New Braunfels, Texas .... again

 I should first step up to the plate and admit that this post is wayyyyyyy behind schedule - it is Friday today but we have been nicely set up here in New Braunfels since Monday.

Hi, my name is Teresa and sometimes I am too lazy lacking energy to post on our blog.

Admittedly it did take me a few days just to get up to date with the events over the weekend.

PLUS!

Monday night, Tuesday night and Wednesday night were filled with bible studies and since I USUALLY do my posts in the evening, once the one with all the energy is nicely sleeping, time has just not been on my side this week.

But never fear - the birds are tweeting, the rest of the family is napping and here sit I in oh 73F degree temps coming to you live.

If you have been with us from the beginning you may recall that we have been here at the Berean Bible Church, with Pastor Jerry Lockhart and his wife Barbara, New Braunfels before - at the end of November to be precise. You can read about our visit here, here and here oh and here.

First, another tour of the place is probably in order. We are parked in behind the church by the way....

Flowers in Januray - for our northern folk!

hmmm - 'tie a yellow ribbon round the old - live - oak tree....'

I just love all the garden swings common to the south...

ahhh - sure do love sittin' here listening to the fountain. Sorta helps with the blasting horn of the train across the street!

This is Scooter.....

and this is Buddy - VERY camera shy - it took me awhile to take this shot. Great dogs...

And so I can say with pride that other than attending the bible studies with Jerry and speaking with him on and off - we have done absolutely 

nothing

not nothing really - just not traveling. The truck has not moved in 5 days! and we are soooooo good with that. We stocked up with groceries on the way and and so we have - again - been content with just sitting. Our timing was great because although it has been warm - in the 70sF - it has been overcast and even raining this week.

Cassia has been just fine though.....

She has a GREAT playroom all to herself.....

oh so many books to read....

and this morning..... puddles to jump in .....

or ...... put her head in! What's up with that?

It's a good week - a lot of resting and a lot of learning. The Berean Bible Church is a Rightly Dividing the Word church - as have all the others we have been visiting this trip. If you have any questions about that I am sure we could answer or provide you with links and resources - so don't be afraid to ask. Our email address is on the right.

Over the next few days I will be planning the third leg of our trip. Once I get to that I will fill you in on some of my findings and our intended route home. 

Oh and tomorrow we are going back to the New Braunfels Farmer's Market - we had a swell time there last visit and bought a ton of stuff - can't wait to revisit!

Thanks for visiting!

Teresa

Today's Interesting Link: Here is the link to the New Braunfels Farmer's Market just so you don't have to go searching our past posts for it. I really really like the art work - don't you?

Derek and I love farmer's markets - we used to sell our ornamental grasses at the one in Duncan on Vancouver Island - another great market.

Seguin, Texas

From Shiner we made the quick trip over to Seguin, a city of about 25,000 north east of San Antonio, only 13 miles from New Braunfels. We had made a plan way back in November to stop in and see Pastor Scott Mitchell of the Grace Family Bible Church on our way back to New Braunfels and Pastor Jerry Lockhart.

True to our word - here we were.

We had the address to the church and found it without a problem - what we didn't know ahead of time was how rural it was...it was RURAL.....

PERFECT

for us - we loveeeeee rural - and long horn steers as our neighbours - excellent!

An odd way to park perhaps but we needed to saddle up to the electric outlet - it was a cold night on Saturday we were so so happy for the heater.

Cassia willing the cows to come over and visit with her.

And so we sat in on Sunday mornings teaching by Pastor Scott Mitchell at the Grace Family Bible Church.  We also enjoyed meeting the congregation.

AND - Cassia was sure excited about her own personel playground for a few days.

We always like hanging around and talking with friendly kids.

Finally one of the steers came closer.....

and closer...

my what big horns you have?

We stayed parked at the Church a few days to enjoy the sound of - nothing.....We were road weary and it was nice to just sit and enjoy the countryside. We had wifi and Cassia had the playground.

On Tuesday we decided to pick ourselves up again and make the long trip - 15 miles - over here to New Braunfels. 

Thanks for checkin in y'all!

Teresa

Today's Interesting Link: Here is the YouTube link to the Grace Family Bible Church. Here you can find teachings from Pastor Scott.

Shiner, Texas

Have you heard of Shiner before? Have you been there? Have you drank some Shiner?

Probably not.

Unless you live in this Texas area or love beer or both you probably have yet to find out about this place and what it is known for.

Beer!

yup  - this post is about beer!

Since arriving in Texas last November, Derek has been enjoying - when he can find it - Shiner Beer. So, the last time we were in New Braunfels we looked up the location of Shiner - hey we can hit it on our way back. We stop for chocolate factories, hot sauce factories and so why not beer, especially the Bohemian Black Lager ?

And so keeping with that promise to ourselves, we stopped in Shiner on Saturday.

More specifically to the Shiner Brewery - the Spoetzi Brewery where this liquid gold is manufactured.

Unfortunately, our timing was a wee bit off.

It was closed.

We thought that that might happen - but hey - this is when it fit in our schedule.

No matter, we did the self guided tour instead. It was probably good that the tasting room and gift shop were closed - this made our stop very very free.

It is very interesting that such a small town and a small brewery can put out such large quantities (it is available at many places including Wal-Mart). You can read a bit about the story of this brewery here.

Obviously it was a short tour. So we headed over to the bridge and wouldn't you know - Derek and Cassia decided to dance.

Now - we are quite the dancers. Most often you would be able to find all three of us crammed in our little trailer dancing away.

You would have thought that we had had some beer while at the brewery. It must be Derek's Irish roots coming through...

Well - that was fun!

We continued on out of Shiner on the alt 90 to our destination for the day Seguin. I took some pictures of downtown Shiner as we were leaving. It looked like a nice little town.

We arrived in Seguin just before dinner to the Grace Family Bible Church pastored by Steve Mitchell. We missed visiting with Pastor Steve in November and wanted to make sure we stopped in this time around.

We pulled in, plugged in and enjoyed our evening surrounded by the beautiful countryside and cows.

Thanks for visiting!

Teresa


Today's Interesting Link: Derek has been enjoying all sorts of beer along our travels although we haven't really highlighted any - not since we first arrived in the USA and spent time at our friends in Nampa where we talked about the Blue Moon Brewing Company. Speaking of great beer - we have some great micro breweries ourselves up in BC. Check out Nelson Brewery one of our favourites.

Galveston, Texas

Galveston, oh Galveston.......

I know, I know - ENOUGH with the song - right? Wrong - I just loveeeeeeee it! One of my favourite songs - ever. Not sure why exactly. If you love it too - why not give it a spin while reading this post.

Glen Campbell - Galveston

Leaving our overnight spot of Home Depot in Galveston we headed back down Broadway Street to the Visitors Center. Unfortunately we didn't get a chance to go in because it was shortly after nine and they didn't open until ten. So we set off on our own.

We had seen beautiful houses on our drive in from the ferry the night before and so we set off for the area just east of where we were. Our thought was to do a walking tour....but that was not to be. We had several factors working against us - 1. it is a BIG area, 2. it was cool and windy and 3. Cassia wasn't interested in the least.

And so our walking tour became a driving tour. It became a bit crazy because Derek drove around and I got out and took some pictures. We soon tired of that and realized that our 'tour' of Galveston would have to wait until another year. We didn't even get to The Strand - Galveston's trendy downtown.

sigh

Galveston, oh Galveston - boy do I wish I could stay and see you....

I took this picture at the visitor center but didn't look at who it was - I can't find the info - if you know please enlighten me.

The Texas Heros Monument

And so, it wasn't long before we decided to head for the Seawall and start our trek south. The Seawall is the strip that runs parallel to the Gulf - shops, hotels, condos, restaurants etc.

A long the way - look what we saw - and yes we actually pulled over and stopped to take pictures.

Two real nice rigs - obviously worth some bucks!

The Oak Ridge Boys are in town!

ha ha - too bad it wasn't Glen Campbell - ha ha - it sure doesn't take much to get us star struck - ha ha

Looking out to the Gulf.

Condos along the way. 

Sadly this is where our Galveston tour ends. 


Sorry


pretty sad


It just wasn't the right day to tour this fine town. I think I could TOTALLY spend some good time here  given an affordable place to park and some much warmer temperatures. 


To be honest, I think we are all 'looked' out for now. I know that I am making that term up. You know what I mean though - right? We just have seen so much in the last few weeks that we need a rest from looking. Too bad that Galveston was at the end. But never fear - I have a hope that we will return one day. It was nice to see some of it - enough to know that another trip is required.


So we traveled on.


Saturday became our second long travel day in a row.

I didn't take any more pictures until we got to Shiner, but we traveled down the 3005 south - paid our $2 toll for the bridge and on to Surfside Beach. We then said goodbye to the coast and began our inland trek to the 332 which took us through Lake Jackson to the 36. At the 36 we turned right and headed to the 35. At the 35 we turned left to the 71, the 71 to the 111.

The 111 took us to Yoakum. A beautiful area by this time suitably away from the beach to become rolling hills and pasture - it was starting to remind us of the Hill Country --- ahhhhhh Texas we missed you!

At Yoakum we made the short trip on the 95 to Shiner - Shiner - why Shiner? Check out the next post won't you.

Thanks for visiting!

Teresa

Today's Interesting Link: I just have to send you back to Trent and Teresa's blog - they have a few more pictures - it sure looked like a much warmer day then we had! I feel so bad that we didn't get to do a complete tour...