An Enchanted Adventure

Last week my sister, Gennie, and I took a short drive to Fredricksburg, Texas where our Mom and Aunt Edna where staying for the week. Fredricksburg is a popular tourist town with lots of antique and collectibles shops in the Texas Hill Country that's only a two hour drive away for us. Since Mom and Aunt Edna were staying there for the week, Gennie and I decided we would go hang out with them for the day. We arrived in Fredricksburg and met up with the girls (Mom & Aunt Edna) who were shopping, of course. After a short discussion about what we were going to do for the day, we went to an early lunch. After lunch we went to the cottage Mom & Aunt Edna were staying in to drop of my car so that we could all ride around together. Here's some pictures of this neat little old house in Fredricksburg...

~The houses and the town of Fredricksburg reminded me a lot of Savannah, GA. ~An old antique chair. And look at that phone! I was inspired by these antiques to make the photo itself look old or antique-ish. I think it worked out. ~The view from the front room window.

~and how neat is this? An antique camera!

~Again, I wanted to make the picture look old thus, black and white.

Just a neat little thing I wanted to share.... My original picture and then the picture I changed into black and white. I think black and white fits! ~A whiskey-barrel planter. You can still see some writing on one end of the barrel.

~ Neat old wagon wheel & birdhouse. The birdhouse is like a little birdie chapel. Maybe there were birdie weddings celebrated here this spring?

The wagon wheel again. It looks as if it has been here for a hundred years or so. We all decided to spend the day exploring Enchanted Rock State Natural Area. YAY! Hiking is so much more my thing than shopping! So, while we were at the house we changed into some comfy shoes and then, off we went. On our way to the park, my Mom noticed these three super cute alpacas...

We of course stopped to take a few hundred pictures of these crazy lookin' cuties.

~Look at these three hillbillies! Summer teeth (summer are over here and summer over there) and a chewin' on a piece of straw!

~This one kept gumming the fence. As you can see, it has no top teeth. After doing some research on Wikipedia I've learned that alpacas have only lower teeth at the front of their mouths. Crazy little fact, huh? After our visit with the alpaca and a short drive later, we finally made it to Enchanted Rock! Jack and I have been talking about visiting Enchanted Rock for years, so I felt a little guilty for going without him. But, I am honestly SO glad I got the chance to go! I had an awesome time and enjoyed sharing it with my Mom, sister and Aunt Edna! I've packed a ton of pictures of Enchanted Rock into this post, sorry if its too much but I couldn't decide on just a few! Hopefully, you will enjoy them enough that you don't get tired of looking at all of them. O.K., here goes...

~this is called the "Buzzards Roost". Apparently, buzzards nest there year round.

~Aunt Edna & Mom before the hike. ~Me (rockin' a skirt for the hike) and Gennie before our awesome adventure! I feel like the need to note - this is one of only two pictures of Gennie and I that were taken. In the other one, our heads are just about cute off, so I went with this one. Gennie's hair had gone into her face and she is only half smiling because she was tyring to blow it out. Anyway, she was just as happy as I was to be there!

~We saw a lot of huge caterpillars.

~and lots of cactus flowers with bees buzzin' about.

~These look like natural stone steps.

~And these might have had a helping hand from mankind

Wow! Life finds a way to carry on in some tough situations.

~Buzzard's Roost again. Some of the scenery here looks like it could have come from another continent. This reminds me of pictures of the Australian outback.

~once we got closer to the top of Enchanted Rock, I could get a closer picture of the "Buzzards Roost". Buzzards were everywhere. Roosting.

~another shot of the Buzzards Roost from almost all the way up Enchanted Rock.

~and a shot of Buzzards Roost from the very top of Enchanted Rock Being on the top of Enchanted Rock was amazing! There were lots of big holes (from erosion I'm guessing) that had flowers and grass growing from them....

~These almost look like someone laid out little garden beds on top of the rock. Or like little pools of life on the barren rocks.

~More little pools of life.

~and some of these little spots had flowers with lots of butterflies and bees.

As a thunderstrom formed just a short distance away, the skies turned stormy over us. I got lucky because I think the clouds add a dramatic effect to many of the pictures below...

All in all, it was really great trip and a great opportunity to get to witness some amazing scenery at the park and in Fredericksburg. I can't wait to go back with Jack and Madison. See you soon, little alpaca buddies!