Archive for September, 2009

We sure covered a lot of ground today. And to cover a lot of ground, you need shoes. So we started our Wednesday with the World’s Largest Cowboy Boots (I’m in this picture, by the way, being totally dwarfed by these boots. I’m in the middle!):

The weird thing about these is that they are in front of a big shopping mall. Specifically, they reside directly outside the Saks Fifth Avenue in said mall. There’s no sign or anything, so I don’t know how they came to be at San Antonio’s North Star Mall, but… that’s where they are. Still, pretty awesome!

Note the conspicuously absent spurs!!

Then we got on I-10 and headed west. We don’t really have a specific itinerary for anything, but we have some vague ideas about going out to Big Bend. It’s a long drive, but fortunately there are interesting diversions along the way, such as this:

Yep. That would be “Stonehenge II.” It’s in Hunt, Texas, or Kerrville, Texas, depending whom you ask. Basically, this one dude decided to put a big rock in this other dude’s field, and it became a little friendly joke, and then they decided to build a stonehenge. I can’t really explain it more clearly than that. Dude #2 (Al Sheppard) conceptualized the project and commissioned dude #1 (Doug Hill) to design and construct it.

This stonehenge has a couple of differences from the original. First of all, it’s made of concrete and steel. Also, it’s about 2/3 the size, and it is not oriented to the sun. But perhaps most importantly, Stonehenge II includes these:

Why are there Easter Island-looking heads at Stonehenge II in Hunt/Kerrville, Texas, you ask? Stonehenge II’s sign answers:

The Easter Island statuary, for Al, was a natural partner for Stonehenge II. He had visited Easter Island and now thought the mystery of the construction of those magnificent statues was a complement to the mystery of Stonehenge.

Can’t argue with that!

Incidentally, some of you may remember we also took a trip to Foamhenge in Virginia a couple of years ago (pre-blog)… so this didn’t seem as random to us as maybe it should.

After thoroughly enjoying the hengey goodness, we continued west. Do you guys remember when we went to California and saw a bazillion windmills in Techachapi (AWESOME COINCIDENCE: that post is from ONE YEAR AGO TODAY!!!)? Well, today we saw this:

That is a single blade from one of the large energy windmills rolling down the interstate on a big ol’ truck. We’ve seen this a couple of times before but haven’t been speedy enough to get a snapshot. The ginormousness of this doesn’t totally convey, I think. They are HUGE! And kind of freaky!! Way to be, energy windmill blades!

We also pulled off for a scenic overlook near Junction, Texas.

Sooooo, we did walk along this very obvious path so we could enjoy the view, but I must admit we didn’t stay long. I think the trespassing issue applied only to what looked like some private property on the side of the sign we didn’t walk down, but we are in Texas and we thought we better not push our luck lest shots are fired. We did get to see this, though!

I love a good succulent. I did totally get attacked by a cactus, though, I guess because we (possibly) trespassed.

Moving on to Junction, we paused to enjoy the deer antler tree:

I don’t know if this is just for Christmas or what, but it looks like they’re set up for holiday-style celebrations year-round:

Right next to the antler tree, we enjoyed this charming tribute to (we assume) the local high school football team:

Outside of Ozona, Texas, we had a wild turkey encounter!

Nice! Turkeys are jittery and really fast, so it’s hard to take a decent picture of them. We got really lucky with this little flock. Thanks, wild turkeys!

Ozona is the county seat of Crockett County, and they have a pretty awesome Davy Crockett memorial:

Please note the inscription:

Thanks for the awesome advice, Davy Crockett memorial!

After Ozona, it was all sunsets and big sky as we headed west:

We’re now in the quite lovely Days Inn in Fort Stockton, Texas, and looking forward to seeing where the journey takes us tomorrow! GET U SOME!!

You guys, moving is horrible. I can’t articulate exactly why, but I can tell you that the sum of a move is a million times more horrible than its horrible parts. Now, this may not be the fault of the move per se, but part of the problem for us is that we tend to do things at the eleventh hour, so for our first night of our new housing-optional lifestyle, we didn’t want to try to go really far away or anything. However, we did need a place to chill out and recover for a few days. It was definitely the right decision, as we found ourselves making our last trip to make a deposit in storage at, like, 9:47 pm. And they close at 10!

Anyway, we’ve both been to San Antonio separately before, but we decided to visit again, and I think it’s pretty obvious why we came. Remember?

I’m pretty sure a pilgrimage to the Alamo is required of every Texan. DON’T FORGET IT.

So, the thing about the Alamo is the thing about any battlefield-turned-park. It’s the juxtaposition of knowing it was the scene of a completely horrific, bloody nightmare pitted in your brain against the lovely tranquil garden into which the site has been converted. Kind of weird, right?

Anyway, other than that, we’ve been walking around the riverwalk and sleeping. Both of us are physically exhausted! But this has been a rejuvenating couple of days, and we’re ready to move on tomorrow to… well, we haven’t decided yet. But we are heading west!

Guess what?

We’re on the road again!

Unexpected circumstances occurred and we finished moving out of our Austin apartment yesterday. We put all our stuff in storage (with the help of some truly incredible friends who incidentally went WAY beyond the call of duty to assist us!!!) and haven’t gotten a new permanent residence. We’ve decided to become “housing optional” for now and are traveling again. We actually have even less of a concrete plan than we had the last time we up and started a road trip… so we hope you’ll come along for the ride!

It was sad to pack up and leave Austin. We weren’t in love with our apartment specifically, but we sure will miss the wonderful friends we made and the amazing sunsets we got to enjoy every night for the past six months from our balcony:

Many more interesting and exciting adventures to come!!