For whatever reason I can't seem to post these pictures in order. This is Phyllis' place in Texas. It's an adorable guest house in Fredericksburg which is between Austin and San Antonio. It's great to take a relaxing bubble bath after wearing yourself out shopping all the great stores in this fun tourist town.
There really is a Luckenback Texas that Willie Nelson sings about. Dooley's is the old fashioned five and dime store in town. It has everything - remember those?
Phyllis made me hike this huge mountain - actually it's about 500 feet up this solid granite rock which is the largest piece of granite in the United States. It's called Enchanted Rock and I almost made it to the top. Going up was not too bad but it's pretty steep coming down!!!
This is the front yard of a bed and breakfast where deers roam with miniature donkeys, camels (yes, camels) and ostrich. They all seem to get along pretty well.
BarBQ is serious business here in Texas. It looked so good we ordered an obscene amount of meat.
Back home here's a picture of Marv and I along with his son Jeremy and Ashley. We had a fun everning out drinking margaritas!
This is a couple of picture from our wine tasting excursion in Temecula. The occasion was to celebrate with our friend Mary that retired from her job. It was a fun day sampling too much wine and enjoying the great weather.
Thank you to everyone that sponsored me in the Walk With the Animals. Keely was my walking partner (Mark's dog) and here's another picture of her celebrating St. Patrick's Day!
Yes, that is my little Kelli who is pregnant and will be having a boy the end of May. She is just now turning 18 and all grown up.
Okay, that's about it for the update. I'm leaving for China on April 15th so will have some pictures posted when I'm traveling.
We took a rickshaw ride to see the Hutong area. This area is just outside of the Forbidden City. How would you like to cook in this kitchen? Everything is very small but this is how the "Common People" live.
The girls always attracted attention everywhere they went and people would look at Donna and I wondering what the heck we were doing with these Chinese kids????
This was my favorite place in Beijing. It the Summer Palace where the Imperial Family went to vacation. The story is that one of the Emperor's was 5 years old when he became an Emperor so his mother, the Empress Dowager (aka Dragon Lady) really ruled the country. She is not well loved as she spent way too much of China's money enlarging this Summer Palace among other things (she loved pearls and jade). The lake was enlarged and lots of temples built for visiting monks from Tibet and Mongolia. The place is huge but very beautiful and serene.
This is a boat made all of marble - looks great but couldn't be used as it would sink. Another senseless expense by Dragon Lady.
This corridor at the Summer Palace goes on for more than a mile and each of the beams above you is handpainted with different scenes.
These gas masks were in the closet of the first hotel we got to in Beijing. It was sort of scary. Donna moved us the next morning to a 5 star hotel that was very nice. I never did find out what the gas masks were for!
This is the hotel we moved to. It was closer to some of the tourist stuff and we could walk to the stores. Do you see Gwen and Maddy at the right?
Yes, this is the squatty potty that the Chinese use. You have to stradle the sides and squat. Some of the children wear "split pants" that are open and they just squat and do their business because that area of their pants is open. Pretty interesting!
Yes, I did walk on the Great Wall. It's one of the seven wonders of the world and is in length the equivalent of the distance from San Francisco to New York. I was complaining about the steps as they are all different heights and very difficult to walk up and down. The guide told us they were built that way to keep the approaching enemy army from being able to get a rythym.
This is the hotel we are staying at in Hong Kong and there's a mall attached that has all these cheesy areas to take photos - apparently lots of weddings use this mall for their photos. It's the year of the rat so I guess it's good luck to have your picture taken with the bride and groom rat?
