More Exploring

Tuesday, January 29, 2019

The wind howled last night and kept us a wake part of the night. It was a cold north wind but had passed through by the time we got up this morning. It was again cold, at 31 degrees, but the sun was shining and it warmed up quickly again. It was 10 degrees cooler at 51 today so we decided to walk instead of ride bikes for exercise today.

We started the day by going to Mary’s Tacos, rated as serving the best breakfast taco in Kerrville. We have to agree they are very tasty, quite filling and very reasonably priced. We got two tacos for $5.00 including tip which we ate in the truck in the parking lot. There is no seating at Mary’s. We figured we could go back inside and order another if we were still hungry but decided one was enough. We will probably go back for another visit before we leave Kerrville.

After leaving Mary’s, we decided to drive through some of the subdivisions Ross took us through to see if we could get pictures of some of the exotic game animals here. Never thought we would be doing wildlife photography in Kerrville. We knew there were the usual whitetail deer, raccoons, etc, but endangered, and very endangered species – that surprised us. We don’t know all the facts but there are ranches that are raising these animals. Some were close to extinction a few years ago and now there are nice herds here in Texas. And surprising to us, because the ranches are raising these animals they are also allowed to hold hunts for people who have the money to pay. Lots of money. We might pay for a “safari” if it were a photography “safari”. Anyway, we found a number of animals, some of which were behind tall ranch fences and some who have escaped and are roaming freely in subdivisions. Can’t help but think that there are going to be problems in years to come with all these non-native species roaming around. Please do not flame us for this post. We are simply taking pictures of what we have found. We took some of the pictures in Kerrville and others as we drove down to Bandera and Medina. The drive to and from Bandera and Medina was pretty and interesting.

The drive from Medina to Kerrville on Texas highway 16 is listed as one of the three breathtaking drives you must take in the Hill Country. It is scenic and we are glad we made the drive but we think the people who rate these things have never made the drive up the crooked side of Pine Mountain. They grow apples in Medina and we stopped at one of the roadside stores and sampled a few apple items and bought some apple soft serve ice cream. We just couldn’t resist.

We also drove out to Ingram today where there is Stonehenge II, a somewhat faithful replica of the original Stonehenge in England. Interesting story.

After the visit to Ingram we came back to the park and while we were out walking spotted a few more exotics roaming one of the fields in the park. Fortunately we still had a camera with us. Of course there are many, many deer here in the park and we have gotten some good photos of them, too. Some right outside the front window. Another good day.