Miscellaneous stuff...

I was looking through some of my older blog posts last night which made me realize that I haven't been posting nearly as often lately. I used to take my camera with me all the time and would take pictures wherever I went. I just don't do that anymore...maybe because I've become somewhat bored with the area where I am and don't think there's anything to take pictures of that I haven't already taken. A few weeks ago, I DID take my camera along when I went down to New Braunfels to have lunch with my son. When I got back home, I looked at the photos I took while I was there and thought, "boring," so I never posted them. I looked at them again last night, and decided to post them anyway, so here they are.

A couple pictures of the Guadalupe River...one of the prettier areas of Texas Hill Country...

I was experimenting with different settings on the camera on this one trying to get a softer effect on the waterfall, but couldn't figure it out. I'll have to work on that one...

I had to stop and wait for a train and took this one across the street. For being so scraggly looking, these cacti sure have beautiful flowers. This one is going to be incredible when all those buds open up. I'll have to swing by there when they start to bloom.

Unless I'm in a hurry, I never mind watching trains go by. I think there is a real art to graffiti, although some of it is hard to read. I wonder if there is a graffiti school somewhere...I would like to take a class.



So, Jonathan and I had lunch at Schobels...a German restaurant in New Braunfels that opened about a year or so ago. Really nice building...

Nice bar area...

Great fireplace, but it would look nicer if they had a fire going. When the outside temp is over 100 degrees, though, I guess I can understand why they don't.

Here's the main dining room. Uh-oh...I see lots of old people. Even though I'm an "old person" myself, I always worry a little when I see that the majority of a restaurant's customers are of the elderly persuasion.

Buffet...

Liver and onions (that is definitely an old people thing...yuck)...

Here's the menu. Kind of on the pricey side if you ask me. While I was doing this post, I checked online for reviews and a LOT of them were not good. Bad service and bland food.

Here's what I had...a chicken salad sandwich. I love chicken salad sandwiches...but not this one. Look closely...what do you see?

That's right...MUSTARD!! WTF is up with that?? Who on God's green earth puts mustard in chicken salad?? I ate half of it, but I'd certainly never order it again. The fries were pretty good, though. Jonathan had a caesar salad which was average. Would I go back? Only if someone else was paying for it. Haha!

So, while I was in New Braunfels, I decided to run by the old homestead and see what they had done to my "yard from hell." Remember how it looked when I moved in six years ago?

And what it looked like when I sold it a year ago?

Here's what it looks like today. Kind of boring if you ask me...

And remember when I did the post on Bad Times in Texas? This is a picture I took in February of 2009 of a nearby shopping center they had built I think sometime around the Summer of 2008 that was still vacant.

This is it a few weeks ago. Only one business has moved in. I guess times are still not so good in Texas.

And kids are still using the sign for target practice.

So there you go. Another fascinating post from South Texas. I need to go somewhere exciting.

A quick weekend project...

I decided to tackle a stained glass project this weekend...pretty much because I was just bored. I found a pattern on-line and tried it out...

It has been awhile since I worked with stained glass, so I had forgotten how dangerous this craft is. This is when I was doing some glass cutting and a piece dropped onto my ankle. I was concentrating on what I was doing that I didn't notice that the blood was pooling into my flip flop. (Way too much information, I know.)

I made a lot of use of these things over the past two days and have about five cuts on my fingers. I'm guessing that if you do this on a regular basis, your fingers develop callouses.

Glass cuts like these are a lot of fun. (Not.) You start out with the most difficult cut first so that if you screw up, you haven't wasted time with the easier cuts.

Then you have to put foil around every single piece which enables you to solder everything.

Here's what it looked like on the table...

And when I put it in the window...

And a long-distance shot in the room. I'm so-so on how it turned out. I wanted a less yellow look on top but didn't have much of a selection at Hobby Lobby, so you take what you get.

This one is still my favorite...but probably because it has more meaning for me...

Last post on Colorado...

On the last full day we were in Colorado, we drove down to the Garden of the Gods. I've been through much of Colorado before, but have never seen this part. It's a very small area where these red rocks sit alone on the edge of the Rockies. It doesn't cost anything to see, so it was worth a trip. I liked how the dark red contrasted against the blue sky.

See the teeny-tiny rock climbers?

Here's a closer shot. As we were passing by, the guy at the top yelled down to his belayer on the bottom, "How do you tie this knot again???" Hmmm...not a good question to be asking when you're at the top. Haha!

So our last night on Pearl Street was interesting as usual. More musicians...

We ate at restaurant that had a great view of the activities. These guys were very entertaining and were really getting into their music. They were fun to watch.

They had some very interesting characters on Pearl Street. This was one of them. I tried to take the picture as discreetly as possible through the railing that surrounded the restaurant, but he still saw me and had to mutter a few expletives as he walked by. Oh, well...I'm just a stupid tourist taking pictures.

Then a gal put up this sign. Hmmm...things might get even more interesting...

She didn't have to wait long for customers. "Come into my parlor said the spider to the fly..." was the first thing that came to my mind, as these guys were in that chair a lot longer than one minute.

And does this seem a bit awkward to be doing this on a public street?

She was really getting into it and used her elbows a lot...which doesn't seem like a normal massage routine, but I could be wrong. I've only had a few massages, but I don't recall elbows ever being used.

I'll also have to say that in the hour and a half that we were sitting there, not a single female took her up on the one dollar offer. Go figure.

That's it from Colorado. Don't know where the next adventure will be from...stay tuned.

Missing Mexico...

I was missing Mexico the other day, so I was looking through some of the photos I took on my December trip. This is when I started out at Playa del Carmen and took the bus to Valladolid, then ended up on Isla Mujeres. I decided that some of them looked more interesting in black and white.











One of my favorite shots of a group of kids sitting in front of La Bruja...











But some of them definitely looked better in color...





Hmmm...wonder when the next trip is going to be?