May 2022 Recap

May was a busy month, full of end-of-year concerts, the 8th grade promotion ceremony and family time. Here's a quick peek at our May highlights:

Henry took full-time orchestra this year, which meant he played with high school students. Their final orchestra concert was incredible! 

So glad my parents were able to come to the performance!

Photo bomber Will.

Empty Bowls at the Houston Center for Contemporary Craft returned after a two-year hiatus. It was so good to be back and get some more bowls for our growing collection.

And Henry finished 8th grade! We didn't get to have an 8th grade recognition ceremony for Will, so this felt extra special.  We are so very proud of this kiddo!

We celebrated Pop's 80th birthday

and took a goofy picture of the cousins that involved a long exposure and them running to get to the other side of the room. Double the trouble for sure!

Another celebration -- our 18th anniversary! We went to a farm dinner at Atkinson Farms. 

Beautiful blackberries at the farm

We have a tiny raised bed that is mostly full of herbs and milkweed.

But we've had a good number of caterpillars this year!

We pull the caterpillars inside when we can so the chrysalises are protected from wasps. 

Some random pics -- Will at a Magik draft at Asgard with a bunch of friends. 

Cuddly kitties

And sailing -- Gene occasionally takes long lunch breaks to go sail!

And now school's out and it's officially summer break!  

Birding at High Island

One of my favorite spring activities is birding at High Island.  We've never gone in March before, so it was a treat to see the rookery a little earlier in the year. The birds were still building their nests and we got to see some eggs too! It was a spectacular day with brilliant blue skies, low humidity and no mosquitoes. 

Great Egrets

Blue eggs in the nest

We saw five alligators at the rookery. The alligators keep racoons and other critters from swimming to the island and eating the eggs.  

Roseate spoonbill

Snowy egret

Juvenile white ibis with a roseate spoonbill

After a picnic lunch, we detoured slightly to Anahuac National Wildlife Refuge. We have been once before, in the winter, and we were astounded by the number of animals we saw on this visit. We saw so many alligators that we had to stop counting, but it was well over 100. It was a spectacular detour!

White ibis

Black-necked stilt

A day trip to go birding in southeast Texas is always one of the highlights of our spring! 

New Mexico Road Trip 2021: Part 5

After six days and seven nights, it was time for us to leave Angel Fire and drive another three days back home. We really had the best time in Angel Fire this year!

Day 10:  

We saw geese and their goslings almost every day on our way out of the neighborhood, but on our last day, we had to wait for them to cross the road!

This was mostly a driving day. We did stop at a state park on the way, but it was too wet and soggy to hike, so we continued on with our drive. We drove for miles and miles on a long flat road until the speed limit signs suddenly decreased to 25 MPH and we started heading downhill. We had been on a plateau without realizing it and were heading down to the valley. Watching the landscape change was really fun on this road trip.

We got to Tucumcari, NM, on Route 66 at lunchtime so we had to stop at Kix on 66. 

It was such a cute diner and the food was great too!

Lots of Route 66 murals in Tucumcari 

Continuing on with our Route 66 theme, we stopped at Adrian, Texas, which is the midpoint of Route 66.

The cafe was closed when we were there, otherwise we would definitely stopped for a piece of pie!

We stayed the night in Canyon, TX and had dinner at Feldman's Wrong Way Diner.

Day 11:

I've lived in Texas for almost 30 years and I had never been to Palo Duro Canyon. The second largest canyon in the U.S., Palo Duro Canyon has been on my bucket list for years! It can be really hot in the Panhandle in the summer, so I planned our visit knowing that we might just take a peek at the canyon from the overlooks and not actually get to do any hiking. But, as luck would have it, we were there on a cool day (sandwiched between some very very hot days!). It was only about 70 degrees at the bottom of the canyon, which is quite remarkable for June!

View from the visitors center:

There are tons of trails at Palo Duro Canyon, but I hadn't budgeted a lot of time because I assumed it would be too hot, so we just did one hike on the Rojo Grande Trail.  

I have never seen sunscreen dispensers on a trailhead before!

Our trailhead was next to the trailhead for the Lighthouse Trail, which is a hot 6 mile out-and-back trail. People are rescued from this trail all the time because of the extreme weather; the recommendation is one gallon of water per person and pet. We didn't have the time to do this trail, but it's one I'd love to do on another visit!

We had the trail all to ourselves and it was lovely!

Grasshopper

Tracks

Check out the red rocks! It was so beautiful!

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This spider had the biggest egg sac!

We saw several of these tiny little spiders -- maybe some kind of mite?

Cicada

After visiting Palo Duro Canyon, we got back on the road to head to another state park. On the way, we went through Happy, Texas and had to stop to take a picture with this billboard! Texas has the best town names for sure.

We stopped for lunch in Quitaque (check out the bison mural!)

and then went on to Caprock Canyons, which is another beautiful canyon area in the Panhandle.

The Texas State Buffalo Herd roams the park, but we didn't see any because they tend to gather at the bottom of the canyon when it is rainy.  

There are lots of signs reminding you to stay back from the bison!

We may not have seen any buffalo, but we did see a ton of prairie dogs!

Because the weather was so nice, we decided to hike the canyon rim trail.

We found a group of ants moving a dead beetle.

Once again, we were so lucky to have a beautiful June day to explore this state park! There was hardly anyone there but it was definitely worth the visit.  

Back on the road, we passed through Turkey, Texas, which was home to Bob Wills and the Texas Playboys!

We rolled in to Wichita Falls at dinner time and went straight to the Wichita Falls Brewing Company for dinner.

Beer flight

Detroit style pizza

It was so good and there was enough food for us to pack up and take home for dinner the next day!

Day 12:

Our final day ended up just being a driving day. We had thought about doing a quick hike, but we woke up late and it was getting warm and humid, so we decided just to drive straight home. We did have some duck visitors at breakfast in the hotel.

We stopped at Braum's in Corsicana for one last lunch, and then we tried to go to the Russell Stover outlet, but the store was closed due to a power outage. We rolled into Houston around 3 and were happy to be home and see all the pets.

That's it for our Texas-New Mexico road trip during a global pandemic! We really had a wonderful time and are so thankful that we were able to safely get a vacation in this year.