UT vs. Kansas Halloween Tailgate

Our daughter, Nola, wanted to go to a football game with Wayne so he took her to the Kansas game last weekend.  As usual they went to the Alumni Center Officer’s room prior to the game.  Here they are in their Orange and White.

It happened to be the Saturday before Halloweens so they were taking pictures of people in costume.  Here is Wayne with Laura who is the Assistant Director of Chapters.

And here he is with Lynn, Courtney, and Laura.  The black wig was his choice but the crown was their idea.

As you can tell he was having fun.  UT won the game and a good time was had by all.

More Pictures from Mike and Patty’s Visit

I had forgotten that Wayne had taken some pictures when Mike and Patty were here.  I just edited them so here they are.

Here is our motorhome at our spot in Oak Forest RV Park.  Note that it is long enough to park one car in front and the other one in back.

 

Mike and Patty were parked to his left as he took this picture and here is their coach and car.

He got a better picture as we were waiting for the bats.  That is Mike, Patty and I on the left hand side of the picture.

And here we are closer up.  Note that we all had on long sleeves.  It was a beautiful Fall night.

 

Again, it was great to spend time with them.

Harvest Moon and Visit from Mike and Patty

I thought it was about time I posted again.  On the Wednesday before we left Aransas Pass we went to Captain Hook’s at Port Aransas with Edie and George our across the street neighbors from The Palms.  Naturally I didn’t take my camera but Edie took a picture of the harvest moon with her cell phone while we were on the ferry.

The next day we drove to Austin and we are staying at the Oak Forest RV Park.  It is aptly named as there are lots of oak trees on the property.  We  chose a spot without trees so that we can get Direct TV. 

Last Tuesday Mike and Patty who traveled with us to Alaska and the Canadian Maritimes came to see us.

On Wednesday they went to the Bob Bullock Texas History Museum and enjoyed it.  Then we went to County Line for Bar-B-Que.  Patty had a whole rack of beef ribs but the picture is on her camera.  We all had leftovers to take home.

On Thursday we did a tour of Austin.  Austin has painted cows on street corners.

This one was in front of the restaurant where we ate lunch.

Patty took a picture of me with the cow.  The pictures of both of us are on her camera.

Lunch was at Threadgill’s which is a fixture in Austin.  The original Threadgill's is in an old filling station and is where Janis Joplin got her start.  This one is at the site of the old Armadillo World Headquarters.

Kenneth Threadgill was a musician and lots of musicians still play there.

These concrete armadillos are above all of the windows on the outside of the building.

 

We had the waitress take a picture of the four of us.

 

The pictures on the wall behind us are all musicians who have played there.  There was one of a really young Willie Nelson.

We drove around some of the older parts of Austin and came across this pumpkin patch with another painted cow.

Patty decided that she wanted ice cream so we went to Amy’s.  Amy’s has homemade ice cream.  Here is Mike feeding Patty ice cream.

That evening we went under the Congress Street Bridge.  Austin has the largest urban bat colony around and they come out at dusk.  There were people lining the bridge and on both sides of the lake.

As it got dark the bats came out between the middle building and the building to the right.  I took lots of pictures but the didn’t show up.  At times the sky was almost black with bats.

Friday morning Mike and Patty left and headed to San Antonio.  Wayne and I headed to Magnolia to meet his nephew, Billie, and a friend on Saturday to move our storage room to Austin.

I have been going over to the storage room organizing things this week.  Not a fun job but a necessary one.

Wayne’s trip to Valdez, Alaska

Sunday, August 21st Wayne boarded a plane to Anchorage, Alaska from Austin, Texas.  He met his brother, Leslie, there and the two of them spent the night.  On Monday they rented a car and drove to Valdez.    They stopped along the way to take pictures of a glacier.  One was from the top
 
and one from the road below.

They also stopped to take pictures of some waterfalls.  Here is Leslie taking a picture.

And here is a better view of the waterfall.

Here is a different waterfall along the way.

On arrival in Valdez, they met up with George and Sandra, friends from Anchorage.  George and Sandra had brought their RV and boat down for the week to take Wayne and Leslie out fishing.
On Tuesday, Wayne and Leslie met up with George  to go out in George’s boat to fish for salmon.  Wayne took some pictures of an eagle on the shore eating a fish

and of a waterfall from the boat. 
 
It was a poor fishing day and after losing more fish than they caught, they came back in.
They did a little sightseeing to pass the time.
 
Wednesday proved to be a much better day.  They caught 10 fish.  Here is Leslie trying to hold up the stringer.

And here they are in the wheelbarrow that you take them up to the cleaning stations in. 

Wayne and Leslie took Thursday off and went to the Earthquake Museum and out to the area where the fish hatchery is.  They were lucky enough to see a bear eating a salmon.
 
One of the unique things about this area is that the hatchery is located next to this waterfall.

The water from the waterfall flows through the hatchery and then out into the river and the bay.  When fish enter the river trying to go back to their birthplace they obviously encounter obstacles.
Nets are placed along the river to block the flow of most of the fish.  The ones that go around go into the hatchery to breed.   The others die in the net.
 
Wayne also saw this eagle in a tree.
 
Wayne and Leslie also went to the viewing pond nearer to Valdez.  When we were there three years ago there weren’t any fish in the pond but there were this time.

This is Leslie at the viewing area.

Friday they went out fishing again.     They had company in this seal that decided to join them.

This is a glacier that you can see from the water.

Here it is from a distance.

While on the water they saw the fast ferry to Whittier.

The seal was competing with the fishermen for fish and he was successful some of the time.  He took this one away from the woman who had caught it.

This was Friday’s catch.

They fished again on Saturday.  After they got back Wayne took a picture of some of the many rabbits that were wandering around Valdez.

Sunday was the last day they fished with George.  The only picture taken was of the beautiful scenery.

Monday they went out early on a halibut fishing trip.  Wayne caught a 30 lb halibut and a 40” ling cod.  Leslie caught a 45 lb halibut pictured here. Oops, I goofed.  It was 70 lbs.

Tuesday they were up bright and early to catch the slow ferry to Whittier.  After they arrived they drove to this waiting area.  The cars, etc. wait here to enter the tunnel that is the shortcut to Anchorage.
 
The tunnel is a train tunnel and every hour they open it for 15 minutes for vehicular traffic.

They turned in the rental car and waited to board their respective flights.  Leslie took back 125 lbs of fish on his flight to Denver and Wayne had his shipped since he had a long layover in Houston.
Both had a wonderful time and we will be eating fish for a long time.  Thanks again to George and Sandra for their wonderful hospitality.

Humming Birds in Pagosa Springs

I was downloading pictures from Wayne’s camera yesterday and found these photos of one of the humming birds we had in Pagosa Springs.  Since we haven’t taken any pictures here in Aransas Pass I thought I would post these for everyone to see.

 

I am doing physical therapy for tendonitis and bursitis in my shoulder every morning and then it is home for the rest of the day. It has been too hot to get out much here.  About the most we do is take Trouble for a walk around 9:00 in the evenings when it has cooled off. 

We will leave here next Wednesday for Georgetown, TX.  Wayne will fly to Valdez, Alaska on Sunday to go fishing for salmon for about ten days.  When he gets back we have two Univ. of Texas football games to go to before we come back to Aransas Pass.

Matt, our grandson, will be moving into his Co-op the weekend we get there.  He will be attending the Engineering School at the Univ. of Texas this fall.  I will try to get pictures.