Jones Ranch and Eckert James River Bat Preserve

Saturday, June 2, 2018

Our 2nd day in San Angelo, TX was full. First we reviewed what we have stored in our sea container parked at our nephew's ranch. It was amazing what we found stored. It was a very warm morning so we had to go home to shower before we could do anything else.

Next, about 11am, we had a late breakfast with our niece-in-law.  It was fun catching up on things.

Then we headed out to my brother's ranch.  I call it Jones Ranch.  They are building a new house close to the old ranch house. And when I say, "they are building" I mean they are doing almost all of it.  They did have a company come in and set up a pole barn.  Then they have done everything themselves. The next several pictures are of their progress so far.

This is the front with the double glass front doors.  There are 2 garage doors in the front.  The outside garage also has a garage door on the back side. You'll see that in a picture later.

 As you walk in the front door this is what you see.  The kitchen will be at the far end. The Texas flag is made of 3 painted sheets of corrugated tin.  My brother and his son, Stephen, measured and cut the star and got it mounted appropriately.  Fantastic job!

 The other side of the house is two story with 2 bedrooms and 1 bathroom upstairs for the 2 boys and 1 girl still at home.

 This is the master bedroom.  Nola, my sister-in-law, wanted bright walls. Notice the floor.  The whole downstairs has concrete floors that Nola herself stained and polished.

These huge rocks were dug by my brother from a quarry on their land. Once the cracks are filled in, this will be a beautiful back porch.

This is the view of the back of the house.  You can see the back garage door. The windows beside the garage door are the utility/mud room.

More large rocks for a front patio area.  They're putting lots of neat things in the house; ie heated floors, instant hot water, special hvac units and a dumb waiter to name a few.  I'm impressed!

I can't leave their beautiful tom turkey out. He was strutting around looking just like that.

About 4pm we left my brother's ranch and headed to Mason Texas.

We had dinner at Willow Creek Café on the square of town.

After dinner, we headed to Eckert James River Bat Preserve. My brother and family all told us the bats at Mason were better than the bats at Carlsbad Caverns, NM. We had to go see them for ourselves.

 We had 9 miles of gravel road to get to the preserve. This momma and baby blocked the road for a few minutes. Finally mom moved.

 Close to our destination, we had to forge this river. See the narrow opening on the opposite side.  That is the road on the other side.  See below for a picture a little closer to the road.

Crossing the river was a little unnerving since there were no markers and we had no idea how deep it was. I just followed a straight line and it didn't seem to be more than 6" deep anywhere.  A little bumpy, but not too bad.

We got to sit this close to the cave. We are sitting just behind the rocks you see in the lower right side of the picture.

Above the bats are starting to come out.  They look light gray and fly just outside the opening and then back in until later.

 The bats are getting thicker.

 And thicker...

 until you can hardly see through them.  All that gray "fuzzy" are bats.  It was amazing!!

Tic took this one looking up. It was an amazing experience.  

Our tour guide, Vicki Ritter, was full of information about this cave and the bats here.  We left before all the bats had left because I didn't want to do the river crossing in the dark.  We were glad we came.