For our first camping trip since the house flood last spring, Mike and I spent a long weekend at the South Llano River State Park, Oct 14 – 17. It is one of our favorite state parks and we usually get there once or twice a year. It has great birding and is on the Monarch Butterfly migration route. The average peak date for the Monarch migration is Oct 20, so we had plenty of butterflies (most of which were moving too fast to catch with our cameras or net) but the birding was below average. Nevertheless, we had a great time, hiked ourselves into blisters and exhaustion, and got completely away from the day to day life in the big city.

We got to sleep with the windows all open and were serenaded by insects all night long. We had an amazing full moon, with a clear sky day and night. We got to swim in the river and walk in the woods. And we saw deer, armadillo, lots of wildlife and farm stock, and a small brown wild pig whom we chased into the woods only to find a stand of hundreds of Butterflies. It was fun. 

 

 

This week, I got away for a quick trip to visit my brother David and his wife Carol in Memphis. Mike was not able to go because he still had to work. (He plans to retire next Spring. We are ready.) It had been over a year since we had been able to visit David and Carol, and this was very relaxed, with very little running around and a fair amount of just visiting.

I almost delayed the trip again because the weather forecast was so gloomy. But I had only scattered showers on the way there – and beautiful days there and for the drive back. I stayed in a motel on the way and camped on the way back.

Although we knocked around a bit and ran some errands, the big outing was a few hours walking at the Zoo.

With no more ado, some pictures:

Driving into heavy Rains.

Pink Flamingo

Hippo

Crocodile

Grizzly

Sandhill Crane

Bull Elk

Cheetah

Green Aracari

Male Lion – who looked intimidating as he marched towards me. But who just lay down before getting too close.

Primitive Mask in one of the animal houses

American Snout – in Atlanta Texas – The butterfly migration is on in East Texas

Mission Tejas State Park – Near Alto, TX

Dawn at Mission Tejas State Park