Category Archives: Travel

Dream Homes in the King William District

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For my birthday this year, I was ever insistent on visiting our neighboring state, big brother to the east, Texas. I don’t know what it is about Texas, but it’s grabbed my heart and run away with it. Maybe it’s the sunshiny skies and the green green grass, the smiling faces, or maybe it’s because Texas is a whole other country. Those marketing campaigns really aren’t too far off the map. What other state in the lower 48 (other than Cali, but we won’t go there.) can you see the whole spectrum of sites, from mountains, plains, and shores?  I don’t know what the allure of this great state is, but I can’t seem to get enough of it.

My favorite area of Texas is the Hill Country, particularly the areas around San Antonio and Austin. I’ve had the awesome opportunity to visit around these areas a few times, and each time, I come away with something new from my adventures.When I visited San An a few years ago, I got to take a look around the King William District. If you aren’t familiar, it’s an area of town just south of downtown and about a mile from the infamous Alamo, full of beautiful Victorian homes. It was around Christmas time when I visited, the houses looked oh so cheery in their festive reds and greens. It’s probably not normal to enjoy looking at other peoples homes as much as I do, but considering these houses are in a historic district, I’d say it’s acceptable.

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I love a house with a good porch, but a house double porches? I might need a minute to compose myself.

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Oh my…look at the porch on that one.

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And here we are with only a one level porch, but isn’t it grand?

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And the houses with the oh so fine arches.

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Then the houses that have grand gardens with mazes.

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And weird babies holding flowers. At least he’s wearing a loin cloth. Still, for some reason I find this disturbing.

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And strange stone chairs and tables. I understand the concept, but what if you can’t reach the table and need to scoot the chair closer?? Or what if you’re too fluffy and need to scoot away? Maybe it’s just for pretties.

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Then you’ve got the houses that look like they should be on the English country side somewhere. Oh so European.

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Doesn’t this one look like Kate Winslet’s house from The Holiday? Behold…

Via HookedOnHouses.net

Psst…click the picture or the above link to find more information about the movie house.

Oh, and speaking of the King William District feeling a little like Europe, the San Antonio River flowed in a canal right behind of the gorgeous homes. Made me feel like I was visiting the canals in Venice. Actually, I’ve never been to Venice, but I like to pretend. And I thought this was a pretty sight.

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The architectural elements are oh so delectable, on old homes. It’s a shame that houses aren’t built like this anymore.

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It wasn’t all British accents and pretty homes though. Along the way, I picked up a tour guide. He wasn’t too forthcoming about histories on the homes we were touring, but he sure was cute.

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He led me to my most favoritest house of all…

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Someday, I will have a house with a wrap around porch, and another porch to grow on. Le sigh…

So, next time you find yourself in San Antonio, head down to the King William District.

For more information visit the King William Association website here.

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Downtown San Antonio

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Photos taken with great care, then edited, then forgotten for two years. That’s the story behind these shots and many, many others.

A couple years ago, Bubba and I went to visit San Antonio and Austin Texas. It was our second trip to southern Texas. Apparently we like to visit places twice just to make sure we like them. Anyways,  San Antonio was nice the first time around, the second time around the traffic got to us, and we didn’t stay in a very peaceful part of town, so that may have had something to do with the less than relaxing visit. Particularly the traffic on I-35 between San Antonio and Austin. I couldn’t imagine making that commute everyday. But we still enjoyed our trip and took a ridiculous amount of photos. As always…

We’ll start with one of my favorite spots in San Antonio, downtown.  I love the old buildings in downtown San An, there’s something special about the artistic touches put into architecture from days long gone….

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While in the area we got to visit the Texas State Capitol building, the missions on the mission trail, and lots of other touristy sites. Since it’s nearly been two years since our visit, I’ve forgotten a lot of the details. All the more reason to label photos better I suppose.  And maybe blog about them sooner.

Anywho…Happy Tuesday all!

Honey Bears and In-laws

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So, I’ve finally been going through the zillions of photos I’ve taken over the past several months and came across a trip Bubba and I took down south to Las  Cruces over the long President’s Day holiday. Yeah, I know it’s June, and these shots were taken waaaay back in Feburary, let’s just say I’m behind, and losing at the game of catch up.

Instead of getting all wordy like I always do I’ll let the pictures speak for themselves.

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Okay, I lied, I am going to get wordy, but only to explain the photos, because some of them really can’t speak for themselves. Well, they can but I’m a chronic interrupter. So anyways, that sandy stuff in the middle of this photo is the Rio Grande River.  And those mountains are the Organ Mountains, very pointy.

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Here’s another view of the Organ’s set in contrast to an alfalfa field.

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Here’s where we almost got married. From another view you don’t see the green houses, but instead see the surrounding gardens. The grounds are operated by the local college, and quite often you’ll see some pretty interesting plant life. One year they did an entire ornamental pepper garden. It was gorgeous!

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And here’s a giant rooster. Bubba wouldn’t let me bring him home. Maybe one day I will surprise him like the Bloggess (may contain four letter words, and I don’t mean words like “skinny jeans”) did for Victor.

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And here’s a bench made from a Ford tailgate. I couldn’t fit it into my trunk so it got left behind.

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And an old church, I love old churches.

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This one is in Old Mesilla, Basilica of San Albino, gorgeous church.

While we were in town we stopped by to visit my Bubba-in-laws.

grandpababy2Father-in-law with Bubba niece.

neiceyIsn’t she the cutest? I couldn’t get an un-blurry shot though, the little rascal moves like lightening.

momandbabyHere she is with her momma, enjoying some chocolate cake.

motherinlawSpeaking of momma’s, here’s Bubba’s mom.

After visiting with family it was time to head home and bail our brat girls out the kennel, which is actually considered a pet boutique. Yes, I’m that weird dog lover that can’t bear the thought of my beloved pooches spending any amount of time in a kennel. This place allows free range dogs, so the girls are part of herd while we are away. I think they like it…they come back exhausted as one usually does when away from home and ones favorite chair.

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Or ones most prized sunny spot near the fridge….

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Anyways, getting on with it…

helencorbittbrowniesSince the three day weekend fell around Valentine’s Day Bubba made my favorite brownies from my favorite cookbook by Helen Corbitt. The recipe can be found here.

As I munched on the most delectable of brownies and decided skinny jeans just weren’t in the cards for me I enjoyed gazing at the red tulips that Bubba surprised me with.

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And unloading all the sweet honey goodness I found while poking around a farmer’s market while visiting the southern part of the state.

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I couldn’t resist the teeny honey bears.

And now I’ve run out of pictures and words…how’s that for an eloquent ending?

On being Freshly Pressed

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Imagine my surprise when I went to log into my little blog, and saw a familiar photo on Freshly Pressed. At first I thought, how cool someone else has been sight seeing around my fair state. Wait, that’s my photo! It took me a few moments to realize that my quickly put together and not researched at all post about my visit to the Abo Ruins had been Freshly Pressed. I quickly logged into my blog to see what sort of action was going on. There were so many sweet comments and likes and even new followers!! I still can’t believe that my little blog was chosen to be Freshly Pressed out of all the other worthy blogs out there. All I can say is thank you WordPress people! Thank you for finding me amongst all the more worthy blogs out there with better pictures, better posts, better words (yeah, I know that’s not grammatically correct, but that’s how I roll!)

Once the shock of being Pressed wore off I started reading through all of the sweet comments left by the good people of blogland. You guys really are the best! I am so humbled that you would take precious time out of your day to read my post, press that like button, leave a comment or even follow me! I really want to give each and everyone of you an awkwardly long bear hug! (Aren’t you glad that isn’t possible?)

Anywho, I’m feeling a little like an actress clutching her brand new shiny award as the music plays to shoo her off the stage. So I’ll end this awkward post with another thank you, thank you times infinity! It is such an honor and so humbling that people other than my mom enjoy reading my ramblings. (Hi Mom!)

Oh, and just because I’m so darn proud (and maybe a little nutty,) I saved a screen shot!

Abo Ruins

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So, it’s been a while. How’ve you been? I’ve missed you, the people of blog land, and Mom, (hi Mom!). Things have been a hoppin’ around these parts, but I don’t feel like talking about it. Nothing bad, all good stuff has been going on, I just need to organize my thoughts and photos. Instead, I’ll just show you some pretty pictures from my birthday weekend trip. Yeah, I know it’s the beginning of June and my birthday was way back in April, but darn it, I took photos and edited them for you so I’m gonna share. Sit tight, relax, and enjoy this virtual sight seeing tour of Nowhere New Mexico.

Actually it wasn’t Nowhere NM, it’s the Abo Ruins just outside of Mountain Air. This was one of the most pleasant stops we hit up on our way down to Las Cruces. The weather was perfect, there weren’t any crowds, and it was free. Now, that’s something I can do an awkward happy dance for!

The ruins consisted of one large building with a few out buildings that were later built by ranchers in the late 1800’s.

I’ll give those little rattlers all the privacy they need, thankyouverymuch.

The main mission consisted of several large rooms, the main structure itself served as the center of the community.

Look at those stones that the structures are made of, can you believe they did all of this by hand? There were no crews of brawny Canadians that came out and made this right (enter Holmes on Homes joke here.)

Although this was a Catholic mission there are still remnants of the Native American culture and religion. Here’s a kiva as evidence.

I had to include this one, see that bottom sign with Caution man walking his dog? His posture reminds of my posture when going on an evening pull walk with Goldie dog.

I hope you enjoyed this little visit to Nowhere NM with me. I don’t know about you, but I  needed a little virtual vacation since there won’t be road trips  this weekend.  Bubba and I  have made plans to start a little remodeling project on the ol’ casa de yellow. We will be ripping out the old carpet in the living room and putting down vinyl plank flooring. Pray for us, hopefully there will be no gnashing of teeth.