Big Brother Comes Knocking

Yeah, Big Brother has been here. No, not the feds, but my older brother, Larry. He and his wife, Nancy,  came out for a visit last weekend. That was a real treat. We rarely have visits from family or old friends out here. Most of our family members live in the eastern part of the state or other places, so when we have guests, it is a real pleasure.

We enjoyed the visit tremendously, and we really enjoyed the opportunity to show them around San Angelo. We're very proud of our town and we like to show it off. We took them out to Lake Nasworthy where we spotted countless deer, a few turkeys, and numerous squirrels, including 1 or two black squirrels. We also spent some time driving them through San Angelo State Park. We were unable to spot any of the park's buffalo heard, but while stretching our legs on Pulliam Point, a young fox ran very near us. There is also a small prairie dog town fork in that section of the park, and we spotted several of those little critters sporting around.

We also took them by Angelo State University, through the lovely Santa Rita neighborhood (older homes that have been lovingly maintained and restored), along the North Concho River in downtown Angelo, and we visited a few stores downtown, notably Eggemeyer's General Store and Concho Confetti Antique Mall. While the gang was strolling through these stores, I slipped off to my favorite bookstore in the world, the Cactus Book Shop, which has the best collection of Elmer Kelton books in the world. It also has a ton of other books on the American West, which is one of my greatest interests.

Eggemeyer's General Store on Concho Street in downtown San Angelo

Concho Confetti Mall on Concho Street in downtown San Angelo. The old Cactus Hotel is in the background.

The rest of the time, we just visited and ate . . . and ate . . . and ate. Donna made a cheesecake. She hadn't made one of these in years and years, but she hasn't lost her touch. It's worth putting up with my brother if I can get a Donna cheesecake out of the deal. And Larry brought 2 boxes of old family pictures and documents which he had recently come across, so he and I spent time working our way through those.

We had a good time, and look forward to our next visit. Maybe some other family can find San Angelo on the map and work their way out here. We're pretty good hosts.