West Texas: Wide Open Space

Part 2 of 5. 

We woke up before the sun did on Wednesday and went to the Black Bear restaurant for breakfast.  

The lobby had free coffee available from 5-7 a.m. but we were up too late for that, so as it turns out our early is not the same as early for others.  

Once we filled our bellies we grabbed a trail map from the front desk, asked advice on what trail to take and were off.

During the hike some clouds started to roll in and Justin and I almost turned back out of fear of rain and also possibly getting struck by lightning because of all the palms that appeared to have been struck by lightning because of their charred black appearance. Turns out they all looked that way because of a controlled burn. But being the tallest things on the top of the mountain I still think our fear was legitimate.

Controlled burn tree

As we hiked I was most afraid of twisting an ankle and not being able to run the 10K. (2 years ago I don’t know that I would ever have such a thought) Justin later admitted his only thought with every step we took was “no snakes” knowing fully well that had he expressed that thought to me before the hike we would not be on that trail.  The fear is real people.

That's the view from halfway up the mountain. 

Mountaintop groupie

After the hike we cleaned up and checked out of the beautiful Indian Lodge and made our way to the Fort Davis National Historic Site.  We enjoyed the reconstructed barracks, commissary, and fort commander’s house.  Not surprisingly we learned some interesting facts at the hospital where they exhibited the types of tools used in medical practice in the late 1800’s.  Let’s just say medicine has come a long way since germ theory was generally accepted.  The Site also plays recordings over loud speakers of the types of sounds you would have heard throughout the day at the Fort including the daily muster call.  It was a nice touch and added to the overall ambience of the excursion.

Fort Davis National Historic Site

As we were leaving the parking lot we also saw this randomness.  Some horses and goats just walking around like they owned the place.

No hyperbole here.

Then we were off to the Jeff Davis County Courthouse to begin Justin’s spirit quest of taking pictures of the county courthouse in each and every single one of Texas’s 254 counties.  The courthouse was as idyllic as one would expect it to be.

254 counties in Texas. Oh my.

Grabbing a quick lunch we then blasted off to explore space.

On Justin’s Texas bucket list is a star party at the McDonald Observatory. And it’s still on the list because we only managed to make it there for a day tour.  

What did we do? Well we watched an active sunspot, climbed 70 stairs at 6,000 feet above sea level and Justin got to move around an 107” telescope.

We clean up pretty well!

The bottom of the 107" telescope.

We learned about the HET-DEX project in which scientists will be trying to learn more about the expansion of the universe. It’s amazing that we are looking at the past to try to figure out the future.

Where the HET-DEX telescope is housed.

From the observatory we set our sights on Marfa to see what all the fuss was about and hope for a sighting of Kevin Spacey. No luck on the Spacey sighting.

Accommodations for our first night were in Little Pinky at El Cosmico.  Pinky was cute and cozy and had a private bath and shower. It was just that the private bath and shower were outside. Although we knew this was the situation going into the stay we were trepidatious about how it was actually going to work. Turned out there was nothing to worry about and I think there is something oddly freeing about showing outdoors and being able to see your surroundings while you are washing your hair.  Justin says I’m not supposed to have enjoyed it as much as I did, but I honestly dug it.

This might be the best picture of the trip.

Dinner and its accompanying drinks were at Jett’s Grill at the historic Paisano Hotel and while the food got the job done, what we really loved were the Margarita Verdes. There was a happy accident with the margaritas because they ran out of the jalapeño infused tequila and used mezcal instead. It was so good that the next night we had cocktails there and requested the mezcal for the drinks again.

We then went to see Marfa Lights.  Someone believes this is a thing. It’s not the Barbours.

El Cosmico was literally rocking after dinner with live music acts lined up to play until about 11pm. You can either feel old/most definitely your age when you go there or it can make you feel young again. We chose the later.

Missed day one? Read all about it.
The day after today was art overload.
On day four the weather was still perfect.

West Texas Road Trip

Part 1 of 5! 

Why West Texas?  Well there’s a not so little running distance called a marathon and a not so big town in west Texas also called Marathon.  A few years ago someone cleverly decided to create the Marathon to Marathon. Fortunately they also offered the distances of a half marathon, 10K and 5K. Justin and I did the 10K.

We decided that if we were going all the way out to this area of Texas (an area we shamefully hadn’t been to before) that perhaps it would make sense to make this more than just a long weekend and we made a real trip of it.

Justin and I skedaddled out of town as quickly as possible on a Tuesday evening to avoid the after work rush hour traffic.

We headed off into the sunset, because we were driving west after all, and naively thought we would get to enjoy some good BBQ on the way out. As it turns out most things close early in some small towns and we ended up eating some Hunger Busters from Dairy Queen.  I don’t think I’ve seen as many different Dairy Queens over the course of 5 days as I did in West Texas.  It is definitely the most prolific fast food chain in this area of the state.

The view of the sunset from the road.

Our destination on day one was Indian Lodge in Davis Mountains State Park and while we pulled in rather late- around 10pm- their desk is open 24/7 and they have what must be some of the nicest people working for them.

Despite being in a place with absolutely no cell service we had a great TV in the room. 

We determined that the bamboo in the ceiling covering was not from the area. 

The wood furnishings were no joke. I was a little afraid someone would stub a toe! 

I loved this extra little make-up seating area in our room.
Plus the mirror frame matches everything else!

Unfortunately (for us but good for mother nature) they were getting some much needed rain at the time we arrived so we didn’t get to do any stargazing that night.  Feeling pretty beat from the drive out there, we hit the hay so we could wake up early the next morning and go for a hike in our beautiful surroundings.

Ready for day two? You bet you are.
Can it get even better? Maybe it did on day three.
F is for fun and day four!

Don't Get Used To It

I'm working on editing a five-post series about our recent adventures in west Texas. I haven't posted anything in about a month so I wouldn't expect this to be a regular thing. I also don't typically have five hour drives in which to type up posts. So there's that. Justin's already day dreaming about the next trip out there.

Hunger Action Month

Did you know that September is Hunger Action Month?

Now you do. In 2013, 20% of American households participated in SNAP, the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program. A household qualifies for assistance when the household is at or below 130% of the Federal Poverty Level, at this time 100% is at $11,670 for a household of one person.  Working 40 hours a week, 52 weeks a year equals less than an hourly minimum wage ($5.6/hour).

I knew about Hunger Action Month but I'll admit I'd never really educated myself until this year because The Junior League of San Antonio is partnering up with The San Antonio Food Bank to eradicate childhood obesity in San Antonio.

In the spirit of this partnership, Junior League of San Antonio is going orange (the symbolic color of Hunger Action Month- #JLSAGoesOrange) and challenging it's members and the community to participate in the SNAP Challenge. 

Obvious question: What's the SNAP Challenge? 

Answer: It's a challenge to live on $4.50 a day for food. This is per person, not household. Why the $4.50? It's comparable to the daily food budget of a snap participant $1.50/meal. 

Of course I got Justin to join me, partly cause I wasn't sure I could shop for one person for $22.50 for 5 days worth of food for just me. I'm pretty sure I spent that much at happy hour in the last month. On drinks alone. 

So $45 seemed more manageable for 30 meals. Read that again. 

Turns out there are pros and cons to buying for two. One loaf of bread is enough for 8 lunches, but I needed enough for 10, so I needed another loaf. How do I stretch that loaf out so that I'm spending my money efficiently? We're having sausages for dinner this week. All week long. So things like that would pop up while shopping.

I ended up spending $45.48 on food.  I feel pretty good about that.  I did a lap around the grocery store to assess my options because, honestly, I rarely pay attention.

And I came home feeling pretty good.

My Receipt:

What all those lines translate into:

 

 The fixings for our chicken salad sandwiches:

What we'll be seeing more of this week for lunch:

The menu for the week will basically be...

Breakfast: 2 eggs and 1/2 banana (Justin will likely have coffee that we already have in the house. I can go without)

Lunch: Chicken salad sandwich made with canned chicken breast, celery, almonds (I bought almost 60 cents worth from the bulk organic section) and mayo.  The sandwiches also have some mustard we already had in the fridge, a slice of swiss cheese and spinach. And a half a green apple!

Dinner: A sausage or bratwurst that will be cooked on the grill and likely wrapped in a slice of bread.  We'll split one of the containers of chopped broccoli pieces and maybe each get 1/2 slice of swiss melted on our portion.  I also have butter in the fridge, but I feel like the mustard is already a "cheat" of sorts. 

Snacks: I used the tiniest pieces of celery for the chicken salad so there's enough piece left over for us to enjoy with a tablespoon or two of peanut butter. And we have the yogurt which can be a daily snack or maybe dessert. 

I have stuff going on in the evenings on Wednesday and Thursday and then a friend coming in to visit on Friday, so I will likely eat dinner out of the house, but I went all in when it came to the grocery store trip and already know what I could have done to cut the 48 cents. I bought two 8-packs of yogurt and could have just bough two individual yogurts, but the bulk mentality that usually resides prevailed and so it goes.

While I'm excited about these tiny successes, I have to admit that thinking that hard about every grocery trip seems like a daunting task. But let's see where the week takes us. 

Did I say 500 words a day...

I meant I would do some number of words a week, thus posting to my blog on at least a weekly basis. 

Cause yeah 500 words is a lot. 

Daily is a lot too. 

Especially when you spend all day at work on a computer and the latest episode of America's Next Top Model is on (Cycle 21!! Yeah I can't believe it either, but I'm still watching.) and you just discovered #OITNB and you have Words with Friends games to catch up on and are reading books before they disappear from your iPad cause they were checked out from the library. 

I mean evenings are packed. 

And mornings? Well those are spent hitting the snooze button because we'll get up early tomorrow and work out cause that ain't happening today. 

Except today is Saturday and we did get up and workout. In fact we did five miles. I did the dishes. I worked on a project for a friend's baby shower. I did some stuff for Junior League.  I caught up on the latest episode of Project Runway and even watched that awful Below Deck show on Bravo (bad TV is my opium).  

Currently, I'm cheering on the Gators while sipping a craft brew at our favorite local hangout, Freetail Brewing.

And while doing the above, I wrote this post. 

Laboring on Labor Day?

Labor came at us fast and furious this year.  Not only was it the first Monday of September, it was the first day of the month too.

This means summer is basically over that many days sooner.  Yes, technically summer isn't over until September 22nd, but Labor day is typically considered the death knell for sunshiny fun.  Unless of course it's college football.

Fall means full days of collegiate gridiron action and this year is no exception, even if your team doesn't get to play because of lightening. In fact over 8,800 strikes were recorded all over Florida between 7pm and midnight last Saturday.

Even though the Gators didn't get to play we still had fun hanging out with friends and rooting for other teams to make their season openers successful.

Yesterday was a fabulous Sunday Funday and then we had today- Labor Day.  The Barbour's didn't slack off just because it was supposed to be a day of rest though. We made sure to make the most of the day off, while also trying to balance the need to get work done.

Is Labor Day a day of no work for you?  Or is a day to catch up on work that needs to get done?

This year I was doing some Labor Day social media posts for work and my social media position with JLSA and somewhat shamefully realized I didn't really know the history of Labor Day.

This holiday is meant to be a celebration of the American labor movement and is dedicated to the social and economic achievements of workers. First proposed as a holiday in 1882, President Grover Cleveland signed Labor Day into law as a national holiday in 1894, just six days after the Pullman Strike. #TheMoreYouKnow

This post is 294 words (as of the end of the above paragraph), but I don't think anyone wants to know the minutiae of our entire weekend in 206 words or more. Like the fact that I got to play two board games (Clue! and King of Tokyo) with two of my favorite people last night. It was a blast and it told me I need more game nights in my life. When was your last game night?

500 Words a Day

What does 500 hundred words a day look like?  Is this challenge something that's easy to accomplish when it's extracurricular?

So it's not just an email or a Facebook status. And it most definitely is not just a tweet (this would be a lot of tweets!). 

I want to write more, though you wouldn't know it from the neglected state of my blog. 

Is 500 hundred words too obnoxious a length for a yelp post?  Cause I want to do more reviews for yelp, I just don't do it, but if that could count... Game on. I'd of course cross post to my blog cause it feels sad and lonely and my life has not been sad and lonely.

Life is full of good times. Even watching the most depressing episode of HBO's The Leftovers is a good time because I am watching with Justin. 

By the way, the above sentence ending with the word Justin is only 145 words. 

And the above sentence counts in my word count as does this one. 

I know this because of Google. I searched for and found an online word counter tool (because I started writing this on my phone in the car while Justin was driving). It's a nice basic tool: http://www.wordcounter.net/

A short break was taken in the writing of this post for lunch at an awesome,local joint called The Cove. They are known for their fish tacos but I think their burgers and sweet potato fries are better. The Cove prides itself on serving food from sustainable (and mostly local) resources. So when you eat local it's paid forward many times over to their vendors and so forth and so on. They have "Eat well, live well" written on the wall. 

#LicenseToEatSweetPotatoFries #TheyServeThem. 

While at The Cove we enjoyed some live music and a few bottles of brew. If you haven't had a Shiner Premium in a while, or ever, I would say it's time to pop one open. Drink it straight from the bottle and remove the pretentiousness of using a glass. It's the only way to truly enjoy this beverage that touts itself as being "behind the times."

The live music was also fun, an artist by the name of Ashlee Rose. Her voice had the depth and slight roughness one wants from a soulful singer and her accent had the perfect Texas twang.

Justin made a joke that her wind machine was working overtime. Her wind machine was simply a fan. 

We are at 417 words people. 

 If you've read this far in the post then I am much obliged. I don't know if I would've read this far if you had written this much. #honesty

I think part of the challenge is that you can't cheat by writing ahead of time and stockpiling words. It's about taking the time each and every day to do this. That said, if this goes the way other 30 day challenges have gone for me...  Let's just say I'm great at throwing myself into little self improvement projects but when it comes to seeing it through to the end, not so much. 

I'm now over 500 words!  Now you know what it looks like. And now I know what it takes. (It takes more than I thought it would, but I also wrote the whole thing on my phone.)