Year: 2019

Texas is known for their bluebonnets (it's the state flower), and in the Texas Hill Country (if you catch them at the right time) they line the highways in thick carpets for miles at a time. We didn't see any along the main highways, so I thought we had missed them. But the clerk at the hotel told me about a great spot to see them, and even drew me a map. He said they were the best he'd seen in 20 years, and they didn't disappoint. I wish we had gotten some better pictures, but this one is pretty cool and will give you an idea of what it was like.

Cibolo Nature Center is in Boerne, Texas - where we used to live. We used to take the dogs - and then later also the kids - here all the time. This is the park where we learned that Sean loved the water. He would wade out into the creek until he was knee-deep, then sit down and play in there for as long as we were willing to stay. Some of my favorite photos of him as a baby come from this spot.

We used to take the kids to this zoo when we lived near San Antonio, and it was fun to go back with Carter now that she is old enough to understand what's going on. :)

While waiting for the San Antonio Zoo to open, Carter and I found this Japanese tea garden. We thought it would be nice for a quick diversion, but we stunned by how beautiful it was.

The San Antonio Riverwalk is a pretty amazing place. It was built down below the level of the roads and sidewalk, so from the Riverwalk you can't see or hear the traffic of the city. Every so often there are stairs back up to street level, and if you walk up you are often surprised by just how loud and dense an area you are in - you'd never know it from down below. The central section of the Riverwalk is lined with shops and restaurants, and the whole thing is thick with gardens, trees, and lots of stone bridges. Definitely a must-see.

After the zoo we went to the NASA Space Center in Houston. On the drive there we got caught in a crazy Texas thunderstorm. I remember how intense they are from when we used to live in Texas, but it was a new experience for Carter - she wondered if it might be a hurricane! The Space Center was awesome - they had a Skylab trainer that you walk through, and some of the originally-flown modules from the Mercury and Gemini programs. Lots of spacesuits from the early part of the space program, and other great stuff. Carter got to touch a moon rock! We couldn't go see the shuttle because of the weather, unfortunately. In the gift shop, they sell dozens of different patches - one for each manned NASA mission, just like the astronauts get.

We got really lucky at the Houston Zoo - the thunderstorms arrived right as we were leaving. The whole place was full of Live Oak trees like you see below - I love the way they grow out rather than up. They look so cool and gnarly.

First stop on the 2019 roadtrip was Hermann Park in downtown Houston, Texas. There's a man-made lake that we walked around, and saw lots of wildlife. Someone gave Carter a handful of peanuts, and she hand-fed the squirrels. We lots of turtles, and a whole bunch of baby ducks. And it stayed dry the whole time, even through it threatened to rain the all morning.