It’s the next day, for real this time, and my body didn’t get the memo that I’m in a different time zone. I was awake again at 4:15 AM, at least I don’t hurt as much as I thought I would. I should have brought my new shoes instead of an older pair (I’m using them for hiking later, still need to replace my hiking boots after last summers issue.) And good news, Red Rock Canyon has a scenic drive loop with parking at the easy trails, so that’s today’s plan. I should even be back before Weather.com says hiking is bad.
Red Rock Canyon is beautiful and is designed to be driven with set parking locations and trails branching from them so you can get better views. I tried recording a video driving the route but my setup didn’t work. If I really want to record a drive I’m going to have to buy a dashboard camera. Here are some pictures. I only hiked one trail and it was short, 0.2 miles out and back.
Since I got back from Red Rock, I’ve just been relaxing. I baked a pizza while my laptop did some updates. I’m tempted to take a nap before heading out again.
Seriously, I think whoever designed Las Vegas and how the casinos connected worked for Elder Scrolls Online and learned the “you can’t get there from here” principle. The signage in the casinos is no help either. Now I do admit, once you figure out the system I think you can go from the north to south via casino lobbies and shopping areas. Now learning the pattern probably takes a life time π
Sherwood Bar
Well, I’m in The Excalibur drinking overpriced old fashion, but at least I’m not walking and in the sun anymore. My dinner and show starts in about 2 hours. I just signed up for the MGM Rewards and guess I’ll figure out how they work playing slots.
Gave slots a try.. didn’t go well. I saw people all around me with small wins, but I bust each spin. The odds are not in my favor.
I did watch a bit of black jack play and there was a lady killing it. Never changed her bet just kept winning and banking the win. Tempted me but the odds are not in my favor. So off to drown my sour in $6 draft beer. At least I have the show to look forward to. Before we chat about the show, I want to mention it’s worth looking for happy hours that are near the casinos. Was able to enjoy a few beers and even had a bartender originally from El Paso.
I’ve been seated for the king’s tournament.
The Tournament of the King was cool. Be prepared for indoor fireworks and the evil wizard has a flame staff.Β Wow you can feel the heat. But why did they only give me 4 baby potatoes? Seriously, half a chicken but only 4 baby potatoes?
The meal (I ate a potato)
After the show, I tried my chances at 2 for 1 blackjack table… OMG.. I only lost 1 hand. Risked $20 and walked away with $70.. $50 profit. I so wanted to go back and keep trying; however, the King’s Mule kicked in and I couldn’t math… So walked, no ran away… π
Looking north from the Skybridge by the MGM
Every wonder where the MGM live happens well here it is
And no, it isn’t one way glass. These people are doing their job with us, average Joe public, watching them. How I know, one of them smiled at me when I asked out load if it was one way glass.
Off to bed now, well maybe going to take a bit to come off the winning high.
I started typing and taking photos on June 2nd while flying the first leg of my flights to Vegas. Leg one was to Houston. Leg one is almost always to Houston, sometimes Dallas speaks in but Houston is the main step one.
I normally fly Southwest and this trip is now different. I collect points during the year and spend them on flights. On this flight I booked business class and forgot you get a drink voucher, it’s still the morning, but it’s 5 O’clock somewhere and I can’t let the drink voucher go to waste.
This is an India Pale Ale brewed with spice. It’s not too bad. I’d ask for it again.
As we start the descent into Houston, I’m really enjoying the clouds out the window.
It’s so interesting how the clouds are gathered up into lines, at least from my view above them. The pattern may mean I Google why. So many things start with that question, “why?”. Don’t worry I’m not going to go all philosophical on you. I’ve only had one beer. π
Leg 2, as they say.. I wonder why it’s called that? (see what I did there? still need more beer to wax philosophical π)
So it’s now today and I’m going to check out things you can do in Las Vegas. There will be some shows, there will be museums and there may be a wee bit of gambling..
The only trouble is I’m awake at 4 AM and last night’s short drive around, I just don’t feel safe to walk around this early. I wasn’t nervous when I was in New York City, but that city is more pedestrian friendly. Once my watch charges I’m going to walk around the resort a bit. Should be closer to sunrise by then.
View from my room’s patio at 4 AM
Ok, my opinion of Vegas has changed with the rise of the sun. First, there is no traffic, and second I’m not the only tourist up at the crack of dawn and taking a walk down the Vegas Strip. I even saw people jogging, so my plan to walk/jog a 5K is back on for Thursday or Friday morning. Oh, it’s also in the 70s in the morning not the 90s like in the afternoon.
On my way back to the resort I found a shopping / restaurant area between casinos. One other thing.. these casinos run blocks. Cesar’s is at least 2 blocks long. Makes it hard to find cut streets to get you around like in normal cities.
The view at 8 AM. Look at those mountains in the background π₯°
The Sphere watching over Vegas.
Today’s adventure is either starting at the Natural History Museum or the Van Gogh exhibit that I’ve tried to see twice in Texas. I’ll probably do both but not sure which will be first at least both are in doors.
Only ended up going to the Natural History Museum. It had some good exhibits for kids. I personally enjoyed the recreation of King Tutames Tomb.
I was hungry after and headed back to the Strip to try one of Gordon Ramsey’s places. It was a take away fish eatery and I wanted a sit down place, so off to Virgil’s BBQ only a few doors down.
They have a really good pulled pork sandwich.
My phone had been sending warnings about rain and I like last night it would just pass by. That was not the case so another round of beer.
If you are going to get caught in the rain, a bar is a pretty good spot to wait it out, and it’s happy hour. π
My only plan for the day is to see Cirque du Soleil – KA (Trailer ) at 6 PM, it’s 3:40 PM at the moment so plenty of time.
Had a walk through a few casinos, saw a poker tournament and a movie scene being filmed. It looked like Elle Flanning.
Elle Flanning?
I may just have to play one round of Blackjack at a $5 table. I’m such a big spender π.
The show starts soon back when it’s over. Here are the only pictures I’m taking; going to enjoy the moment.
That was an amazing show… The secret supporting actor was the person controlling the stage floors, they moved… At times the performers were jumping and swing around on a vertical stage. It even had a story, but it was a bit hard to follow because there were 2 heroes that went on separate hero journeys in magical realms. Everything concluded with an epic battle, on a vertical stage between our heroes and the main villain. In the end, the heroes won, the world was made right and we we got to see a dancing crab, turtle and starfish. (You have to see the show to understand.)
At the end of the day, well what I’m calling the end I walked 13.1 miles and earned an award from my Garmin fitness tracker.
Now, I’m tired but not ready to go to bed. I’m pretty sure something is going to hurt in the morning. If things go to plan, I’ll have an early start for a hike in Red Rock Canyon and be back to the resort before 1 PM.
I’ll close with some more pictures of the Las Vegas strip.
I’m currently sitting in the airport lobby waiting for the ticket agent to go on shift. Seems Southwest Airlines or maybe some new TSA rule doesn’t allow you to check in 2 hours before your flight and the airport I’m flying out of is too small to have multiple flights back to back. I learned about the 4 hour rule when I traveled to Utah ( https://maethar.com/2023/06/27/utah-final-day/ ) but this 2 hour thing is new to me.
Now that I got checked in, I asked the ticket agent and found out it’s a local airport policy. The annoying thing is the kiosk self-checks are also turned of π€·. Oh well, got my boarding passes and drink vouchers π… I’m off to my adventure. Check back tomorrow for details of where I am and what I’ve done so far.
Let’s start by saying I’m glad I brought a light jacket because it was cold this morning around 7 AM when I went for a short walk for some Pokemon Go and to feel like I was trying to be healthy on my break. I think it was in the upper 40s as the sun rose and my fingers felt it. All a good reason to charge off to a big breakfast.
My eatery of choice was, Granny D’s. Just 5 or so miles up / down the road from my lodgings. It is a quaint little dinner that is open only for breakfast and dinner most days of the week. Since this is Tuesday, they were open for breakfast. Walking into the dinner I notice 2 different handwritten notes on the doors. One was extremely helpful, this door is broken walk around to the other side and use that one and the second note related to the current egg crises, we will sadly be having to add a surge charge to the cost of all menu items that include eggs. I can completely understand, last time I check egg prices had come down to $6 a dozen but that is still double the normal cost before the whole bird flu supply chain issues.
I chose to have the Big Damn Biscuit and a cup of coffee. I hear you ask, what is the Big Damn Biscuit meal? Well here is a picture of it.
From the menu it was listed as a big biscuit, covered with 2 chicken strips, sausage gravy and an egg. I’m not sure what you thought when you saw the picture, but I was like… wow! I’m glad I’m seriously hungry from my extra, chilly walk this morning. With coffee, tip and the egg surge charge my bill came to just under $20. Before you go all crazy and blame the egg surge charge, which was only $1, the coffee was like $2.99 and the meal itself was $10.95. With bill paid and tummy full, I headed back to prepare for my trip to Wimberly.
The Return to Wimberly
Look I used a subtitle. Not sure I like it or not, but I’m going to go with it for the rest of this post. π
One thing I was concerned about was the number of stores that would be closed. I remembered from last year, that if you wanted to shop all the shops you need to be there on Thursday’s thru Saturday’s. For some reason, Monday’s and Tuesday’s don’t get the same type of love. And yes, I know, it is probably based on economic issues like costs versus profits, blah, blah, blah. I just want the world to work on my terms. Just kidding, well mostly.
To be honest, the shops I wanted to visit were open so I’ve no reason to be whining. It seems the popcorn shop has changed names.
The ordering is still the same, and you can have samples of before you purchase. I went with 2 savory and 1 sweet option, cheddar, jalapeno and sea salt caramel which I purchased in the medium size and not the small size like the others. Sorry no pictures of the popcorn, they are mine and mine alone, I will not even share an image of the bags. π
The second shop I wanted to visit was the, Kiss the Cook. If you had a cooking item you needed, I’m pretty sure you could find it here in this store. They have high quality knives, like ones that will stay sharp for years, good, heavy metal pots and pans, and a variety of baking molds if you wanted to bake a cake that came out of the oven with a personality. While all of those items were tempting, I already have too many similar things in my cabinets that I don’t use as often as I originally intended when they were first purchased. I did purchase a new hot sauce, an adult beverage mixer, and a mix to make scones. I did take a few pictures in the store of some items I found amusing. I hope you enjoy them too.
I wandered into a variety of other stores actively looking to buy things. I checked out a plant shop that sold a variety of cactus and other succulents. They even had Venus fly traps and a variety of carnivorous plants which almost had me but I don’t know how to take care of them and didn’t want to take the time to learn, so on to the next store a candle shop.
I bought a candle from this shop last year, and I didn’t enjoy it; however, my candle addiction is now under control but I still have dozens of used and half used glass candle jars on and in my cabinets. The sales girl had a great suggestions, and it seems to have been a plan from the beginning. When you have used up the candle heat it up so you can get the last of the wax out, clean it real well and turn it into a whisky glass. Absolutely genius idea!! I may or may not be doing that when I get home. Oh, I did purchase some incense which takes up a lot less room and is easier to clean up after it has burned to ash.
I think its time for me to mention all the boots. I think I talked about them last year, maybe I even took pictures, on the off chance I didn’t here are some pictures.
At some point in Wimberly’s history they decided to have artist create cowboy boots to place along the sidewalks and in front of the stores. Which fits perfectly with Wimberly’s artistic vibe, by which I mean there plenty of artist stores selling paintings, stain glass, jewelry and other items crafted by a local talent. Don’t get me wrong, there are still shops selling items made in China, but you can just skip past those stores.
So it is now lunch time and I’m trying to decide what to eat and where to go next. It is too early to head back to the room, but I’ve exhausted all the shops and lost the urge to buy things, well mostly, I do plan on hitting the candy shop as I head back to my truck. I bought a chocolate bar and some hard candy. The chocolate is almost gone, just enough for 1 more bit tomorrow. Oh, lunch…. it was a chicken salad wrap made with BBQ chicken. It was pretty tasty.
With lunch done and the candy shop raided it was time to move to the next destination…
Blanco, Texas and the Buggy Barn Museum
Yeah, you read that subtitle correctly, I said The Buggy Barn Museum in Blanco, Texas. I know what you are thinking, that is a strange niche historical category to want to visit, but I guess I’ve read this far let’s just keep going maybe I will learn something.
But seriously, The Buggy Barn Museum was not my reason for visiting Blanco, Texas. I did end up going to The Buggy Barn Museum and I will share my experience in a moment, but my visit to the museum was a chance encounter with the owner while he was also visiting the Milam & Greene Distillery next door.
If you’ve read a few of my posts, you’ve seen the Old Fashions, and Manhattans in other posts. I like a good bourbon and Milam & Greene makes some of the best. While not everything is distilled at their location, it is aged in the barrel warehouses on property. Their rye whiskey is my favorite. Ok, I need to move on to the Buggy museum or I’m going to open up one of the whiskey bottles sitting on the floor of my room.
So The Buggy Barn Museum….
It looks like an old western town, and in fact the owner rents the property for movie and TV studios to film. Here is a quick blurb from their website:
“We have had numerous music videos filmed here including: “Gringo” by Shatta Wale, “Ride or Die”-Read Dead Redemption 2 by JT Music, an Arthur Brown music video, and a lady from Sweden film some of her music video with us.”
This site houses the 2nd largest collection of historical horse drawn buggys in the United States and the 3rd largest in the world, according to the guide on site. I knew I should have written her name down, but make sure you find her when you are take the tour. She has personally research the history of many of the buggys and can trace some of them back to the person how built them. A variety of them have also been rented to Hollywood Studios for movies, such as True Grit and Abraham Lincoln Vampire Hunter. The barn holding the buggys is packed full.
Here is the first example of tailgating, and it had it’s own bathroom.
These boxes are insulated to keep food cold.This seat lifts to reveal a hole in the floor of the cabin
That’s enough about buggys. I do suggest stopping by if you are in Blanco, Texas. Reward yourself with a flight of whiskys from Milam & Greene. π
Until tomorrow’s finally full day adventure… Goodnight, or Good morning or even Good day depending on when you read this post.
Today, was mainly about driving to Canyon Lake, Texas. I am happy to say that the drive was uneventful and I was able to get through a good portion of Dr. AJ’s book on “The Short Stories of Jesus“.
I arrived at my resort, Holiday Inn Club Vacation, Canyon Lake and this time I learned to use my points to get the fancier room, Presidential 2 Bedroom Villa.
I grabbed a burger and onion rings at Canyon City Grill. If you want a burger and some good onion rings, make sure you stop there.
Tomorrow I’m planning on revisiting Wimberly, Texas and visiting as many Wineries that happen to be open and nearby, on a Tuesday.
Sorry this is so short, but not much really happened.
The final day in New Orleans has arrived. I had plans to get tickets for the river boat tour but all the ones being offered included a buffet lunch and I really didn’t want to eat a buffet. So if I return, I will have to remember to book a tour earlier and probably not travel on a major holiday; however, if I had planned better there was an option to take a tour on Christmas Eve the night that the city lights a bunch of bonfires along the levels to help Santa find his way on Christmas.
This morning the day started with fog.
I had been doing on the days before I made a loop around the French Quarter and worked my way back to Canal Street. I stopped at French Truck Company for a coffee and a chocolate croissant. I also needed to use the bathroom and many of the places have a code to the bathroom. I could have bought a cup of water for $1, but I hadn’t have breakfast so why not eat a croissant.
It was still too early in the morning for any stores or many places to be open, most open at 10 AM. So I went back to my hotel room, finished my coffee and typed up my Christmas Day blog.
I left the hotel with a goal to buy a new bracelet and a new ring. I was able to find both, but not at the same place. I’m pretty sure I paid too much for the ring, but it is very hard to find rings that fit my fingers, so I am happy.
I think you can probably guess what will drive the narrative next, it’s lunch time. I tried the Trio Sampler or whatever it was called at Monty’s on the Corner. The meal didn’t disappoint and I got to sample a variety of New Orlean’s cuisine.
After lunch I signed up for a free Tour of The Sazerac House, which is basically a sales pitch for Buffalo Trace and Sazerac Rye Whiskey. You do learn the history of the cities cocktail, The Sazerac and how bartenders changed the recipe from Sazerac Cognac to bourbon and created a unique bitters to New Orleans.
The fog never really cleared out of the city all day. Here are some final pictures from the roof top pool of the hotel I’m staying.
And so ends my trips. The only thing left if for me to drive home. Until the next adventure.
Christmas day is finally here and the next Doctor Who Christmas Special will be airing later today on Disney+ so I will need to be back in the hotel room by 11 AM to watch before all the YouTubers and bloggers post their reviews and spoil the show. But enough of my nerdiness on to the morning adventure.
So I started the morning off with a 1 mile run, followed by a 1.25 mile walk. I planned on running the full distance but decided relax, knowing I was going to still walk a bunch later in the day. You know after the Doctor Who show.
An advantage to being up before 8 AM Christmas Day, is there is little to no traffic, so you can stand in the middle of an intersection and take pictures. This is the view from corner of Dumaine and Chartres
Looking Down Dumaine
Looking Up Chartres
Looking Up Durmaine
Looking Down Chartres
Yes, I realize you can get a better view if you just use Google Street view, but my picture is from Christmas Day, 2024.
Not only did I need to make sure I was back in my hotel room by 11 AM for the Doctor Who show. I also needed to be inside before the rain storm predicted for mid day reported for duty.
Mid Day Christmas Rain Storm
Once the rain storm pasted by the weather cleared up enough for me to go walking about again, but this time to look for a late lunch. But before that, here is a picture of my Christmas cookies, the green icing was a bit too thin, but I did better with the red.
Now, back to lunch… Which was 3 crabcakes on a bed of spinach with grilled tomatoes from The Original Pierre Maspero’s. I was surprised to as many restaurants as I did open on Christmas Day. The drink was called a Black Pearl which is made with Amador Bourbon, amaretto, soda, and sweet and sour mix.
I had to look up the drink recipe so I visited their webpage. They didn’t use stock pictures, but took pictures of the real wait staff and bartender. Just found that interesting. Oh, the crabcakes were pretty good. I’d give them a 8 out of 10. They can’t compare to the ones I had in Maryland back in October of 2023. As a sidenote, I’m going to need to reorganize my categories here on the blog. I’m thinking of adding years under the vacation category. I had trouble going back an looking up where I was in 2023 for the crabcakes.
Look at how the clouds are so low they cover the top few floors of these buildings. Just thought this was cool.
Going to call it an early day, I only walked half as far as yesterday, 5.5 miles and the drinks I had at restaurant followed by the mulled wine I made in my hotel room have made me very sleepy. Until tomorrow’s adventure – the last day in New Orleans.
I started the day off with an early morning walking hoping to get some good pictures of the sunrise over the Mississippi River. The morning was very clear, thus with our clouds the sunrise doesn’t have as many colors, but it was still very pretty.
Earlier PictureLater Picture
The pictures above were taken about 15 minutes apart, well maybe. I wasn’t really paying attention to time.
I think I took pictures of this “love lock” gate/fence thingy last time, but here it is again or possible for the first time.
Sorry this is so fuzzy
If you break up with your true love, do you have to come back and cut off your love-lock?
I continued my morning walk through Jackson Square and then down Bourbon Street. Bourbon Street is very different in the morning with all the bars closed and the cleaning crews out picking up the mess from the previous night. If I understood the news this morning, a new cleaning company was hired by the city to clean up the French Quarter and they started this week. However, they started at Canal street and were working their way down Bourbon street, I was walking up the other way so I finished my walk on cleaner streets. I did have the joy of seeing a dead rat, a live rat and some guy on a bicycle offered me marijuana at 7:30 AM. As the guy rode away he kept commenting that it’s legal here… I guess he was hoping I would change my mind. Here are some pictures from along my walk.
Sorry if you looked through the pictures hoping to see the dead rat. I did think about taking a picture but decided I would give the little animal some respect in its death. ππβ οΈ
After getting some breakfast, I headed back to Canal Street to get a street car heading toward the Art Museum and the City Park so I could visit the Botanical Gardens.
Street Car on the 48 Line
I had a nice morning walking around the Botanical Garden; however, it is quite small compared to other ones I’ve visited. It did have a children’s theme park section with playground equipment and mini rides. I didn’t go to that side of the garden.
Taking the street car back toward the French Quarter, I arrive sometime after 1:00 PM and realize breakfast was a few hours in the past, which explains why I was feeling hungry. Time to grab some sea food from Landry’s.
If you are near Landry’s in New Orleans, try their version of an Old Fashion. It was one of the best I’ve had, but it is based off peach flavorings instead of orange. You could easily have a few of them before you realized that last one was one too many. I wanted to get a beignet, but I hate waiting in long lines so I skipped Cafe Du Monde again and tried to get a beignet at Cafe Beignet; however, they closed at 2 PM because of it being Christmas Eve. So I settled for some ice cream.
Oh, I forgot to mention I did do a bit of shopping before the ice cream. I went to two Christmas themed stores looking for, well honestly, I don’t know what I was looking for which is probably why I didn’t buy anything. If I had wanted a statue of Santa or the Grinch I had a great choices to choose from. I was tempted to buy the animated Charlie Brown TV statue, but not so much that I wanted to spend $35. I did stop by a shop selling hot sauces and I dropped $45 on a few hot sauces and spice mixes.
This picture was take on Christmas Day, the day after my visit on Christmas Eve which is why it is closed.
I walked passed this store but the aroma coming out the door drew me back hence the spending of money.
With all this walking, my Garmin watch let me know I had walked double my 8000 daily step challenge for a total of 10 miles of walking around the Botanical Garden and the French Quarter. So with my ice cream purchased I headed back for an early day.
Last year I traveled to New Orleans the day after Christmas for a short trip. This year I decided why not celebrate Christmas in New Orleans. The advantage of revisiting a city is you can revisit the places you liked and look for different things to do.
I arrived in New Orleans around 4:30 PM and checked into my hotel, turning my truck over to the valet to not see it again until I leave on Friday morning. The drive getting here was very much like the previous year, so I won’t bore you, go look for it if you are new here. I can say the same annoying traffic jam on the bridge going over the Mississippi River in Baton Rouge happened. Back to the details I want to say about this trip.
After getting settled into my hotel room, so wish I had a good view out of my windows to show you, but I’m in the back corner on the 10th floor so I get to see the other back sides of the hotels around me and nothing of the city. So if I want to see the city, I’m going to have to go into it.
I was hungry and went to the Vampire Apothecary that I enjoyed last year to try another meal and desert. This time I tried their salmon sandwich, purple velvet cake. (The chocolate cake from last year was better.)
After dinner I walked around to try to find Christmas decorations and lights.
Tomorrow the plan is to see the Botanical Gardens.
I hope you enjoy this extra “non” vacation / vacation post. I guess technically I am on a vacation since I’m staying in a hotel, but it’s not one of my bigger adventures. This is the 3rd time I’ve run this 5K on South Padre Island, Texas. You can check out last year’s rambling here and the video I made from the 1st run is linked there. This race was different.
Well, the main difference was the weather, but that will be discussed later. To try and stay chronological let me start with dinner on Friday night. I know I ate at Gabriella’s last year but don’t remember if I ate there for the first race. But the past is the past and we are talking about the present err closer past… Well, I ate there again last night and had a wonderful meal. Ignoring the salad which was very lame, the wine and the main course was amazing. I tried the Pasta a La Tonno, which is basically pasta and tuna. But that doesn’t give this meal it due… There were sun-dried tomatoes in the sauce, along with mushrooms and the tuna was cooked medium rare just the way a tuna steak should be. Just check out the picture.
Pasta a La Tonno
I ate too much garlic bread so there wasn’t room for dessert in fact I didn’t even finish all of the linguine. I did eat all the sun-dried tomatoes.
Now to skip to Saturday, race day… oh before I make the jump… I wish I’d remembered there was going to be fireworks on Friday evening. I only realized when I was awakened when they started going off. Sadly, I was on the wrong side of the island so if I had wanted to see them it was going to be more difficulty than I wanted to deal with in my PJs. On to the race…
There wasn’t any rain! and it wasn’t cold! It was still windy as ___, err I’ll let you fill in the word you want. The one I’m thinking isn’t “acceptable”. Overall, the race was as enjoyable as any other race, that isn’t cold and rainy. My overall time wasn’t the best, but it wasn’t the worst. I am disappointed that my official time wasn’t recorded and I’m trying to contact the race coordinator on why. Based on my own timer, I was 10th place in my age division, taking about 44 minutes to run the 5 km or 3.1 miles.
After the race something strange happened, it seems I have a fan club of 2. I know, I was surprised too. After I finished the race, a young woman came up to congratulate me, I thought it was weird, but a fist-bump seemed appropriate, and I thought nothing more of it. About 10 minutes later as I was wondering to the team that had been passing out water for the runners, they were the girls that run the desk at my gym, the first young woman and another young woman found me and said, “you are the long beard guy”. Seems they’ve notice me at the last few races and decided to approach me at the end of this race. We exchanged first names, discussed the next races, the Turkey Trot and the Christmas series and then went to take pictures on the beach with our medals. It was very strange.
After the race I walked back to the hotel to take a shower and head off for waffles.
After breakfast I headed to the kite shop to buy another yard “spinner” for Christmas. Last year I bought Santa on a bicycle. This year I’m adding a reindeer on a bicycle. While there I had a conversation with the owners and another customer about the Texas Renaissance Faire. To summarize the conversation, if you don’t dress up you are the strange person at TRF. Supposedly, the guy that does the Texas Bucket List visited with his family and seemed to have a good time even if they didn’t dress up.
So, it wasn’t even noon yet and I was tempted to go back to my hotel room, but just couldn’t do it. The weather was too good, and I had to do more outside. So, it was off to the South Padre Island Birding and Nature Center. The last time I was here was a few years ago in July. The inside presentation has improved with the addition of a reptile room and the addition of tortoises outside. You can purchase food to feed the alligators and the tortoises; however, you can only feed the adolescent alligators.
There is/was whatever, a Birding Festival going on at the SPI Convention Center, so there were lots of “birder” out there with cameras and binoculars. They were not disappointed. Just look at the pictures I was about to take with my phone.
Breakfast was still sitting well in my belly and I had signed up for a lecture series by Dr. Bart Ehrman on the Book of Acts, so I head back to my hotel room to watch the last part of the live broadcast.
I tried to watch on my laptop, but I could not get a good enough connection to the hotel Wi-Fi so I gave up and used my phone, which I’m currently using as a hotspot to type this post, to listen/watch the Zoom sessions.
Since I was no longer tied to my laptop, I decided to take a walk to the jetties and listen the lectures. I ended up walking almost 3 miles.
oplus_0
I did see on Google, that there was a statue of Jesus (Jesus Christ of the Fisherman Statue) near the jetties, so I wanted to go see what that was all about and once I read the inscription on the monument the statue made more sense.
Statue of Jesus Christ of the Fisherman
This is a monument to all the fisherman that went to sea and didn’t come back. There are plaques along the base of the statue, and I wonder if those are some of the people that didn’t return.
I returned to my hotel for an early dinner or a late lunch depending on your point of view. I had drink vouchers to use. In the past I’ve eaten the fish tacos from the beach bar at the hotel, but decided I’d give the fried fish a try. It was good, but I’m not going to write praised about it. I finished my meal with the fancy pina colada in a pineapple.
Now that drink was good. Not sure it was $20 good, but it was very tasty, and I scraped the inside of the pineapple to get more pineapple.
I realized it’s only like 6 PM, but the sun had set, it was dark, and I was tired of walking, and after the pina colada I wasn’t going to be driving anywhere, so I headed back to my hotel room and started writing this blog.
Well, I hope you enjoyed my story. Tomorrow I will be grabbing a breakfast at a local restaurant and then heading back home to relax for the rest of my Sunday.
Crab Cake Eggs Benedict
I had to take one final walk along the beach after breakfast. The surf was still rough but there was less wind.
Look a baby crab.
Until the next adventure… which will most likely be Christmas. π π
Carl's Blog 
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