Day 4...part 2

So a little over an hour later- we arrived in La Grange. We had several stops here- there was just one problem. Because we cut our vacation down a day - we ended up getting to La Grange the day before the museums that we wanted to check out would be open. But we had to at last stop and check them out. Because there was at least some parts of them that could be check out - even when museums were closed.

First stop: Texas Quilt Museum. As I mentioned earlier - it was closed but they have this awesome mural painted on the wall of the museum and a cute little garden to the side of the museum so we stopped and walked through it.

 

 I enjoy gardens, I seem to love them more and more the older I get.

I enjoy seeing the beauty of nature and it always amazes me what God's love

by all the wonderful things He created for our pleasure.

Next on our list was something that meant a lot to my husband to see. His Father had worked for MKT for many years and so when I had read about a Train Depot that they had in La Grange - it just had to be on our list of things to check out.

 

La Grange Railroad Museum

Click on the above to read more about this awesome Depot.

 As you can see there are railroad cars behind the train station. There were two of them.
We got lucky! A real blessing from God. There was a man there restoring the wooden train car- and he let us go into the side that he was working in. And if that wasn't cool enough- he had a key to the museum and he opened it up and let us look around. That is the reason we were able to get some cool photos of the inside as well!

 

 

After taking some time to eat lunch at a Mexican restaurant. We headed to Waco Texas next.

 

 

We went to Magnolia Market! For those of you who have seen the show - Fixer Upper - with Chip and Joanna Gaines know exactly what I am talking about here. This is their shop and property. It is more than just a store- I would suggest that you go to the link above to check it all out - you get a lot of awesome photos - and can see how cool this place really is.

 I was greatly inspired by these next four photos!

 

 Aren't they the cutest little things?! I loved them! And came home wanting to make my own!

Now the problem is that the galvanized bowl that they used to make these - sell at their shop for like $40.00 and to me, that is high. We have been looking and have not found anything that I want to use to make myself one of these - but we continue to look. Be watching for a post about my - not it is a gnome garden - because I found a kit for a gnome garden and loved it so much - you should see the little tiny bird bath that it has!! Anyway - that's another post.

This is what we bought while we were at the Magnolia Market. And to be honest - they are not very practical at all. I love the look of them - but if you try to use them - way TOO much salt/pepper come out - they needed 1/2 the amount of holes. Anyway I was disappointed for sure because I had really wanted to be able to use them.

 

And did you by any chance notice the blue sky in this photo - along with many of my other photos?
Well that big chance of rain that we saw before we left home for our vacation - well we only had to drive through 2 rain showers- one was a bit heavy and I had to slow down to about 40 miles an hour on a 70 mph zone - because I couldn't see good enough to go faster.

And then the one night that we got storms and hail. I think God in heaven that we were able to have a nice vacation with very little rain. It sure was an answer to prayer.

 

I hope you have enjoyed reading about our vacation. We had a nice time - but as always was happy when we finally made it home. We love being at home- we have believed that notion that I seen going around Facebook - create a life that you don't have to take a vacation to get away from. :O)  

Day 4 or/and Mooned Again....

So Wednesday morning we had a great breakfast. I was very happy with how nice this place was - I had been impressed with it the first time around - but after where we stayed at SPI - I was even more impressed. We packed up our things. But before we left Victoria we had one more stop.

We went to The Texas Zoo in Victoria Texas you can click and go to their website to find out more.

Anyway we had a nice time - even though 3 or 4 bus loads of children got there right before we did. We were able to get inside and head a direction a bit differently than they were going and have a nice visit to the zoo.

We walked into a building that houses their snakes and reptiles and were amazed at the fact that we could hear the mad rattle snake as he shook his tail. He was all coiled up and ready to strike. In fact, he stuck towards me - even though there was a nice thick glass between him and I - it still scared me and I went to the other side of my husband who then took some photos of him. That snake keep his eyes on Jason - if Jason moved to one side - the snake was ready to strike in that direction- if Jason moved to the other side- the snake recoiled himself enough to be able to strike again. That was one mad snake!

Have you ever been Mooned by a peacock?

Well now you have! lol :O)

 Here he is showing off his beautiful feathers!

Here you have a male, female and oh yeah -I hadn't noticed when I took the photo - but another male peacock.

 

Here is something amazing that I captured in photos- and did not realize I had captured it until after I had taken the photos and my husband pointed it out to me.

I was taking the photos of the lizard in order to capture a photo of him with his orange/pink balloon thing at this throat that he would puff out ever so often.

 What I captured was the lizard changing his color in order to blend in with his surroundings.

Until he had gone from green to brown.

Oh and that is when I captured the photo I was wanting!  

Some of the animals were watching us:

Some of the animals were resting: 

Some were down right sleeping

 

And some where hanging around eating:

That is just a handful of what we saw at The Texas Zoo! If you are ever in that area be sure and check it out. It is not a very big zoo - when compared to big town zoos but it was a very nice zoo. And I am glad we took our time to visit it.

Once we were finished at the zoo - we were on the road again - this time we were headed to La Grange Texas. And since I have so many photos for this post already and blogger was giving me a bit of trouble downloading them - I will continue this day of the trip tomorrow. Come back by to check it out. See you then. :O)

 

 

Day Three... Kind Of

So our next disaster actually began at about 11pm - when our power went out. There was a pretty bad storm going on with high winds, heavy rains and even marble sized hail. With the power being out - several neighbor guys felt the need to walk around outside with bright flashlights and talk loudly to each other - for 2 1/2 hours. I am a light sleeper and take a fan along on trips because I want to have something to dull the noise. So I did not get much sleep that night- at least not until after 1:30am. The rest of the night I slept pretty good actually ---thankfully.

I was not too happy the next morning to find our car blocked in:

 

We had planned on staying 2 nights on SPI - but after all the noise and being blocked into our parking spot - we decided that we did not want to stay the second night. So we packed our things up.

Our plans for the day were in Port Isabel anyway - so we drove back over the Queen Isabel Causeway - which wasn't as scary as I thought it was going to be. And we headed to the Port Isabel Lighthouse- the main reason for this vacation. There are quite a few lighthouses in Texas but this is the only one that is open to the public. And since my husband loves lighthouses - this was our vacation destination.

Most of the tourist things don't open till 10am. So we had some time to kill- so we walked out onto the long pier. It is to the right of the causeway in the above photo. Here is another photo take of it while we were already on the pier:

 

Here is a photo of the pier from the top of the lighthouse- and you can also see a bit of the Queen Isabel Causeway to the right.

Once the lighthouse opened  - we went to the lighthouse caretakers home to purchase tickets - to not only tour the lighthouse - but also to two other museums that were across the street.

Here is another great photo of the lighthouse:

View from the top:

You can actually see the two museums that are across the street - the big white building and the one to the left of it.

 

 The white house down below is the lighthouse care takers cottage - well it used to be. And you can see the cause way from this photo!

After going through both of the museums - we were back on the road - probably about 12:30 - 1:00pm - heading back to Victoria Texas. I am going to have to do the rest of this day on another post - since I have more to share for day 3!

 

*By the way- when we first got to Port Isabel - my husband and I were both a little disappointed at how small the light house looked. We were thinking - is that really it?

But let me tell you what- with the steep, spiral stair case- I actually had to stop about 3/4th of the way up for a breather... I sure wished that more air got into the lighthouse- it was breezy outside- but not as much air inside.

 

When we got to the top we could see for quite a ways all the way around the lighthouse.

 

We realized how steep the stairs were - especially on the way down. And when by the time we got to the museum across the street - we both really felt sore in our thighs. One of the museums had 2 flights of stairs to climb. Oh goodness. And surprisingly the going down those stairs were almost as bad. We were do glad that the lighthouse had not been any taller!!

It was worth the time, effort and money-but goodness what a workout! :O)

Day Two

The next morning we had a great breakfast along with a Texas shaped waffle! I had hoped to check out a thing or two in Victoria, Texas but we were in a hurry to be on our way to our next destination- so we packed up and headed out.

After about 4 hours later we arrived at Port Isabel -

Although the closest that we could find a hotel that was one that we could stay at and earn points- we ended up staying on South Padre Island

On our first day there we checked out several cool places.

 

At the Convention Centre there is what is called the Whaling Wall" -where there are 3 walls with these great murals painted on them. They are 23 feet in height. The visitors booklet says that it took 111 gallons of paint and 100 volunteers nearly 4 days to complete.

 

Right off to the side of the Convention Centre is a nature trail - which draws a lot of awesome birds- which in turn draws bird watchers- that is why we knew there was something over there - because we saw a whole LOT of people with lots of BIG, cool cameras.

There were a couple of board walks which take you over some marshes and even out over a part of the ocean.

As we watched we saw some awesome things - like a crab scurrying about. We saw a male and female bass spawning down in a circle- it was awesome to be able to be above and look down and see them. Probably would not have ever got to see that event if not.  

 

My husband actually found an alligator- he was about 2 1/2 feet long. J started making a clicking sound and the alligator actually came over closer to where we were.

  

I saw the cutest lizard. I wish I had have made a video of him to share with you all- but I did not think of it till later. Anyway he would stand up and then blow the skin on his neck out - it was an orange/pink color. Then he would lower himself back down closer to the tree- and repeated that. It was cute!

  (so I have some photos that I wanted to add in here - for each of these things but it turns out that they are on my laptop and I will have to add them later - so be sure and check back to see photos)

 

Next we went to the Visitors Center. We found what is called the largest outdoor sandcastle in the USA. 

And this is just one side of sandcastles- Hopefully my husband got some more photos and if so I will share more on another post. But this gives you an idea.

There was actually a guy working on one of the sandcastles while we were there.

 

Oh and this is the sandcastle that was inside:  

What is really cool about the outdoor sand castles is that we got a very heavy rain - along with hail and strong wind - and we drove by the next day and the castles didn't get damaged as much as I thought they would!

 

Now no trip would be complete with out an oops moment, and we had ours. While we were visiting the visitor center and we were about to go- my husband and I put our pamplets into the car and then my husband said something about going to get a better photo of the castle that the man had been working on. Well I didn't realize it but he had thrown his keys to the car onto the drivers seat - so I could start the car. I didn't realize that and I locked the car and shut the door....oops.....

The good thing is - a real blessing from God - is that my husband had rolled his window down about 1 1/2 inches or so. And that a lady in the visitor center actually had a wire hanger- so my husband d was able to use the hanger to get the keys and pull them out. Disaster avoided! Of course, the rest of the trip - we would ask the other one if they had the keys before we locked the doors. Lesson learned, thankfully it was an easy lesson to learn.

 

Next we went to the beach. 

 

 

 So when we were planning our trip and we were looking at places to eat on SPI - We noticed a place called Senor Donkey. It looked cool and we wanted to try it out. And then I was watching a House Hunters show or Island Living show and they had one about SPI and they actually showed a scene of the people talking at Senor Donkey - or as it's also knows - "The Big Donkey"

 

They had very good food! In fact - I don't think I have ever had as good of Spanish rice as what they served- it had carrots, corn and bell peppers. Yummy! I am looking for a great recipe so if any of you out there have a great Spanish rice recipe - please share! Pretty Please :)

 

Oh we did end up with another "disaster" or close to it on this trip - come back for "Day Three - Kind Of" to read about it.

Day One

For the last month or so we have been looking forward to a little vacation that we had planned. The closer it got to time to go - we noticed that the forecast did not look very good. In fact, it looked like we had a chance of storms every single day. Ugh... I was not too happy about it at all. But one of the times that I was thinking about not wanting bad weather for our trip - I was reminded that God is in control and that I needed to trust Him. Again later I was talking negatively about not wanting storm filled vacation and my husband then reminded me of the same thing. Giving me the example of when his group of Pathfinders were camping and there was a large storm coming and it ended up going around them. Ok - I again decided to try to trust God.

Sunday afternoon at about 3:30pm we began our adventure by traveling south. Our first stop, and a lot of you might find this funny, was a cool - well it is a pair of silos that have been converted into bathrooms! A friend had mentioned that they had stopped by there and how cool they were. So I wanted to check them out too!

These photos were actually taken on the way home- because on the way out it was sprinkling and yucky and I had not desire to stand out in the rain to get photos.

 

That wasn't the only cool rest area that we stopped at. In what my phone tells me is Sarita Texas - there is a rest area that in the medium between the highways. I thought it was a beautiful set up. The buildings area all built together - but each side their own restroom. As you walk into the bathroom - you see these beautiful murals.

 

Oh and I just have to share a few of the beauties that I saw outside of the restrooms:

On this first day of our trip - we faced storms moving through, thankfully we only hit about 30 minutes or so of heavy rain. It was not super heavy rain but it was rain that was coming down hard enough that I had to slow down and just take it easy. And of course it rained on my turn of the driving for this day!

We arrived at our first destination at about 9:00pm.

 

Be sure to come back tomorrow to hear about day two! :O)