Concho River Walk in San Angelo, TX

Sunday, June 3, 2018  -  continued

The Concho River runs all through town and the walk is miles and miles long.  We first headed to the Concho River Park.

Above and the 2 pictures below were taken a short distance from downtown where the river is running through a less commercial part of town.

As I said above, the Riverwalk is miles long, we  moved to the area near the Visitors Center and downtown. The rest of this post will be the Riverwalk near downtown San Angelo.

At the very beginning of our downtown walk we saw these 3 ducks together. We decided they were Huey, Louie and Dewey.

There were also lots of squirrels. This one was on a rock at the river's edge. It stayed frozen like this a long time. We thought maybe it thought that if it was still we would not notice him. Ha Ha

There were lots of walking and driving bridges that crossed the river near downtown and the Visitors Center.

From under one of the driving bridges. On the far side you can see something. There will be pictures later as we walk back on the other side of the river.

The building is the Visitors Center. There is both a driving and separate walking bridge farther down.

Visitors Center backside

Now you can see both bridges.  We will be crossing the farthest bridge which is the walking bridge.

One of several multi-million dollar homes we saw along the river. We took this picture as we crossed the walking bridge.

Opposite direction from the walking bridge. This is a very pretty area of San Angelo.

Also from the walking bridge we crossed we could see 3 bridges.  

Dusty is headed up the rock stairs to the entrance of the Visitors Center. This is beautifully landscaped. There are several man created waterfalls that were not running. We asked why and were told they are all being cleaned. Timing is everything.

Here we are looking from the portal between the Visitors Center and the public restrooms towards the front of the center. 

This is the stuff we could see from the other side of the river and did know what it was. This artwork is completely tiled. Notice the feet in the window in the picture below.

This was also under the same bridge.

On up the river closer to downtown, we saw this radio controlled sailboat,  They were having fun of this calm day.

This is another completely tiled full-sized truck.  There was artwork scattered all around.

    The temperature was only supposed to get to 91 today. However, by now (2pm) it was close to 96. We decided that was enough and headed home.

     We have enjoyed our stay here and will be back in November. It will be much cooler then.  Tomorrow we head to Big Spring,TX on our way to Carlsbad, NM.

International Water Lily Ponds in San Angelo, TX

Sunday, June 3, 2018

While I was fixing breakfast this Vermilion Flycatcher entertained us.  Tic got some good pictures.

Today's excursions will be to the Water Lily Ponds and a walk along the Concho River Walk.  I'm breaking it into 2 blog posts.  This one will be the Water Lily Ponds only. There are so many beautiful water lily flowers and none of the ponds were labeled so I won't put much wording.

 Aren't these closeups of the dragonfly awesome?!?!

 This is an overview of most of the water lily ponds.

 Above and below is a little area around the lily ponds.

Today was supposed to be a high of 91degrees so we thought it would be a good day for this walk. It wasn't bad by now, so we headed to the Concho River Walk. See the next post.

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.