Beachcombing

A little last minute beachcombing before it is time to leave this wonderful place and head for home and reality. Hood Canal never disappoints.

Gull Watch

This gull has been with us the greater part of everyday, entirely at ease with all of our noise and activity. He will not fly off until you get within about 4 feet of him.

Great Blue on Hood Canal

Our Favorites

When we return to Edmonds on Tuesday evening, we will have been gone exactly 21 days. Whew! Of the ~1,000 photos we took, we found we had almost none of ourselves together. This one was at Daddy Jack's Seafood Restaurant in downtown Ft. Worth. We reminisced about the highlights of our wonderful vacation, and thought it would be fun to share with you our 20 most favorite things...By the way, Daddy Jack's was very good but did not make the cut...read on!

MY FAVORITE:

1. Bed
Nancy: The Inn at Fulton Harbor, Fulton, TX
Glenn: The Inn at Fulton Harbor...

2. Dinner
Nancy: Salmon at The Homestead on 19th Restaurant, Huntsville
Glenn: Cajun Chicken Scallopini at The Homestead

3. Most Unusual Sight
Nancy: The Hanging Tree, Coldspring
Glenn: Sam Houston Statue, Huntsville

4. Discovery
Nancy: Location of Nana's childhood home, Ft. Worth
Glenn: Why Charles Henry (classmate) committed suicide

5. City
Nancy: Ft. Worth
Glenn: Ft. Worth

6. Town
Nancy: Fulton
Glenn: Fulton

7. Accommodations
Nancy: Etta's Place Bed and Breakfast, Ft. Worth
Glenn: Etta's Place...

8. Restaurant
Nancy: The Homestead, Huntsville
Glenn: The Homestead

9. Bird
Nancy: Brown Pelican
Glenn: White Pelican

10. Mansion
Nancy: Thomason Clegg Home, Huntsville
Glenn: Fulton Mansion, Fulton

11. Statue
Nancy: Angel at Oakwood Cemetery, Ft. Worth
Glenn: Angel Trumpeters on Bass Performance Hall, Ft. Worth

12. Breakfasts
Nancy: The Whistler Bed & Breakfast, Huntsville
Glenn: The Whistler...

13. Beach
Nancy: Padre Island, Corpus Christi
Glenn: Padre Island

14. Activity
Nancy: Photographing birds, especially pelicans
Glenn: Feeding bread to hovering sea gulls on the beach

15. Cemetery
Nancy: Oakwood Cemetery, Ft. Worth
Glenn: Oakwood Cemetery

16. Surprise
Nancy: Finding James & Jo Anne at Church of Christ, Sunday worship service, Sinton
Glenn: Finding James & Jo Anne...

17. Funny Moment
Nancy: Story of Eddie shooting Virgil, heard at reunion dinner, Rockport Country Club, Rockport
Glenn: Story of Eddie's first chew of tabacco...

18. Weather
Nancy: Fulton
Glenn: Fulton

19. Tree
Nancy: Orange berry tree, Dillie's back yard, Corpus Christi
Glenn: The Big Tree, Goose Island (north of Fulton)

20. Pure "Touristy" Activity
Nancy: Walking around Sundance Square at night, Ft. Worth
Glenn: Walking Sundance Square...

Padre Island

The southeast coast of Texas is lined by long, narrow barrier islands. We visited both Mustang and Padre Islands. For Washingtonians, it's the equivalent of driving to the coast of the Pacific Ocean. Sand dunes, cars on the beach, tides, bonfires, tailgate picnics...it's all there and more. We spent two afternoons on Padre Island doing a little shopping and sightseeing, but mostly just hanging out on the beach. Glenn's favorite activity was feeding the gulls as he did as a boy. Mine was photographing the wildlife including Glenn.

Nice Catch

Taken at Aransas National Wildlife Refuge on the Gulf Coast of South Texas.

Aransas National Wildlife Refuge

Yesterday we visited the Aransas National Wildlife Refuge. Not knowing what to expect, we still had some sub-conscious expectations which were not quite accurate. It's truly a reserve with most of the area left wild except for a few photo-blind lookouts, walkways and paths. Here are some images of the refuge and the wildlife we saw. The ferocious, attacking mosquitoes shall remain unphotographed, but don't be fooled that we have nothing to show--we have evidence in the form of large welts on arms and legs despite our insect repellant.

Click on the images to see enlargements. The white birds with the orange curved bills are Ibis. The first photo is our favorite--an Egret, just an instant after a good catch.

Gone to the Dogs

Why do the doggies love to cuddle up to the least doggiest person in the room? Dillie and Roger's dachsunds, Mollie (black) and BettE ("Betty") are pretty cute, I have to admit.Here is BettE eating the last of my fudgesicle which is apparently something that she expects whenever anyone in the house partakes of fudgesicles.

HOW TO COMMENT (And we hope you will!)

We'd love to have more interaction on the blog and thought maybe some of you are put off by the need to set up an "account" in order to comment. We have set it up this way to prevent spam comments selling all those things that you see in your spam email subject lines! But setting up an account is really just setting up a user name and password--no strings attached. Here is the scoop.

1. Click on "Comments" under any post to see all comments and make one of your own. It will ask you to set up an account. Do it :-) and write down your user name and password (especially if you're over 40).

2. When you are magically transported to the screen that tells you to "Set up a Blog" (or any other thing you do not dearly want to do), you are done. Ignore that annoying screen and close the browser.

3. Now, open the blog and click on "Comment" again. This time and in the future you will only need to provide the user name and password whenever you are not already logged in.

Sinton Take Two

On Tuesday, we met Dillie in Sinton for another round of sightseeing, picture taking and reminiscing. Glenn took a lot of video footage for what he calls his "documentary" of the trip, a word that begs teasing. (Dillie and I obliged.) To give you an idea of what the high school means to the town, here is a picture of the water tower. I had already learned that sports in Texas is BIG. In contrast to our neck of the woods where the newspaper has national election coverage on every page of nearly every section and one special section for sports, Texas newspapers MIGHT give space on the back page of one section for politics and TWO WHOLE SECTIONS for sports, one for local and one for all other! Still, everywhere I have visited both in Ohio and Texas, every town has a water tower which has the name of the town boldly lettered on its side. Only in Sinton have I seen the name of the high school mascot emblazoned on the town's water tower! (Go Pirates!!!!)

The highlight of the day was lunch with Glenn's niece, Jennifer, and cousin, Harlene, who both work in Sinton and were able to meet us on their lunch hour. Jennifer is Dillie and Roger's daughter and Harlene is Glenn, Jo Anne and Dillie's first cousin on their mother's (Webb) side. As you can see by the smiles, we had a delightful time.

With Dillie's assistance as tour guide, we visited some sites we had not seen on Sunday including Glenn, Jo Anne and Dillie's grandmother and grandfather Webb's beautiful Victorian house which has been restored, and the site of the "Ledbetter Dairy" which was their grandfather's dairy. The house and outbuildings are no longer there, and the acreage is now farmed by a tenant farmer, but here are a couple photos from the family album. The first one shows Bedford and Gladys (Webb) (Dillie, Glenn and Jo Anne's parents) standing in front of the dairy delivery truck in 1933. The second one is from an earlier day when the dairy was called "Led's Better Dairy."

Other important Sinton sites included the home where Glenn, Dillie and Jo Anne grew up, and the former high school building which is now an administration building.Last stop was the courthouse where we did a little genealogy research in the births/deaths/marriages indices. Another great day!

Herons et al.on the Gulf Coast of Texas

The South Texas Gulf Coast is a bird photographer's heaven!

This heron was alongside the highway into Rockport, and unlike our skittish Washington herons, was not a bit bothered by our presence. Thinking that it was a once in a lifetime opportunity, I snapped more photos than I'll ever admit to. Later I found that herons are everywhere and quite comfortable with me and my camera!

These gulls, with their black beak and sharp-contrast markings, are a bit different than what we are used to. This photo was taken on a stretch of beach on Padre Island. Pelicans are everywhere, swooping through the air, skimming the water, diving for dinner, spreading their wings, and puffing their pouch. This one was just hanging out on a dock in Fulton Harbor.

Dillie in her Element

We've been thoroughly enjoying some extended visits with Dillie these past few days. The above photo shows brother and sister with the Corpus Christi skyline in the background. A real highlight was seeing Dillie's backyard (photos below) with the neighbor's orange tree cascading over the fence and all of Dillie's beautiful flowers and shrubs, the names of which were all new to me and have now completely flown the coop. Yesterday, Glenn and Dillie visited for HOURS while I scanned photos from the absolutely incredible and beautiful photo albums that Glenn, Dillie and Jo Anne's mother put together chronicling their family through the years. (I am only on volume 2 of 6 if that gives you any clue.) Monday was Dillie's birthday and we were lucky enough to be here to celebrate it with her. We went out to dinner at Water Street Oyster Bar and sang "Happy Birthday to Dillie" over a candlelit hot brownie ala mode, the restaurant's special treat for the birthday girl which she generously shared with me. Good times!

Coldspring Gang

Due to our internet difficulties while we were in Huntsville, I neglected to post our pictures from Coldspring, so here they are, a bit out of order. Two of Dillie and Roger's daughters, Deb and Karen, live on Lake Livingston, one at the north end, and one at the south. We all met at Deb's house at the south end of the lake for a nice chat which included Roger who was at the motor home parked on Deb's property that day. Afterwards, we had lunch in town, went antique shopping, and were treated to a tour of Old Town Coldspring. Here are some scenes from Old Town including one of Karen and I clowning around in the old post office. "Give me my package and give it to me now!"