Hodge Podge

We went to Fredericksburg with Steve and Kathy, our friends and next door neighbors from Iowa, and introduced them to one of my favorite back roads - the Old San Antonio Road.   When Galen and I first visited this area on the Old San Antonio Road there were no people, no bleachers, no state park, and nothing to keep up from going into the tunnel except the bats and the scary beetles that live on the floor of bat caves.  We did get right up to the entrance of the tunnel though.   The steam train that ran between San Antonio and Fredericksburg from the early to mid 1900s is no more.   It was never financially successful and workers on the train would stop on the way up the hills to cut firewood for fuel or even hunt deer so staying on schedule was also an issue.  Today people come to what is now a state park in the summer to watch millions of bats emerge from the cave at dusk.  We did this once - sat so close to the entrance we could feel the breeze the bats made as they flew out of the tunnel, pick out the occasional albino bat, and hear the hawks scream as they zeroed in on dinner.

Galen and I volunteered at CAM (Christian Assistance Ministry) before Christmas.  Our job was to help parents pick out gifts donated by people in San Antonio for their kids.  We helped this mom by holding this darling little boy while his mom shopped - mucho fun for us.

Mission San Jose

San Antonio Riverwalk

We've not had a photo taken of the two of us in a long time.  I don't think I was always this much shorter than Galen.  I'm not old yet so how can I be shrinking.  :-)