Concho Christmas Light Tour

Donna and I love to go out this time of year and look at Christmas lights. When you live in San Angelo, that means going to the Concho Christmas Light Tour. The Tour is not the best Christmas light display in the world, but it is pretty unique, especially for West Texas.

The Tour begins at 1st Street and River Drive. For the next mile or so, the Tour follows River Drive along the north bank of the North Concho River. Most of the lights are located across the river, on the south bank. Their lights dance and sparkle in the waters of the slow-moving river, and their reflections are often broken by the ripples from ducks moving about the river. The bulk of the lights are dedicated to the 12 Days of Christmas theme.

After a mile along the river, the Tour then takes a left on Irving Street for 1 block to Concho Street, the original business street of downtown San Angelo. Many of the stores along the 2 block section of Concho Street on the tour are decorated. At Oakes Street, the Tour turns right, crosses the river and then the railroad tracks, and turns into the pavilion across from Fort Concho National Historic Landmark. A number of light displays are concentrated here, ending with a living nativity scene on weekends.

We also like to drive through Santa Rita, an older neighborhood in the city. The residents decorate the divided roadway along Paseo de Vaca Street, ending with a diorama display of "The Night Before Christmas" story.

There are other prominent displays in town, including one on Hill Street and Avenue R that a local family erects each year, but the above two are our favorites. For the drive around town, Donna made hot cocoa. Now, I'm not talking instant powder and hot water cocoa here, I'm talking the real stuff with real cocoa and real milk. Boy, that made the night complete.

Merry Christmas to all, and to all a good night!

Hanging in There

We've not been doing much lately, so I haven't really had anything to post.

The kids are coming this Friday and will spend a couple of days with us. Since they spent Thanksgiving with us, they will spend Christmas with Michael's family. After the holidays die down, we hope to get back to traveling.

Donna and I have both been a bit under the weather for the past 2 weeks. Combined with the really cold weather we've had, we just haven't wanted to do much. But things started warming up this past week and we started getting out a bit.

We had 2 disappointing meals at local restaurants this week. First, we visited Los Panchitos near the river and got their lunch fajitas. I had beef and Donna had a combination. I hate to be critical, but they were absolutely the worst fajitas I have ever had. There was no fajita seasoning, no grill taste, and the quality of the meat was very poor. We also didn't care for the rice and the side of queso we ordered, though we did enjoy the chips and salsa.

Our second poor meal was at Lone Star Cheeseburger, which really is just a trailer parked on a lot near downtown. There have been numerous positive reviews of this place, and they bill themselves as making the best cheeseburgers in Texas. Again, we were disappointed. First, the meat did not taste like 100% beef; Donna and I both detected a pork, or sausage, taste. We also didn't care for the fries. I'm still in search of  that basic traditional burger in San Angelo; at this point, the fast food places do the best job in town. I'll keep looking.

Aside from a bit of grocery and Christmas shopping, that's about all we've done. The forecast for this week shows temps in the 60s and even reaching 70, so we hope to get out to the park for a good walk, maybe even a hike.

I wish all of you a Merry Christmas and a very happy and satisfying New Year.

A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood

It's 2:00 PM in San Angelo on Tuesday, December 10th, and the sun is shining. It's currently 44 degrees, and it's a beautiful day.

Normally, 44 is chilly to me, but not today. This is only the second day since last Thursday that the temp has climbed above freezing. I'm not used to the cold hanging around this long. Nights are still dipping below freezing, and will continue doing so for at least the next week, but the day time temps should continue to rise. Ice is still on the rooftops and on the north sides of buildings; we still have considerable ice in our front yard, which faces north. Usually our snow and ice melt the next day, but not during this cold spell.

I don't like the cold. I didn't mind it as much when I was younger, but I get colder now, it seems. We've been using our new gas fireplace quite a bit this past week. It's nice to feel its warmth on those cold, overcast days.

I don't envy folks who live in colder climates; they must be hardier than I am.

Old Man Winter Has Arrived, Part 2

It was just about 2 weeks ago that I posted Old Man Winter Has Arrived. Normally we don't get severe winter storms this close together, at least not in this part of Texas. But here we go again.

A front moved through San Angelo in the early morning hours, dropping temperatures drastically in a matter of hours. The temperature as I write this (9:44 AM on Thursday, November 5) is 32 degrees. The wind is blowing from the north at 18 mph, making the wind chill a frigid 21 degrees. Yesterday, the temperature reached a balmy 84 degrees. What a difference a day can make! Tonight the low is expected to fall to 24. The high tomorrow will reach 30 while the low tomorrow night will dip to 19 degrees. We have a 50% chance of precipitation later today, rising to 80% tonight. We should get some ice, perhaps even some snow.

We don't get that much frigid weather in San Angelo. Sure, we'll get some freezes and even a snow or two each year. But they usually are spread far apart and last for only a day or two. Having two cold snaps about 2 weeks apart is unusual. And this cold spell will remain at the freezing level for 3 full days, then level off to highs only in the 40s for the next several days. Very unusual.

But Donna is in the kitchen cooking up a big pot of beef stew, enough to last the two of us for several days. And last week I had a gas insert installed in our fireplace, so we have the fire glowing.

We opted for the gas insert instead of real wood because of convenience. In our fireplace, when you want a fire, just turn on the gas and fire her up. When you are finished, just turn it off. There's no fussing with building a fire, hauling in fire wood, cleaning out ashes, and all of that. I still enjoy a real fire, especially when we camp, but as we grow older, convenience becomes more important.

So, we'll sit back in front of our fire, savor our beef stew, and enjoy the cold snap. I hope all of you stay nice and warm.

Invasion of the All Night Gang

Ahh, Thanksgiving. Arguably my favorite holiday of the year.

When I was still a working chap, I eagerly looked forward to Thanksgiving each year. It served somewhat as a warmup for Christmas and New Year's.

We try not to travel during holidays anymore. There is simply too much traffic. And I never want to fly during the holidays. I don't like crowds, and I certainly don't like getting stranded when weather turns bad. Now that we are retired, we can travel whenever we want, so we opt to travel when others don't.

So, we plan to stay home during holidays from now on. So for this first Thanksgiving in our new house, daughter Courtney, son-in-law Michael, grandson #1 Xander (short for Alexander, aka the Godfather), and grandson #2 Camden (aka the Sheriff) came for a visit.

Camden is now about 4 months, so he is different each time we see him. He is beginning to develop a personality, but he still keeps everyone hopping. I can hear Courtney up with him at all hours of the night, and I laugh quietly to myself in a Bill Cosby satisfied sort of way.

I've revived a long tradition of ours this year, one I gave up a few years ago. Donna muscled me into buying a smoker. She wanted a smoked turkey this holiday. So, I set up the new smoker, tested, and got ready for Thanksgiving. Now, I take my smoking seriously. I begin the process about midnight. I get the fire going, add oak or mesquite wood chunks that have been soaking all day, fill a water pan with water, beer, and other flavored liquids, and put the turkey on. Throughout the night, I add more charcoal and more soaked wood. The turkey cooks over indirect heat and smoke and is ready for lunch on Thanksgiving. Now, I'm biased, but I absolutely love turkey cooked this way. And I'm not a big turkey fan. I normally won't eat turkey except when I've smoked it.

So, as I would get up periodically throughout the night to add more charcoal and wood to the smoker, I'd hear my daughter and grandson #2. As you've heard said before, the best thing about being a grandparent is that you can enjoy your grandchildren and then send them home. So, after a day or so, my life returns to a quiet normal, but the "All Night Gang" continues their late-night vigils of warming bottles and changing diapers.

Ah, payback is so much fun.

Another Online Tool for the Traveler

About a year ago, I posted an article about online tools I use when traveling. (See "Online Tools for RVers"). I've recently discovered something new I want to share.

While using Google Maps a week or so ago, I noticed a little feature I had not seen before. There's no telling how long it has been available, but I had never seen it. I was measuring the distance from two locations when I happened to see it.

One of my favorite features of Google Maps is that it allows you to get directions from Point A to Point B. When you first pull the program up, you will see this feature available in the upper-left corner of the screen. Simply click on the "Get Directions" button. You can then enter your starting point and your destination. When you do so, the new feature I discovered becomes available.

In the example below, I've entered San Angelo as my starting point and Austin as my destination. The program has returned 3 possible routes, each showing the distance and calculated time to travel that route. As you hover over each choice, that route will highlight in the right part of the screen, on the actual map. Just below the 3 options is a little button, which I have circled in red, that allows you to enter the 3D option. If you click this button, then Google Earth will load and will move you through your route from the starting point to the end point. In other words, you will get an aerial view of your route from start to finish.

For longer trips, it would take quite a while to watch the route play out, but for shorter routes, you can get a good visual of your trip before taking off. Yesterday, I put in a 99 mile route, and it took close to 10 minutes to follow that route, so this is not something you want to use with longer trips. But for shorter trips, it can be quite useful.

Another step forward in armchair travel. Onward!

Old Man Winter Has Arrived

There's an old saying that if you don't like the weather, just wait a few minutes. That has certainly proved true in my part of the country the last few days.

I write this early on a Saturday morning. On Thursday, the temperature reached a balmy 78. A front moved through West Texas later that day, reaching our area (known locally as the "Concho Valley") about midnight. Our high temp for Friday was actually recorded in the early hours of that day in the 40s. Once daylight arrived, the temp hovered in the low 30s throughout the day, a difference of about 45 degrees from the previous day.

Now early on this Saturday morning, it is still cold, with the temp hovering around the freezing mark. It will remain here throughout the day. Yesterday, we had a little moisture, even a few small specks of snow. It's still dark out, but I can see partially white rooftops in the neighborhood. We expect more wintry weather today (Saturday), tomorrow, and into Monday.

Donna made a big pot of soup yesterday. Mmmm! We have no place we need to be, so we are staying home for the weekend. It's nice to be in a warm house during cold weather as opposed to a travel trailer as we were last winter.