Texas Visit

One thing that I dislike about flying, actually it's probably the main thing I hate, is not knowing where I am when I look out the window.

Yeah, I know, I'm in a plane........... What bothers me though is looking out the window, seeing something really beautiful or interesting, and not having a clue what I'm flying over, city, state, whatever. I wish there was a way to know other than bothering the pilot continually. <<sigh>>

My daughter Keely was in SC most of the time I was visiting the family. She's been finishing up a course that is a requirement for her new job, so she was only there for a few days over the fourth of July.

The night I arrived, my son-in-law, Ken and I loaded up the two little boys and drove through downtown San Angelo trying to decide where to eat dinner. I had done a little bit of checking online, but we found Urban Spoon http://www.urbanspoon.com to be really helpful and Ken was able to look up ratings on his phone. We ended up at Armenta's Cafe, which was really good and a great value. I had the Chalupas Compuestas, Ken had a combo plate that included steak, I think it was Steak Tampiquena, Clint had chicken fingers, which he loves, and Trevor, who just turned one, ate off his dad and grandma's plates! http://www.armentascafe.com/

While out driving around that evening, we saw a sign that cracked us up and when we went by it again, we stopped the car so I could take a picture.

Donuts and burritos are evidently a big thing here. Seems like an odd combination to me, but OK.

Another night, we went to one of the Hildagos (a small local chain) and the food was really good and the prices were low, but I think I would try a different store next time as the place wasn't as clean as I thought a restaurant ought to be. Hidalgo's

I took a couple days and just drove around. Nothing major. My sil had mentioned that Brady looked like a nice town, so I drove through. Didn't see much, it has one of those downtowns that exist around a courthouse, no grass, no park around it really, just the courthouse. But it is a working downtown, not dead like some others, certainly not turned into the type of downtown that has nothing but cute gift type shops. At any rate, the only thing I took a picture of was this:

It took me a minute or two to realize that it was a wind turbine blade. Is that thing huge or what?!

Another day I headed south, thinking about going to Fredricksburg, but never made it there. I wanted to check out El Dorado and there wasn't much worth seeing, or if there was, I didn't see it. Then I continued on to Sonora which seemed like a pleasant enough town right off I-10. Here is the downtown.

In front of their courthouse they had a line of plaques honoring early settlers, which I thought was a really nice tribute. The courthouse is straight ahead in the photo above although you can't really see it.

Then it was on to Ozona. In the early 90's, we had stopped by on a family trip and I remember thinking that it was sort of like walking onto the set of Andy of Mayberry. It wasn't as Mayberryish as I remembered, but still an interesting place which is now pretty worn around the edges. The area is one of the nations leading producers of mohair and wool and you can see from one neighborhood I drove through that there was (maybe still is) a lot of money in the area. I found a house that struck me as a my idea of a west Texas home:

I stopped at the square and took a picture of a statue honoring early pioneers as well as Davy Crockett who the county is named after.

Then there is the county courthouse and the abandoned Ozona Hotel.

On Independence Day, we celebrated Trevor's birthday as his mom had been out of town for the actual day. He turned one, so he didn't know any difference. He loved his cupcake, and was much more careful with it than his big brother had been when he turned one. We set up lawn chairs on the driveway in the evening, since the local fireworks display was being set off from a lake very close to where they live. It took forever for them to finally start. It must have been near eleven. There were some minor fireworks going on before and we thought they might be it. Thank heavens they weren't. The real deal was much better and went on for longer than I expected.
They were pretty good.

The night before I left, Clint didn't want to go to bed. Actually, he rarely wants to go to bed. I think he is sure that interesting and fun things happen after he is asleep and he doesn't want to miss a bit of it! This is how I found him when I walked down the hall, thinking he was asleep in his room.