Merry Christmas!
We have been living near Medina Lake for the last week. We are about 40 miles west of San Antonio. Of course with traffic and just a couple of days before Christmas, it took us over two hours travel time to drive into San Antonio. Big mistake on our part to go on 23 December, but we did get a lot of shopping done.
From the Medina Lake campground, we can no longer see the lake. It is so low that it just looks like a valley, but the campground is nice with tree covered sites and it is very quiet. We are also surrounded by hungry deer looking for a handout. Our neighbor decided to feed a couple of deer on his site. Deer came running out of the woods from all directions. Within minutes, he had at least 20 or more female does and fawns with one stag. The next morning, he still had quite a collection of deer waiting for him to come out and feed them.
The deer do not like our cats. Every time we take them outside for a walk, a doe will alert on them with stamping hooves and making their horsed bugling sound. They sound like someone who lost their voice while trying to yell. The cats seem to ignore the 'mad' deer and do their own thing. If the doe gets too close, we chase them off with a shout and a wave of our arms so they do not try and kick a cat.
The museum used to be a hotel with a ship's bow when you see it from across the street.
We have been living near Medina Lake for the last week. We are about 40 miles west of San Antonio. Of course with traffic and just a couple of days before Christmas, it took us over two hours travel time to drive into San Antonio. Big mistake on our part to go on 23 December, but we did get a lot of shopping done.
From the Medina Lake campground, we can no longer see the lake. It is so low that it just looks like a valley, but the campground is nice with tree covered sites and it is very quiet. We are also surrounded by hungry deer looking for a handout. Our neighbor decided to feed a couple of deer on his site. Deer came running out of the woods from all directions. Within minutes, he had at least 20 or more female does and fawns with one stag. The next morning, he still had quite a collection of deer waiting for him to come out and feed them.
We visited the German settled town of Fredericksburg last week to see their Christmas decorations and Trade Days nearby. We did not stay late for the lights. We stopped in a bakery for a snack and were entertained with carolers who stopped in.
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| Christmas Pyramid in the park. Fredericksburg, TX |
This is the Nimitz Museum with Admiral Charles Nimitz statue standing out front.
After walking up and down the main street enjoying the sights as well as the old well-maintained buildings, we drove to Trade Days a few miles away.
You can find all sorts of items at the Trade Days. Food, artwork, and lots of junk. You can probably refurnish a whole house with all the old items for sale. It's a good thing we are living in a motorhome with no room to spare for new items, because Sandy saw all sorts of items that she would have loved to bring home including an upcycled yard art sculpture that looked a lot like Shrek's Donkey!
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| Decked out for the holidays! |
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| Trade Days |
We know it has been a while since our last posting, so here's a quick catch up of what we have been doing since November. Our first stop was in Oklahoma to visit with our daughter and our granddaughters. We took the girls shopping for early Christmas gifts of clothing and shoes, and out to lunch while Misty was at work. We had a wonderful time getting to know our granddaughters again. As you can see, they are a close and happy family. We are very proud of all of them considering the many hard times they have had over the years.
After our wonderful visit with the Ladies, we headed south into Texas.
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| leaning tree - Bridgeport, TX |
We stayed a couple of weeks in Bridgeport before we moved on down the road to Whitney.
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| Site in Bridgeport, TX |
Whitney is not too far from Waco and Hillsboro.
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| Campground site in Whitney |
We could not have asked for a better location to spend a few weeks. Weather was great for November/December. We celebrated a quiet Thanksgiving by ourselves this year.
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| Blue skies, Fall colors |
The cats have been happy with all our latest locations. Trees to climb, lots of bushes to explore, not a lot of noisy neighbors (with diesel trucks) to scare them and best of all - lots of room to wander around. Even Max has been enjoying the outdoors and going outside more to explore with the others.
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| Max on the prowl |
We had lunch at the Cafe Homestead located on Heritage Homestead's 510 acres near Waco for Sandy's birthday. The cafe offers a fresh organic limited menu. The best part was the quiet atmosphere. No loud talking customers or music to talk over. After lunch, we walked around the grounds visiting the different craft buildings.
Heritage Homestead is a religious community living a simplistic lifestyle using basic hand tools to work and live off the land. No machinery is used. The farmland is plowed by horses. Sheep are hand sheared. Wool is hand carded. Everything is handmade...metal work, woodwork......weaving, spinning, sewing, quilts, pottery, soap, and so much more. They do have electricity, phones, and computers, and some motorized vehicles.
You can see some of their fine craft products on this link. They even have classes for anyone interested in learning the traditional ways. They also hold a fair twice a year to show visitors how they till the earth and make their crafts.
They also save old barns by restoring them to their original beauty. We talked to one woman about how the building we were standing in had been built in the 1800s in New Jersey and had been relocated to the Homestead by the community.
Below is a restored barn appropriately called The Barn filled with all kinds of wonderful handmade items. You can see some of their fine crafts here. You can see a little bit of the inside of the barn if you go to Gift Barn and click on more photos.
That should have everyone caught up with us for now. So, we will leave you with one more photo of Hillsboro's Courthouse.
If we don't post before the end of the year.....have a Happy New Year!
