Mail, Blooms and Beer

February is upon us.  We had anticipated travelling further south--down to the Rio Grand valley area --but the weather has been very kind to us here in San Antonio, so we are still anchored here.  The weather in the valley has been very warm and windy.  Here the temps are usually in the 60s and 70s with lows in the mid 30s to mid 50s.  This is warm enough for us.  We have discussed driving down there to see what we are missing, but have not yet scheduled the trip.  I did call one of the RV parks down there to make reservations shortly after arriving here.  But it was too early for the parks' office to be opened--it was a Sunday.  I never did call back. 

We are often asked about living full-time in an RV.  People expect that we are on vacation all the time.  We are not.  It is no different than living in a stick house except that we can move whenever we want to find better weather, neighbors or sights.  We get up, eat, shop, waste time and do whatever anyone else does in a stick home.  Other than not having a mortgage and paying site rent, our expenses are no different than those living in a condo.  We don't do lawn maintenance, tree trimming or snow shoveling.  The big difference is with mail delivery.  We do not get daily mail.  Our mail is routed to a mail forwarding service in Livingston, Texas.  Periodically, I contact them to have our mail forwarded to General Delivery wherever we may by at the time.  After a few days, we go to the local Post Office and retrieve our mail.  Some Post Offices require proof of identification, some don't.  Some find our mail quickly, others search, scratch their respective heads, and then search some more.  But we do get our mail.   We have limited  much of our snail mail and get most of it electronically so that we can access it quickly.  Insurance bills, for example, are dealt with over the magic web. Works great. 

Spring is in the air here--at least what we perceive spring to be.  Some trees are budding like this box elder (I think it is a box elder, anyway) near our front door:

Some flowers, flowering bushes and other trees show signs of the warm weather to come.  Here is a bloom on a Hong Kong orchid tree (from Judy) :

Though it is technically winter here, it sure does not seem it to us northerners.

We recently had an outing to the Cibolo Nature Center which is just a few miles from where we now call home.  The Center includes over 100 acres of trails through prairie, marsh and wood lands.  The Cibolo creek runs through it giving rise to numerous majestic cypress trees.

And to a secluding rest area under a huge live oak:

Upon leaving the preserve, we were met with this UFO:

We though we should skedaddle before some out-of-this-world creature asked us for directions. 

On another recent day trip, we ventured over to the community of Gruene--a German town adjacent to New Braunfels on San Antonio's north east side.  This is a tourist trap with several restaurants and shops.  But the star attraction is Gruene Hall (http://gruenehall.com/).

This is an old, but active saloon/dance hall which has live music on most days.  It reminded me of the bar in the movie Blues Brothers where they had both types of music:  Country and Western.  Though Gruene Hall didn't have chicken wire protecting the musicians from rowdy bottle-throwing customers, it did have that special bar-brawl feel to it:

This place has hosted many national acts as well as sites for major motion pictures including the dance scene in Travolta's movie "Michael."  He plays an angel and all the female bar patrons believe that he is everything they ever wanted. 

Built in 1878, it bills itself as the oldest dance hall in Texas.  The place definitely shows its age both inside and out. It is a well worn bar serving up Shiner's beer.  A side view for your viewing pleasure:

Paint, apparently, is not to be wasted on the side of this building.  Yes, the roof probably does leak!