Possum Kingdom Vacation

We spent this past weekend at Possum Kingdom Lake, which is a couple hours west of Ft. Worth, about a 5 hour drive north of San Antonio. Renee's aunt and uncle were kind enough to let us use their lake house, boat, and jet ski for the weekend, and did we have a blast! Everything was absolutely beautiful, it was one of the most fun vacations we've ever had!

These cliffs are called "Hell's Gate." Cliff jumping is popular at Possum Kingdom in general, and we heard that every Fourth of July there are usually a couple people who actually jump from here. You can get a sense of perspective with the boat to the side.

View from the side (absolutely gorgeous scenery!).

These cliffs are a lot shorter, but still way too high for us :-) There are several people jumping in this picture.

We spent our time boating, jet skiing, fishing, and swimming. This is Scott tearing it up on the jet ski.This was the swimming dock right outside the condo. The water was super deep pretty much everywhere.

Cannonball off the boat! SPLASH!Boat slips in the background.
Inside Hell's Gate is a swimming area where people hang out with their boats anchored. Friday there was no one there but Saturday afternoon there were a lot of boats, hard to guess exactly how many. There was even one string of boats tied together that was 10 boats long! It was a really cool atmosphere, people had their stereos on their boats playing and people were just hanging out, having a good time.Friday night we went to Renee's aunt and uncle's favorite area restaurant, Wildcatter Ranch. We had a window seat, and the view was beautiful! We didn't realize the hill country covered so much of Texas...Possum Kingdom is located in the northern hill country and the southern hill country begins just north of San Antonio.
There were a couple of horses right by the restaurant, and one came over to say "hi" to Renee, probably because he thought she had food! Saturday morning we went fishing off of the swimming dock, casting back towards the rocks where Scott had a feeling there may be some tasty panfish (although we were catching and releasing). He was right...This was the swimming hole we pulled 20 fish from in a little less than 2 hours! 12 catfish and 8 bluegill (we were going for quantity, not quality :-). We couldn't hardly keep up...as soon as the hook hit the water the bobber went down...and who knows how many more got away with our bait that we didn't snag!
These beasts were caught with regular earthworms on light sporting tackle. A friendly black lab came to check out what we had going on.
This crane (on the rock outcropping, hard to see in this picture) had the same idea we did and was fishing in the same spot the next morning.

The sunset from the balcony.

We had such a fantastic time, a huge thanks to Renee's aunt and uncle!!!

Fireworks In Seguin, TX

Saturday night we headed to Seguin, TX for their fireworks show. Seguin is about one hour east of San Antonio on 1-10 towards Houston and has a population of about 25,000. We had never been there before and wanted to try and avoid the 1 1/2 million other people in San Antonio wanting to see fireworks :-) The show in Seguin was at a golf course and park and we decided to just set up in the back of the truck and enjoy our own box seats!

Behind us was a baseball diamond. We had our soda and seeds and were ready for the show!
There were a lot of other people who had the same idea...no walking (it was still over 100 degrees at 7:30) and no crowds. We had had a busy day bike riding and it was nice to just sit back and relax!

Fredericksburg Fly-In

Saturday morning Scott and his friend Brad (a coworker who is also a pilot) flew to the Fredericksburg, TX airport for breakfast at the diner there. There were planes there from all over, but most were from Texas.

Coming in to land at the airport, the diner is the big hangar-shaped building.

Brad getting some take-offs and landings in.
The front of the diner, facing the ramp.
Inside the diner.
View of the ramp from a booth.

There were all types of different planes, it was kind of like a mini air show!

Luckenbach, TX

For the past couple weekends, Scott has been finishing up his ground school for his commercial rating so lately we haven't been able to do anything fun. He took his written test Thursday and passed with flying colors so we had some time this weekend after he flew on Saturday. He still has some flying to do before he can take his check ride but he hopes to be done in the next month or so. Unfortunately at least one flight a week gets cancelled for weather (which is funny because he got his instrument rating a few months ago so now he can fly in clouds, but the commercial rating requires training on maneuvers in a complex aircraft in visual conditions only, so for now he's back to cancelling for weather!) So we'll see, but he's more than halfway done now so it's just a matter of time...

We decided to find Luckenbach, Texas, as a wise man (Jim) once sent us on a quest to do just that, saying it was very hard to find. Well, being the arrogant young whippersnappers we are we just assumed he didn't know about GPSs or MapQuest, but as it turns out it WAS hard to find! And the reason is because it's not really a town, it's more of a gathering place. But, first thing's first, we stopped at Whittington's in Johnson City for some of their world famous turkey jerkey.

From Whittington's we headed west to Luckenbach, which was on a map of the area we got at Whittington's, but when we got there we were confused because although the sign said Luckenbach, there is no town. The sign is just on the side of the highway. But there were a lot of cars parked in a big grass field so we went to check it out. People were getting out of their cars and walking, as if to some sort of event.

We parked and went to investigate. What it is, is a place where people come to listen to live music, just hang out, and buy souvenirs saying they've been to Luckenbach. A good many people there were taking pictures like us so it's hard to say how many locals were there and how many tourists.
You could get your picture taken with a longhorn steer.
This is the band playing Saturday night. They were really good and it would have been fun to hang out and listen, but it was 100 degrees (even at 7pm) and Bridget looked like she was going to keel over after only 10 minutes of walking.
This is Grape Creek, which runs along the east side of Luckenbach.

Why drink the purified water we brought with us when you can just drink creek water? Mmmmmm, creek water.

There were a couple of fire pits too, although no one was using them at the time. This is looking back towards where the band was playing.

Random rooster.

The post office is now a general store where you can buy souvenirs.

There were a lot of motorcycles people rode in, which is apparently common, and then yesterday was also the Luckenbach car show so there were still a few cars left from that, though not very many. We had seen a lot of classic cars on the highway and figured there was a car show somewhere but turns out it was right where we were going!

Bruno

Thursday evening we were walking Bridget on a side street along our usual route (when we don't take her to the park), when we found Bruno. He looked like a Chihuahua/Pug mix and although he didn't have any tags, he did have a collar. He was a very sweet dog, well-behaved (and housebroken, as it turns out), but no one in the near vicinity knew anything about him. We couldn't just leave him there so we carried him home for the night. He's definitely someone's pet...he likes sitting on your lap on the couch and is used to sleeping in someone's bed (he had to content himself with the loveseat instead). The next morning Renee took him to the apartment complex's office where we found him to see if anyone was looking for him. They hadn't heard anything but did put up signs and one of the employees took him to her mom's house while they tried to locate the owner. He and Bridget got along great and she was happy to have a friend stay the night!

Renee plans to stop by the apartment's office early next week and see if anyone ever claimed him.

Washington, D.C.

WARNING! The following post is extremely long and could be tedious to some viewers. Feel free to take frequent breaks and, if necessary, bail completely. We understand.

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This past week Bridget went to Camp Bow Wow on vacation and we went to Washington, D.C. Although we didn't see everything possible, we were able to see everything we had really wanted to. The weather was cloudy most of the time we were there, and it rained the first two days, but we just spent those two days in museums anyway so it worked out. The first day we went to the National Air and Space Museum on the Mall. There is also a new center that was built in 2003 at Dulles International Airport that we visited later in the week.

The Apollo 11 Command Module.

The Spirit of St. Louis.

Scott ready for a 3D IMAX adventure.

Orville and Wilbur Wright....and Scott.

The actual 1903 Wright Flyer. The fabric had been restored in the 1980s but all other parts are original.

The Starship Enterprise model that was used in the Star Trek TV shows.

Scott and Kermit the Frog.

Dorothy's slippers from the Wizard of Oz. Renee didn't get to see them last time she was here because they were out on tour so she was pumped.

Abraham Lincoln's tophat.

Scott and (wax) Robin Williams.

There has been an accusation made by certain parties that Scott has "T. Rex" arms, inhibiting his reach toward and aquisition of high objects. He refused to extend his arm in this picture for comparison, so the rumor will have to live on. More dinosaurs.

The Hope Diamond.

The hubbub surrounding the Hope Diamond case.

The Washington Monument.

The Capitol building. We think the tent in front is from the Memorial Day concert because it looked like the same one that was on TV but we're not sure.

The Jefferson Memorial.

The Secret Service patroling the White House. There was also at least one guy on the roof.

The World War II Memorial with the Lincoln Memorial in the background.

The Korean War Memorial.

The Lincoln Memorial.

The Vietnam War Memorial.

We saw this helicopter twice going to and from the White House. We also saw several motorcades with police escorts throughout the week. We don't know if the President was with any of them, it seems unlikely.

The Iwo Jima Memorial.

The Changing of the Guard at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier.

This is the Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center at Dulles, which is the other half of the National Air and Space Museum. It was an extremely nice, bright, clean facility that had several planes there that are the last of their kind. The National Air and Space Museum on the Mall has a mix of aircraft and exhibits, whereas this one had mostly aircraft. Since it is located on an active airport, many of the aircraft actually flew here on their final flight to be placed in the museum.

This is the first and oldest multi-engine airplane.

The Enola Gay is the plane that dropped the atomic bomb on Hiroshima.
This is the observation tower that looks like a control tower from the outside of the museum. From here you can see planes taking off from and landing at Dulles.

The SR-71. This plane flew its last flight to this museum in 1990. Before coming to the museum, the plane flew coast to coast in 67 minutes, going 2,124 mph! (indicated airspeed at a height of over 80,000 ft.)

The Space Shuttle Enterprise. This shuttle never actually went into space, it was used for ground and flight testing for subsequent shuttles.

This is the mobile contamination facility used to quarantine the Apollo 11 astronauts when they returned from the mopon.

This museum also has a Concord, which is the supersonic jet that used to fly overseas. They are all now retired.

We stayed at the Omni Shoreham Hotel, which was very nice and had a lot of history as well. The Beatles stayed there on their first trip to America, the Washington Redskins stayed there at some point, and several presidents and world leaders have stayed there throughout the years (we didn't really read too carefully into the specifics, if you can't tell). We got a great deal booking online, and it was fun to stay in a luxury hotel!

We had an awesome time, and were lucky to see everything we wanted to see. It was definitely not the type of vacation where you sit back and relax!