A perfect day.....Almost

Mrs J and I have been settling into this retirement lifestyle quite nicely, thanks for asking.  Progress on her "honey-do" list has been acceptable.  Things come off the top at about the same rate as things go on the bottom.  One of our first projects involved  spending a few evenings with a folding table in front of us in the living room cataloging the pictures that Schmedly had brought to our attention a while back. 

Since these had been with the stuff I'd inherited when my Dad passed, the brief look I'd given them when they moved from his house to ours served only to categorize them as "buncha pictures" thereby relegating them to the "review when you find time" priority (formerly known as "never").  The combination of Schmedly redistributing them and "Honey, what do you want to do tomorrow?" moved the project up and is now mostly finished. 

I had thought that most of the pictures were from my lifetime, but a significant number were from before that.  (Yes, Sarge, they actually had cameras before I was born.  And fire and something other than animal fur (I would have said Bear Fur, but didn't want to offend Brother "a bear"))

Paul, is that how you close out a double side comment?

Anyhoo, back on target.

Found pictures of my parents when they were kids.  I mean, who knew that parents were once kids themselves?  I'd always thought (well while growing up anyhow) that my parents were born old.  It was kinda cool to see though, and fortunately, most of the pictures had some info on the back, names, dates, places etc.  So we've still got some researching to do.  Fortunately, Mom's siblings are still alive and one of Dad's brothers is also.

While the first part of that project is over, "Tempus fugit"  on the second part.

We've also made a big dent in the getting rid of stuff item on the list.  Enough so that one of the full storage closets has been emptied and returned to its former status of spare bedroom/exercise room. (No, it hasn't been checked out for functionality in the latter category as yet).

But, all work and no play makes juvat ....

Thursday, Mrs J declared that the two of us were going to go on a day trip.  We decided we were going to visit a small (ish) town between the Burg and Moscow on the Colorado known as Wimberly.

Thursday morning broke clear and warm, a perfect day trip kind of day.

After a short trip to be Vet to get Canine Flight a Pawdecure (somethings take on an importance of their own when you are on blood thinners, and a clawed creature paws at you to get your attention), we were off.

Having done proper pre-flight target study, we had decided that we would climb Old Baldy, visit Jacob's Well and check out Blue Hole Park.  Have some lunch and walk around the touristy section of town.

Taking the back roads from the Burg to Wimberly kept my blood pressure in check as we didn't see any traffic going our way and little going the other way.  My kind of driving!

Arrived at Old Baldy around 10, parked and looked up.  My Beloved looked at me with her YGBSM look (patent pending) as we stared upward.

The website said "only 255 steps".  Uh-Huh!

Never give up, never surrender.

So upward we went.

And upward.

Finally, with a couple of stops enroute (to take pictures of course), we made it to the top.

No, other than Mrs J and I. We were the only ones here.

The view was quite impressive.

We stayed for a bit to let the sheer beauty, as well as a considerable amount of Oxygen, be absorbed and then descended.  The handrails came in very handy to take the weight off the knees.

Back down among the living, we set off to visit Jacob's Well.

Jacob's Well is an underground spring that provides water to the surrounding land.  Discovered by Texas Settlers in the 1840's (Native Americans no doubt knew about it forever.), it was their (there?, they're?) primary water supply.

As such it was extremely important to them.  At some point in their early history, a flood occurred which deposited rocks and mud in the spring, stopping it.  The settlers were able to finally get all that out after considerable effort and so built the weir around the spring itself to protect it .  

That weir is still in use and can be seen on the far side of the spring.  The Spring is a popular swimming hole during the summer months.  The opening seen above descends about 30' straight down then angles off  down to about 120'.  There are apparently (I didn't explore it, January, you know), several caverns off to the side of the main cavern.  Some have been explored by scuba divers.  Some of whom are still in the caverns.

A very quiet, peaceful place and pleasant to visit on a warm January day.

Thoroughly enjoying  ourselves to this point, we decided to head into town and find a place to eat.  Searching Google for "places to eat in Wimberly", we decided to visit the local brewery which was a few miles south of town.  We're about halfway there when Mrs J looks closer at the description and notes an important factoid.  "Opens at 2PM".  

Not wishing to wait in the parking lot for an hour and a half, we turn around and head back into town.
Re-perusing Google, we decide on the Leaning Pear.  Mrs J confirms that it is, in fact, open, so "off we go" (it's an Air Force thing)

It was a nice place, a little foo-foo-ish (but what isn't these days), but the patio was nice, the creek provided just enough background noise to cancel out other table's conversations, without interfering with our own.  I had a passable Reuben with pasta salad.  Mrs J had a BLT with Brie and Avocado (BABLT?).  Topped off with a nice glass of Albariño, a nice crisp Spanish white wine,  it was a very pleasant lunch, with a beautiful woman.

Our plan is to visit the Blue Hole regional park, walk through the tourist part of town and shop a bit, then head to our winemaker friends place and have a glass of wine with them.

Off we go....again.

Turns out the creek we had lunch next to is also the creek that serves this park and we were only a couple of hundred yards down stream from the park when we had lunch.  Arriving there in the truck, took longer than if we'd have walked.  But.....

Parked and locked the car, and walked into the park.  Nobody in the check in area except a dog, so figuring begging forgiveness is better than asking permission, we walk  by and into the park area.  There are two ladies having a picnic lunch at one of the tables.  And us.

Beautiful, quiet and peaceful.

Yes, that's the water and those are fish.

The park is maybe a couple of hundred yards long and 75 or so wide, so seeing all there was to see took around 20 minutes (especially since swimming is not authorized this time of year), so we headed back to the truck.

And saw this.

Jerks tried to bust out the front passenger window, failed somehow, so busted out the back one.  Stole a backpack with tools I keep in the truck for when I'm out and about and need pliers or something.  Maybe a couple of hundred bucks invested by me.  Pawn shop might give them ten.  Mrs J had put her wallet under the front seat.  That was gone.  

I go back to the office, and see a sign with the Sheriff's phone number on it.  I give them a call, and they said they'd have someone stop by.

I walk back to the truck.  Mrs J is talking to some people with park logos on the shirts.  They said that they'd walked around the rest of the parking lot and one other car had been broken into also.  So, we've got that going for us.

The Deputies (there were two cars, two deputies) arrived quicker than I expected (less than 15 minutes) and went about their business.  We called USAA and got the claim started.  Mrs J called the Bank, as well as the Credit Agency and got her cards stopped.  The Deputy took my statement (while I had been waiting for them, a car had driven by slowly with the passenger giving me a look over.  I'm standing next to my truck talking on a phone, it's not like I was doing anything interesting.  Probably nothing.)

It was interesting watching them dust the doors for prints.  Never seen that done before, except on NCIS.  Told them that, they laughed and said, "Just like them, without the instant results."  

Got it.

After they finished, I got the glass cleaned up.  The Park folks gave us a large garbage bag.  Jerks left me my tape gun , so we taped it up and headed for home. 

Sure makes a lot of noise, even at 40.  (Yes, we took the back roads and I pulled over to let people pass.)

USAA scheduled the glass replacement appointment for today at our house, so barring further issues, this episode should be complete today.  

Would like some advice though as I am about to go down this path and start carrying.  How do you protect the weapon?  I'm assuming some kind of safe, but any recommendations?

While you're pondering that question, here's a music video that seems appropriate for the occasion.