay

Texas Blue jay

Texas Blue jay.

When I got home, the cats wanted to play so I turned on the new SmartKitty HotPursuit toy. Bowie had a blast with it. He had already dragged the toy from the living room to the kitchen and rumpled the kitchen rugs with his skittering across the floor. Very exhuberant cat.

Then he collapsed into a deep sleep.

That's what I'm going to do now. I need a nap.

Travel Bug out.