Some thoughts ....

Why does the energy and drive take us to start things and work feverishly to complete already started ones as well as promises to ones self in the new year? That blank page needs to be filled maybe?!!!

And start to fill we do, with a planned trip to New York City with Brooke, our DGD. Leaving on the 5th of January, we arrived in town early enough to: get our metro passes, ride the bus and train to the station near our hotel, check in to the hotel where we quickly ok'd it, and then out for our first foray into the city. Brooke is all eyes as we start to wander and try to figure out the metro. She has her handy phone which has a map of the subway. Where would be nowadays without our instant gratification that used to have to be found and written down beforehand? Dinner planned for Chinatown  but got switched to Little Italy where we had pizza in the proclaimed "first pizza restaurant" in NYC. It was delicious. Then on to the Top of the Rock, the Rockefeller Center that is. What a view we had of the Empire State Building with it's Christmas Lights shining bright against the black sky of night.

 a bit blurry but it tells a story nevertheless

At the end of this wondrous lighted evening, our feet ached, our legs were tired, and we could hardly see straight we were so tired. Sooooo, we decided to try our first Uber experience. Standing on the sidewalk looking at all the lighted trees, we quickly joined Uber and called for a ride. It was great and so much cheaper than a regular NY Yellow cab.

And so started our trip to NYC.

January 2016

    Happy New Year to each and everyone of you. May 2016 be blessed with health, happiness and prosperity. The Irish blessing says it all:

May love and laughter light your days,
and warm your heart and home.
May good and faithful friends be yours,
wherever you may roam.
May peace and plenty bless your world
with joy that long endures.
May all life's passing seasons
bring the best to you and yours!

New Year's Day: a new year and a blank page to write on. Gone are the half finished saved blogs of last year, gone are the downer days, gone are the not so charitable thoughts, but not gone the UFOs of quilting and my 2 Busy Hands. Today brings all anew and it will only be what I make of it. So here I am, a blank page staring me in the face asking to be written on and I am only going to be positive. "Tomorrow [Jan 1}, is the first blank page of a 365 page book. Write a good one." Brad Paisley To me, this says it all, as your pages will only tell the story of what you do, want to do, your hopes and dreams, and your accomplishments, so do your best!

We are starting out the year with a trip to New York City with Brooke. We will be gone Monday through Saturday, arriving back in Longview late in the evening. A wonderful time will be had and our days are already filled to capacity. Can we find any more time to do some of the other things? Who knows, but we will surely try.

January 1 found us in Little Rock, AR. We were hoping for the festivities of the Waterfront but Mother Nature had something to say about that. The Arkansas River [the river of the Riverfront] was flooding and the Riverfront Park where all the festivities occur, was all River. So we had a wonderful dinner and a quiet reading wait for to ring in the New Year. This was followed by a fast drive back to Henderson where we will sit out tomorrow, catching losse odds and ends before leaving on Monday.

So, 'til later my friends ......

Car Tripping to San Antonio

A minor glitch in the system and we find ourselves minus our home for a few days. It is visiting its "other home" and I don't mean its home away from home, the storage unit. No, I mean the repair shop where routine maintenance occurs. Because of this and a desire to not be watching over the shoulders of the mechanic, we left to visit some areas that we have wanted to see for some time now.

San Antonio - the site of the bravely but disastrously fought Battle of the Alamo in 1836, an equally interesting Mission Trail of Catholic Spanish missions, and the famous River Walk on the San Antonio River, right through the heart of town. Oh don't misunderstand me here, it is not all educational/historical monuments and sites, there are also the money-making tourist venues: A theme park, Fiesta Texas; a water park and one close to town; an Imax theater; buggy rides; boat rides; walking/running/bicycle tours; and don't forget, geo-caches! And we did a fair amount of almost everything.

The skies remained totally overcast and fog enshrouded the area until way late in the afternoon. As a result, photos were hard to get. But hey, not a problem, surf the net and find what you want as long as you identify where it came from, right? (i.e. public domain) Well, we shall see!

The Torch of Friendship, downtown SA, a gift from Mexico

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_people_from_San_Antonio

 http://www.katiehaugland.com/the-torch-of-friendship/

The best way to see a new town IMHO: 

 http://www.sanantoniotours.net/offer/14381/Hop-On-Hop-Off-Double-Decker-Bus-Tour-in-San-Antonio#.VSKT2VriN-Q

 Nothing like a good cold morning and an equally cold wind while riding the open top of the double decker bus, to start the day off right.

The RiverWalk, a venue for all hours of the day or night, where a venue that makes San Antonio what it is today could have been lost forever if it hadn't been for a very civic-minded group of ladies:

 http://www.isironline.org/2012-san-antonio/#prettyPhoto

 http://www.utsa.edu/ee/APSI/Accomodations_DT.html

Of course, we rode the boats and walked part of the walk. You can also walk/bicycle the whole thing or even kayak/canoe the outer reaches of it, neither of which we were inspired to do this go around.

The Museum of Art, on the RiverWalk as well as the double decker bus tour, a fantastic overview of world civilization. Found in a revamped Lone Star brewery complex, it offers permanent and traveling exhibitions:

 http://www.tripadvisor.com/Attraction_Review-g60956-d108442-Reviews-San_Antonio_Museum_of_Art-San_Antonio_Texas.html

The Alamo:

 http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/520953/San-Antonio

The Mission Trail, a series of 5  (used to be 6 in their heyday) missions along the San Antonio River:

 http://loscompadres.org  Concepcion which has been restored and is now a full blown service church.

And who could possibly ignore the Worlds largest cowboy boots (?):

 https://twitter.com/purosanantonio

 Entrance to Sea World San Antonio:

 http://seaworldparks.com/en/seaworld-sanantonio/

where one has to go through in order to go to Aquatica, 

 http://top-touristattractions.blogspot.com/2013/10/aquatica-san-antonio.html

I do so love to go to water parks, but alas, not in early spring where the temps are more conducive to ice skating than water fun.

And I could go on and on and on ....... but the time came all too quickly for our departure for Austin ... >

Hanging my head in deep shame ...

It has brought to my attention that people who actually follow my blog have been very disappointed in that I have seemingly stopped blogging in 2014. There is no reason that sounds real for this distancing myself from the blogging world, but there it is ... And here in the now, I vow to myself to update, albeit perhaps in a modified form, my blog of our travels. So with that said, here we go... first to finish my African Adventure (bear with me as it takes time to write and put in the photos, as well as I have to have a good internet to accomplish this, something we haven't had a lot of lately)......

Village life continued:

The days continue as we experienced our visit here and learned the intricacies of village life. Everyone wanted their photos taken: children, parents, family groups, friends, chums, and just because.   dancing, and boy was he good  I love this photo. Would our girls go to school with one sock on and one off and 2 different shoes?
 Travis and Travis



 This is my absolute favorite - oh the smiles.
I can't begin to put up even a representation as the numbers are astronomical.
Every time I or anyone else took a photo, we had to turn the camera and show whoever the photo. Could I induce them to smile? Sometimes but not all wanted to smile.

A visit to another village, one that Travis is working with as well.     the villagers were justly proud of their farming efforts and the group brought home vegetables to add to our soup pot: sweet potatoes unlike anything found here in the US and greens. They also grew cassava.   

 everywhere, in this or any other village, the children were fascinated by use and our toys

Learning just how hard it is to make schima from cassava. They harvest it, the dry it, they pound it, they cook it ...  cassava flour ready to cook
   yup, looks like flour paste but not white, it is a grey color.
Of course we all had to take a try at the cooking   it was much harder than it looked  Oh the comments from the gentleman behind me when first Danny tried, and then Gary  "There is a definite devision of labour and that is woman's work" or words to that effect.

To eat it you use your hands, taking a small piece from the communal bowl, roll it between your fingers and then make an indent used for scooping the food up with. When served with chicken and beans, it was quite tasty but by itself, like flour paste. 

Dinner is served ...   We ate the chicken. The only ones to come to eat with us were the men, and then only the host men and the head of the village.  The rest sat waiting 

An evening dance/party was held in our honor as we ate dinner. What an experience to observe. Reminded me very much of when we were in Suriname, visiting an interior Maroon village. The women danced together. The men danced together. The young men acted, well like any testosterone riddled young man. They sang, they flirted, they had a fun time. Then at 10pm, everything stopped and everyone was gone in a blink of an eye. Bed time.

The children played, and played, and played. They would come and get supplies and then return them.   Travis' poor banjo, would it ever work again after the strings broke?
They were enthralled to sit and view photos on the computer of animals and other places. They love picture books.  starting with the very young - they were ever so careful with the books.
  
And throughout it all, the photo taking continued, only as the day progressed, they became more formal or specialized.  all dressed up and not liking it one bit
  The bag that traveled all the way from the US to Africa with things for the village.

And some time for rest 

All too soon our vista came to its conclusion and we were packing to leave in the morning.

Travis wanted to leave by 8am, so ...