Down in Birdland - Sat., Nov. 30

Saturday Bob and I were up early to go our separate ways: he was off to play basketball and I headed back to Mitchell Lake Wetlands Audubon Center to do a 5K (3.1 mi.) walk. Bob had a great time playing basketball and spent a long time at the gym.

I took 1-1/2 hours to do 3.1 miles, stopping to look at birds and taking my time in nature on a beautiful Saturday morning.

White-crowned sparrow.

Pink skullcap (Scutellaria frutescens)

Bird Pond at Mitchell Lake Wetlands

American kestrel

Western meadowlarks

No more hide and seek looking for Northern cardinals in the underbrush. Naked fall trees make cardinal spotting easy!!

Northern cardinal.

East polder at Mitchell Lake Audubon Wetlands.

Spotted sandpiper.

Eastern meadowlark.

Northern shrike

How many Northern shovelers do you see?

Can you identify this hidden bird? Click to enlarge.

Eastern meadowlark

After I finished walking, I headed home to shower before going to see "The Book Thief" with the San Antonio Movie Lovers meetup club. Bob joined me at the theater after he finished playing basketball. The Palladium theaters at The Rim shopping center are quite luxurious. A cafe is located in the lobby and if you're in need of a bar, you can find that in this theater too.

"The Book Thief" takes place in Nazi Germany during WW II. Narration of the story is provided by Death. When the movie starts it takes a minute to figure out who's telling the story. We follow a young family - mother, son and daughter, Lisle - who are walking across Germany. The son falls ill, dies and is buried along the way.

Lisle is given up for adoption and sent to live in a city where she makes friends with a neighbor boy. When they go to school, it is soon apparent that Lisle cannot read or write. One of the kids bullies her and she beats him up on the playground. This earns her a certain status amongst the other kids, but the boy she beat up never forgets what she did to him.

Her adoptive father (played by Geoffrey Rush) confesses to her that he is not a good reader and suggests they learn to read together. She becomes enthralled by the books she reads.

When the Nazis start persecuting and beating Jews, kicking them out of their businesses and homes, her adoptive parents take in a young Jewish man, Max, and hide him in their basement. Soon the air raid sirens go off and all the townspeople must go into shelters. Max cannot go into the shelter so he is left in the basement. Max becomes quite ill from spending all his time in the cold, wet basement.

Lisle "borrows" books from one of the prominent families in town. She spends her days in the basement reading to Max.  As time goes on Max's health improves and he realizes he is putting the family in danger. He makes the decision to leave their home and take his chances.

You can see the light bulb go off in Lisle's thinking. She's a smart girl who understands what's going on. She knew how it felt to be bullied in school and she saw how the Nazis bullied the Jews in their town. Compassion was in her eyes as she watched her adoptive father get struck down by Nazis when he tried to help Jewish townspeople who were being evicted from their homes. 

The movie was very enjoyable. Even though it is another tale of the hardships of WW II, the personal-ness of the impacts on the two major families in the story is well told. I loved the focus on reading and writing and how people helped each other. 4-1/2 out of 5 stars.

Travel Bug out.

Hunkering Down - Sun., Nov. 24

Going to Austin today did not sound like fun. Weather service forecast was for 42 degrees, 80% chance of rain, and wind gusts to 20 mph. Throughout the day, the temperature was supposed to drop, not go up. By 3:00 p.m. the rain had a chance to turn to sleet. With Austin being 1-1/2 hours north of San Antonio, it could have been a dangerous drive home. We opted not to go.

The other Susan and I will see how the weather looks for walking Monday. If we can, we plan to do the new Mission Reach Volksmarch in San Antonio.

Here's what hunkering down looks like:

Football, Bob with the remote, and snoozing kitties.

We took a break from hunkering down, braved the chill, and headed to Green Vegetarian Cuisine for dinner. On the way home, we drove a way we hadn't explored yet. We headed east on Grayson St. and ended up in Government Hill Historic District.

Government Hill's history is linked to the development of Ft. Sam Houston. The City of San Antonio donated 93 acres to the War Department in the 1870s. Construction of Ft. Sam Houston started in 1876. By 1918, the Fort had grown to 193 acres. Government Hill became home to over 12,000 people. Turn-of-the-century one- and two-story buildings on North New Braunfels Ave. served as the area's main street.

We wandered past The Lambermont, also known as the Terrell Castle. Bob was driving and didn't see it, so we drove around the block and went back to it. It was worth a few photos. There are no historic markers around this masterpiece so I Googled it when we got home.

This Romanesque Revival-style "castle" was built in 1894 for Edwin Terrell (lawyer and ambassador to Belgium during Benjamin Harrison's presidency) by San Antonio architect Alfred Giles. It was built to resemble the castles and chateaus of Belgium and France. The family lived in the home until Terrell died in 1910. It is now an event venue. Renting the space includes four guest rooms in the estate. From what I can tell, it is used quite frequently for weddings.

After we returned to the 5er, my equal-opportunity lap cats warmed me up for an hour.

Changing of the lap for 60 Minutes & Amazing Race.

So that's what hunkering down looks like in our fifth wheel.

Have a good week wherever you may be, and safe travels during Thanksgiving weekend.

Zip-A-Dee-Do-Dah'ing Around Texas - Wed., Nov. 20

So for my birthday Bob took me out to dinner last night at Saltgrass Steakhouse on the Riverwalk, a pre-birthday dinner. I had a rib eye steak, sweet potato, and salad; Bob had salmon, sweet potato and salad. For dessert, we shared a piece of pumpkin cheesecake. What a good birthday dinner!

Saltgrass Steakhouse

Today, my birthday present was a tank of gas and chauffeur (Bob) for a road trip around south Texas. My birthday card from Bob had a dog and cat on a couch. The dog is jumping up and down excitedly yelling, "ROAD TRIP!!" The cat replies, "We can't drive so quit saying that." Inside the card says, "Enjoy some adventure on your birthday." Bob took the afternoon off work and we headed east on I-10. Does Bob know me or what?

Our first stop was Palmetto State Park in Ottine, TX. We wanted to check out the park because we plan to do a weekend trip there. Our reconnaissance was to find the good campsites.

The park is primordial - swampy with dwarf palm trees, warnings of snakes, and lush undergrowth. My hiking feet wanted to hit the trails, but today wasn't about doing everything, it was more about seeing what the park had to offer.

Fall colors across from the park headquarters.

Oxbow Lake looks like a fun place to go in summer. They have rental kayaks, fishing boats, canoes, inner tubes, pedal boats and Hydro-bikes

Oxbow Lake

The park has a Volksmarch which must go on every trail in the park for a total of 6.2 miles. Can't wait to go on this walk!

The following photo struck our funny bones. It's a big enclosed tent. The sign in front says, "Tent here." It looked like there was a generator and heat pump for this tent.

Group picnic pavilion with kitchen

Swamp

More swamp.

San Marcos River with erosion showing from recent flooding.

From Palmetto State Park, our next town was Gonzales. We drove through the historic old town.

Gonzales' Courthouse.

First Baptist Church, established 1847

Sculpture in courtyard of First Baptist Church.

As we continued south toward Victoria,Texas, the next town we visited was Cuero, Texas. Another beautiful courthouse graced the town square.

Bob in front of Cuero Courthouse

Such distinctive architecture.

I loved this little door tucked away beside a large entrance.

Farther south, Victoria showed off her stuff. Lots of history in Victoria. We drove part of the historic route past large mansions and humble smaller homes all part of the original historic district in Victoria.

Victoria Courthouse

Downtown Victoria, Texas

Victoria, Texas

What we learned from this quick tour of south central Texas is that we need to come back and spend a lot more time walking through and reading the history of each of these places. Also, I really want to go to the Victoria Zoo.

As we drove into the sunset, I was able to catch this lovely photo through the windshield.

Thank you, Bob, for a wonderful birthday celebration. You are right, we do love to travel! It was good to be on the road again, if only for an afternoon. Good job planning just the right birthday. Woo hoo.

Walk and a Movie - Mon., Nov. 18

No wasted time today! I got up, ate breakfast and headed out the door to Mitchell Lake Audubon Wetlands for a 3.1 mile walk. The temperature was in the mid-70s when I started walking and a cool breeze stayed with me the whole walk; a far cry from yesterday's blazing temp and humidity.

The reason I love walking at the Audubon wetlands is that every day I see something new. Today I saw a few birds I hadn't seen before and I will try to identify them. More turtles than usual were on the paths too.

Here, then, are the highlights of today's walk:

Northern shrike

Vesper sparrow, I think.

American kestrel, one of my favorites!

American kestrel showing his pretty coloring.

Olive-sided flycatcher

Black-tailed gnat-catcher.

Northern mockingbird

American white pelicans

Soloist

White pelican from below

Turtles "racing" across the path - the big turtle in back won.

White pelicans

May be a yellow-bellied flycatcher.

West polder.

Turkey vulture in flight.

White pelicans

West polder.

Some kind of nest.

If I were a bird, I would line my nest with this fluff.

Ruddy ducks.

Western meadowlark

Butterfly in sun.

Inner wing and outer wing are completely different.

Such a beautiful pattern.

As soon as I finished walking, I zipped back to the 5er, showered and headed over to pick up Sharon to go see "12 Years a Slave." We went to Regal Quarry Cinemas. Both of us liked the movie. You have to be ready for the intense nature of this movie. It pulls no punches (or should I say throws many punches) in showing slave owners at their most base. These are the slave owners who believed slaves were property and were no better than apes. Based on a true story, we learn of Solomon Northrup, a free man living a fine, respectable life in Sarasota, NY.

When his wife and kids leave on a three-week trip, he is approached by two men who have heard of his wonderful fiddle playing. They entice him to join them for two weeks in the circus to travel to Washington, D.C., and he will be paid a lot of money for his fiddle playing. The two men get him drunk and sell him into slavery.

From Washington, D.C., he is taken with other slaves to Georgia to work on cotton and sugar cane plantations. Life is torture on the plantations; no one wants an intelligent slave except his very first owner. However, his stay on the first plantation doesn't last long - he is sold to another plantation owner. Things go downhill quickly. It is a credit to him that he never loses hope of returning home to his family and his free man status.

The casting and acting are superb. I felt like I was complicit in the treatment of the slaves simply by virtue of being white. The movie is unsettling which I suspect follows the feelings in the book closely. While the movie is excellent, if you don't want to see nudity, rape, mental and physical abuse, hangings, or vicious whippings, then don't go. Because I am pretty sure this movie is true to what happened in that era, I give it five out of five stars.

Pam from Nomadic Newfies is our latest follower. I've been following her for months. She enjoys camping, hiking, photography and traveling. And she contributes to Mural Monday. Thanks for joining us, Pam.