At Last, Sunshine!!

Another good nights' sleep in our house!  By mid-morning we were all hungry and just decided to go back to the breakfast place from our first day as we knew they had outside seating and the SUN WAS PEEKING OUT!!!!  HOORAY!!  No need to carry the backpack with umbrellas or wear the rain jackets as the forecast said NO RAIN, just cloudy in the afternoon!

Breakfast was amazing again and we did sit outside on their deck, along with many others with their dogs!  Yes, it's a dog friendly town and this restaurant allows people to bring their dogs and sit on the deck! 

We decided to walk past the Gunther house as this is a place we had thought about eating breakfast at and the grounds and building were beautiful!   There were lots of people standing around (we assumed there was a long waiting list to get into the restaurant) and were glad we hadn't opted to eat here as we would have been waiting a long time!

We strolled along the River Walk and enjoyed the sunshine and taking a few pictures!

This picture was taken the day before - there is a section up by the Alamo where you can see there are a lot of homeless people.  We walked by this guy and I was amazed that he could sleep with all the noise around.   Little did I know at that time that it was a statue - an extremely life like statue!!

Teri and I wanted smoothies so we scouted out a place and enjoyed walking with them.  Patty though wanted a "drink" as you can carry alcohol down on the River Walk.  We had seen many drinks as we passed that had a beer upside down inside the margarita glass so that's what she got!  Not sure what they are called but I guess a beer margarita!!  She said it was good - I would beg to differ as I don't like beer - ha ha!!

This little spot is marriage island - over 300 weddings are performed here each year on this tiny spot off the River Walk.

I loved walking and seeing all the bridges that connect the two sides!

We walked into a few shops and just enjoyed our time together!

Since it was a weekend, the eating places were packed but we got a table at Boudro again mid-afternoon and had the wonderful guacamole along with some delicious soups!

We headed back late afternoon and decided just to eat cheese and crackers for our dinner along with our wine and fudge that we had purchased the day before!  It was a fun evening just hanging out at the house and enjoying each other!

Wake up call was 4:00am as our Lyft driver was picking us up at 4:30!!!!!  Teri and I both flew out around 6:00am and Patty was about an hour later!!  I actually arrived in Denver at 7:15am due to the time change!!

This was waiting for me when I got home!!

Awwwwww   I think Glenn missed me!!

And here is a close up of the necklaces we all wore that Patty gave us - so special!!

So despite the rainy weather, it was an awesome Sisters Trip!!  We always have fun, no matter where we go!!

Rain, Rain Go Away!!

It's so nice to wake up in a house where there are plenty of bathrooms to get ready in vs. a cramped hotel room!!  I don't imagine the 3 of us will ever rent a hotel room again as long as we can book a house through VRBO!

Today's breakfast was going to be at the Mad Hatter - although they didn't have special flavored coffee, we knew we could get that on the River Walk!

We have seen all over our walking trails these scooters just left in the strangest places!!  We finally asked someone about them and most of the black ones are free to use!!  And the other ones require a $1 to start them.  You just take them wherever you want to go and then leave them wherever!!  Very interesting concept and if we weren't three 60plus women and afraid of falling, we would have used them!!

As you can see, we are bundled up once again as it was cool and rainy out!

Mad Hatter's was an excellent breakfast place - our meal was delicious and the decor was delightful!!  The 3 window displays are crooked of course in keeping with the theme of this restaurant!

After heading down to the River Walk, we walked by all of the theaters as I especially wanted to see the Majestic Theater which is supposed to be beautiful inside!  Of course it was closed and they weren't having any shows that we were interested in.  The outside of the place was nothing special but I sure wish we could have seen the inside!

We also walked into the Buckhorn Saloon - I had read about this and we had no desire to go into the museum but the bar area looked like the pictures below - I have never seen this many heads in one place! Glenn would have loved seeing this!

Because there was a break in the weather, we bought our tickets and did the river boat cruise!  It's a bargain at $9 a person (seniors!!) and we really enjoyed the tour, hearing lots of interesting facts!

Lunch was at Boudro's - Patty had asked the river boat captain the best place to get guacamole and he said this place!!  HE WAS RIGHT!!  They make table side guacamole and use an orange for juice along with the lime - I'm never seen this before but the results are amazing!!  We also ordered margaritas - prickly pear for Teri and Patty and strawberry for me!!  Best margarita I had on the trip!!

We headed back to the Alamo to catch the bus to take us on the Mission Trail - there are 4 missions to see and we went to the furthest one to start as it's the most picturesque one!  Unfortunately it was misting out but we enjoyed seeing it and reading about its' history!

By the time the bus came to pick us up, it started pouring and we opted not to see the others!

We ate an early dinner of quesadillas and fish tacos -no drinks this time as we decided we better drink our wine back at the house!!

I snapped this picture of the lonely river boats on our way home - it was rainy and kind of miserable out!

Someone this picture posted in the wrong spot - this is lunch and you can see it wasn't raining during this time - yay!!!

We walked back to the house (did I fail to mention yesterday that we walked 18,000 steps?) and Teri informed us we had walked 16,000 steps - no wonder our feet hurt!!  What a great evening just relaxing and drinking wine and watching a movie and visiting!!

To be cont'd.......................

Sisters Trip - San Antonio

A year has already rolled by and it's time for our annual Sisters Trip!!  San Antonio was the destination this year - and with all the rain that Texas has been getting, we were all hoping the sun would shine when we arrived but unfortunately that didn't happen until Saturday!!

Patty actually flew into Denver first and I met her at the airport!  I had driven up the night before to spend the night at Jessi and Gary's house so I could miss the heavy traffic in the morning!  The ride to the parking shuttle place was fine but when I got there, I couldn't get a ticket to come out!  I finally pressed the intercom button for help and soon an employee came over and asked what the problem was.  Turned out the machine was broke - so had to back up and go through another lane!

I grabbed coffee after getting through security and soon found Patty - our trip to Texas was uneventful and we called a Lyft driver to take us to our house!  We were thrilled with the house - an extremely nice kitchen, living room and dining room along with 3 bedrooms and 3 baths!  This year I got to have the master bedroom with the attached bath!!

After unpacking, Patty and I decided to head out on foot to find a grocery store to get some cheese and crackers and a liquor store for wine!  Across the street from our house was a small convenience store which looked kind of shady and I figured there wouldn't be anything there we wanted so told Patty we would just look up other places to go!  We walked and walked - but the small neighborhood grocery didn't have what we wanted although we did buy some crackers there so we headed to the nearest liquor store!  It was actually located in a house!!!  But they had wine and that's all that mattered - what a chore carrying 3 bottles of wine over a mile back to our house!  We were exhausted!

We dropped off the wine and realized we still didn't have any cheese so ran over across the street - and guess what - they not only had some cheese but ALL of the types of wine we had just bought!  Boy did I feel bad after making us walk over 2 miles to get it!!  Oh well.................

Teri arrived later that night and after catching up for a little while, we all headed to bed and slept in!

We were excited to head to breakfast and then the River Walk - but we weren't excited about the cool weather and the rain!!  We dressed in layers and used our umbrellas to walk to breakfast and it was a great place!!  Want to guess what coffee is mine?  Yup - the one with the whip cream!!

After a wonderful breakfast, we headed to the River Walk - we could access it right from the breakfast place and it was about a miles down to the actual place where all the restaurants and shops are!

It was pretty dreary looking out so most of our pictures that day didn't come out very bright!  But we loved walking!

This stage is where Sandra Bullock performed in the movie "Miss Congeniality" - something we didn't know till we took the river boat cruise the next day!

Since it was just too wet to ride the boats, we headed to The Alamo and walked the gardens before heading inside.  I love this huge tree!

It was pretty crowded the day we were there and we were all excited to go in the building to watch the movie (which I had remembered from the last time I was here).  But that didn't happen - they must be renovating the building because they were showing the movie outside under a canopy with just a few benches there..................

We did some shopping and all bought our souvenirs - luckily we had a backpack with us to put most of it in!

Lunch was guacamole and chips along with margaritas!!  They were excellent!!

We decided just to stay on the River Walk because we were meeting my good friend Helen and her husband Joe at 5:00 at County Line BBQ.   Gosh it was great to see them and catch up!!

I know the meal was good but I hardly remember it as we were talking so much!!

Helen and Joe took us home after we were done visiting which was so nice because it had been pouring rain by this time!!  Helen had made us some delicious cookies that we sampled as soon as we got home and it was fun to just relax in the house for the rest of the evening!

To Be Cont'd.......................

This 'n That

A few loose ends to blog about before my next 2 trips!  San Antonio with the sisters is Wed. and then I'm home for 5 days before Glenn and I join Jill's family for Walt Disney World! 

Fall around here has been beautiful also!  I'm glad I went down by our rocks to take a few photos before the wind and snow came through!!  Glenn has set up benches now by our fire pit (that still needs more rocks) and we can't wait to use it!

This picture is taken at the bottom of our property looking up towards the rocks!

We went up to Denver again as my neck was giving me issues and I needed Jessi's services!!  Evan was playing basketball games that day so we got to watch him play!  Although they didn't win, they played great and it was fun to see how much Evan has improved!  Here's his team!

My friend Marilyn was here from N. Carolina to visit her son so I went down to see her - we drove through Garden of the Gods and had a great lunch together!  It was so good to spend some time with her!

Jaime and Brad's house is coming along good - I hadn't been over for a while and was so impressed by how much has been done!!  It will be awesome when it's finished!!

Looks pretty massive doesn't it?

As I was leaving that evening, I had to stop by the pond and take this photo!  I can capture the best photos there!!

Glenn just returned today from another elk hunting trip with his hunting partner Bob from NV - they had a great time and Bob even got an elk!!!!!!  He was pretty happy about that!!  But it was snowy (about a foot of snow) and really cold!  Glenn says the older he gets, the harder it is to stay warm - especially in a camper!  But they enjoyed their time together and that's what counts!

Ojo Caliente Hot Springs

Time to check out of Albuquerque and head to Santa Fe for lunch!  It's only about an hour and the drive was great!!  I had put in my navigation a parking lot very close to The Plaza in Santa Fe as I figured the parking would be hard - but somehow we must have missed it!!  The streets are narrow and a little hard to navigate but there was a public parking lot right close by so we pulled into that!

We found a coffee spot as soon as we walked into the plaza - excellent coffee once again and we enjoyed it sitting in the beautiful square.

The flowers were gorgeous!

We strolled around the plaza and stopped in at the Cathedral Basilica of St. Francis of Assisi - the church is open to the public and is gorgeous inside!

It was much busier than we expected in the plaza - we ate lunch at a Mexican place which was good but nothing topped that first night in Albuquerque!!   Then we headed over to a chocolate factory and picked out some goodies to bring home!

Next on the list was the hot springs at Ojo Caliente!!  It was only about an hour from Santa Fe, but there isn't much around for towns!!  I had planned on getting gas in the town of Ojo but there wasn't even a gas station there - if you blinked you would miss it!

But there was good signage to the hot springs and we were again surprised at how many cars were in the parking lot when we pulled in!!  We walked into the reception area and a nice fire was going - immediately a relaxing effect!

Our cabin was ready and was just perfect!!  It had a small kitchen and a back deck you could sit on along with a front deck with chairs also!  Just perfect!!  We wished we would have brought our own food!!

The grounds were beautiful and although there were quite a few people there, they were spread out enough that it didn't seem crowded at all!  And of course a lot of the people were just there for the day!

We changed and headed out to soak - ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh.

There is a restaurant on the premises since there is no place to eat in the tiny town and you actually make reservations for dinner!!  We picked an early time so we would have plenty of time to soak after we ate.  Dinner was very good but very pricey!  Next time we'll know to bring wine, snacks, and meals to heat up since there's a microwave and a frig in the cabins.

After dinner we soaked in the moonlight and the water was amazing!  Each pool had different mineral content and it listed what the pool was known for.  There were a couple of fire pits going outside and the wood smell reminded me so much of Sedona when we used to live there!

Almost all of the pictures I took were the next morning - Joleen went to order breakfast so we could take it back to our cabin to eat and I went in and took photos when there was no one around.

I did forget to mention that at night, there are subtle lights shining at the base of these cliffs - sure looked neat!

The plants and flowers were very well done all throughout the complex.  There are also hiking trails you can use and an RV park if you bring your trailer.

Joleen and I decided this is a place we will definitely go back to!!

And then we were homeward bound to the mountains!  It seemed like we drove a LONG time before I found a gas station - note to self - fill up with gas when you have the chance!   What a great trip!

Albuquerque Fun

Breakfast was at the hotel the next morning - I can't say it was fantastic but it was enough to get us going.  We walked to Old Town and found a great coffee place!  Not only was the coffee good but it was situated in a lovely outdoor setting with a fountain and all kinds of plants and flowers!  Such a nice relaxing spot to enjoy our coffee!

After coffee, we went to a local hotel to catch our trolley ride for a tour of the city!!  I always love these rides as you hear such interesting stories about the city and see sights you never would have seen!

We saw several places that were featured in the series "Breaking Bad" which was basically filmed in Alb. and were surprised at the list of movies that have scenes set in Alb. also!  Of course we were on the famous Route 66 road and saw the cute diners!

The narrator on our tour was great!  Always makes for a more enjoyable tour when you can hear what they're saying!!   I loved this sculpture that was in the downtown area!

After our tour, we ate at a quesadilla place and it was wonderful!!!  We stopped and checked out the San Felipe de Neri church which was built in 1793 and is one of the oldest buildings in Alb.

Beside the church is this sawed off tree with a carving of the Virgin Mary in it.

We walked back to the hotel to get our car to go to the Botanical Gardens as mapquest had said it was a mile - we could have easily walked it but it was hot and we knew we'd be walking all afternoon at the gardens so we opted to drive!  That was a joke - the gardens were actually 2/10 of a mile away!!

Because we had a special sticker from our trolley tour, we got in for buy 1 get one free - so for $7.50 total we explored the botanical gardens AND the aquarium!

What a beautiful spot for a wedding!!

The grounds were beautiful although a lot of the flowers were already gone.  But there were plenty of cactus which I love to see!

Always enjoy going into the butterfly pavilion!!

And this cute statue was between the gardens and the aquarium.

We were pretty wore out by the time we were done seeing it all but walked back to Old Town to eat at "The Shed" because everyone had talked about a green chile burger and we wanted to try one!  It was way too spicy for me but the guacamole and chips were great!!

I took this picture of our drinks so I wouldn't forget this awesome strawberry margarita I ordered!!  Doesn't look like one, does it?  It didn't TASTE like one either!!  I was a little disappointed when she first brought it as there was no sugar or salt around the rim - but on the menu it said it was made with agave white wine!!  Oh my gosh - it was fantastic!!!!!  I sure wish I knew the recipe because it didn't taste like a margarita at all but was one of the best drinks I've ever had!!

We walked in several shops that evening and bought our souvenir, a hot air balloon ornament for our Christmas trees - the evening was beautiful!!