Moonrise Retreat Day Two - Fishing

My cousin Laurie and her husband Daniel are two of my favorite people.  I have such happy memories of vacations to visit them just after they were married, with a new home built out in the country.  My brother and I romped around their land, rode their old horse Stonewall, stood statue still on the back porch so hummingbirds would feed right next to our heads, and climbed big piles of dirt and almost got bitten by a scorpion (actually just my brother did that one). They still own the land, and they offered to take the boys fishing on Monday night in their pond there.  I asked if they would mind if the boys rode with them in Daniel's giant Dooley pickup truck, because Joel had never ridden in a truck before.  It turned out great, because they got to know the boys.  And the boys LOVED Daniel.  He asked if they wanted to help him search for the cows so he could feed them and keep them away from the pond where we'd be fishing. I'd say those are two pretty happy faces in the pic above!

While the boys searched for the cows, Laurie checked on the goats, some of which had had babies recently.  Her faithful donkey, Jack, is seen up front and center.  

It was a beautiful night.  We didn't realize Daniel and the boys gave up trying to find the cows and started fishing.  We missed Joel catch his first fish EVER!  While the boys fished Laurie and I sipped wine out of paper cups and caught up with each others' lives.  At one point Laurie said that we had a visitor.  I turned around and saw an armadillo about 2 feet away from me!  It shyly ( or slyly!) ran off as soon as I spotted it.  The boys ran out of bait and gave up; no one caught anything except Joel's first fish that they threw back, some weeds off the bottom, and sometimes each others' lines.  But they still had a blast, and I'm grateful to Laurie and Daniel for taking time out to spend with us and get to know the boys.  

Sunset on the way back home

Tired boys

Moonrise Retreat, Day Two

Waking up in the Texas Hill Country is always a good thing.  Waking up with the view we had was miraculous.  The sheep were already baa-ing in the pasture right outside the back door, and the sweet outdoor kitty Dottie was curled up in one of the patio chairs just waiting for someone to come out with a cup of coffee and snuggle with her.  The sun was rising just over the horizon.  I feel those hills running through my blood and it's like coming home when I am there.

Our plan for Monday was to visit the National Museum of the Pacific War.  Admiral Chester Nimitz, who headed up the entire Pacific conflict after the bombing of Pearl Harbor, is from Fredericksburg.  I had always wanted to visit the old museum located in his parents' hotel on Main Street, which is still there but scaled down.  The tickets now get you into three places:  A big, new state of the art museum where the entire history leading up to the conflict is told and all the major battle strategies are outlined, the old hotel with its history of Nimitz's family and the hotel, and another facility that houses a restored PT boat, a torpedo bombing airplane and a beach bunker where battle reenactments are done several times throughout the year.  There is SO much to see that your tickets are good for three days, so you can leave and come back at your leisure.

We spent two hours at the big museum and were only a little over halfway through!  It was fascinating to Jav and I.  We never realized how far back the US/Japan conflict went.  We never realized the enormity of what happened at Pearl Harbor.  We never heard the strategy Nimitz used for all of the different battles.  The boys didn't really get into the details, but they liked the videos that were shown in each new phase of the war.  Even for thinking adults, there's only so much your brain can take at one time.  So we decided to walk to Main Street and have lunch, then go back to finish up.

We ate lunch at Wheeler's, where we had the nicest server that the boys loved right away.  I normally get a Reuben sandwich there, but decided to try beans and cornbread.  Perfect!  We promised to take the boys to Dooley's, the five and dime that's been there since before I was born, and let them pick out one thing to buy.  They have a new store a few doors down from Dooley's with the same kind of merchandise, it has an old feel with hardwood floors, but it's nicer and a little more expensive.  More like a dime and quarter store.  But it isn't the same.  I hope to high heaven they don't end up putting Dooley's out of business!

I love Dooley's.  I just like walking around and taking in the smell of those old hardwood floors.  Everywhere you look there is color and it makes me feel like a kid again.  My grandmother, mom and I used to go to Mott's Five and Dime quite a bit and the smell and look is exactly the same at Dooley's.  Joel picked out marbles and Gabriel got a fidget spinner (sigh, he had left his at home), and we got t-shirts for Cade and Macy.

After Dooley's we headed back to the Museum to take a look at the restored bomber and PT boat.  The videos were so interesting, especially the one with actual footage about life on an aircraft carrier.  I really feel the boys understood a little more about war, the sacrifices made by servicemen and women, how hard and scary to be away from home and facing unknown situations constantly.

We were pretty wiped out when we got back "home".  We ate a quiet dinner, watched a little Rangers and returned to our balcony to eat ice cream and look at the stars.  We also learned something interesting about tin roofs:  When a branch scrapes against them in a good Hill Country wind it's impossible to sleep!  We switched the A/C to Fan setting and that seemed to help.

Vacation 2017! Moonrise Retreat, Day One

Since I am turning 50 in August, Jav wanted me to decided where we were going to vacation this summer.  I picked a vacation in Fredericksburg.  Every time we have visited here, we have spent time with family and not really been tourists.  Except for the pre-Christmas trip we took with my brother's family 4 years ago, when we went into town to see the giant Christmas tree in the square.

I contacted my cousin who owns several bed and breakfasts in the area.  One of them is located on their farm, right next to the farmhouse.  I had visited them last year and fell in love with the land, the view and the B&B.  Our chosen dates were open and she gave us a great deal for the week.  It seemed our plans were falling into place.

We had some things in mind before we came:  Hike to the top of  Enchanted Rock, visit the National Museum of the Pacific War, another possible hike in a nearby State Park, dinner at our favorite restaurant The Altdorf, maybe visit the Old Tunnel where the bats come out to feast every night.  But Jav and I also wanted to relax, drink some good German beer and enjoy the view.

We left Fort Worth on Sunday morning, me with yet another stressful couple of weeks beforehand due to the health of my oldest cat.  Bones had lost weight recently, and the vet found him to have the beginnings of kidney problems.  He turned 19 this month.  Leaving him for a week was very hard for me.  But I knew he would get great care at the vet's office and tried to not worry about it.

Our Spelling Bee

We drove the back way to Austin, and visited the Bob Bullock State Texas Museum.  Jav had a fun time strolling down memory lane seeing the UT campus across the street from the museum.  They had a special exhibit on Stevie Ray Vaughn, Texas music legend.  His brother Jimmy Vaughn had donated tons of memorabilia for it.  There was a constant loop of his Austin City Limits performances playing on a big screen.  There was a guitar you could play while pressing various foot pedals to change the sound.  There was a drum kit on which you could learn a drum solo from his drummer.  It was very moving for all of us music nerds.  We ate a late lunch at Taco Cabana and the boys got a big kick out of watching the birds jockeying for position and scraps around our table outside.

We headed on to Fredericksburg in the late afternoon.  Google Maps is such a necessity in my life and didn't let us down trying to find the farm.  Even though my cousin and her husband were out visiting some family they left it open for us.  You can still do that in most parts of Fredericksburg! We explored our new home from top to bottom (the boys were SO excited it had two stories).  I didn't realize there was a full kitchen, so I made a grocery list and we went to stock up for breakfasts and lunches for the week.

My cousin returned and showed us around the farm.  They have 14 egg-laying hens, two horses named Jet and Beau (Beau is a retired race horse), a miniature horse named Moonshine, 5 sheep, 3 cats (sisters Goldie and Amber and Bed and Breakfast cat Dottie) and 1 dog, Gracie.  The farm sits atop a hill and has beautiful views all around of the hill country.  Everywhere you look are wildflowers, hummingbirds, hawks and other birds.  There are lots of places to sit on the back porch, and outside stairs leading to a 2nd story porch.  There's a hot tub and a fire pit for colder nights.  In other words, it's perfect.  After watching the fireflies in the twilight we settled in for dinner and later ate our ice cream upstairs to look at the stars.  We don't see stars like that in town, there are too many lights.

I told the boys about visiting my cousin and her husband's first house they had built in the country.  I was probably about 11 or 12.  They had just fogged the house for bugs and there were dead crickets and other bugs I had never seen before (they were mostly katydids) laying everywhere.  Then the nighttime calls of the katydids started, and I was full-on terrified to go to sleep.  I just knew they would all come attack me in the middle of the night and eat me!  So when Joel started saying he was scared from the darkness and all the bug noises and wanted to go back in, I could totally relate.   We are, at the end of day, total city people!

End of day one we were tired and happily went to bed, realizing that it didn't matter if we had plans or not.  It would be a great week just hanging around the farm.