St. Augustine, FL

Well, Friends. I'm back at my first love - working in a used book store! By helping out at Wolf's Head Books I'm able to do the parts of the business I love - sell and buy but don't have to do the parts I don't love - worry about the rent, the orders, the employees, the insurance, the d.b. %, etc. Pure book selling - or reading if there is no selling :).


The weather is beautiful, there is a festival in town, I'm living across the street from the Atlantic and about as happy as I can be away from my own bed.  Right now I'm very happy that I offered to volunteer to help a friend.

We miss you, Harvey Wolf.
 

Used Book Stores in Texas

I've driven/ridden over 2000 miles in the past 2 weeks and have visited antique malls, used book stores and library resale areas in numerous towns.  It would seem to me that Texas is a hard state to find reasonably priced books in v.g. condition.  Either the books weren't of any interest to me, they were very expensive or in very poor condition. Or all 3!

In one town (not in TX) a bookstore I went into was so small and so crowded that I literally could barely move sideways down the aisle (walk would indicate forward momentum).  There were 2 L shape areas nestled so close together that I though the clerk was kidding when he said any FL history would be inside the area!  And I'm not THAT big a person (petite people would have had a problem).  Anyways, there were books everywhere in this tiny shop.  When the guy said he had been there since 1986 - and I almost asked if he had sold anything yet!

It is just truly a fun experience to see how so many shops are arranged, what kind of stock they have and get the feel of the place.  And I don't understand shops where the new "customer" isn't acknowledged or welcomed when s/he enters the store.  A simple "hi" or "welcome" would be nice and many dealers don't offer it - I wonder why.

San Antonio Alamo

Alamo Cactus

Texas Wild Flowers including famous Blue Bonnet

San Antonio is Done

We came, we saw, we ate, we walked and we're gone! Sunday AM we head for New Orleans.  Here are a few more photos of our visit in this very tourist friendly town.

Cactus

Can't remember!

We took the river tour.

Great Dane on the Riverwalk - everyone loves their dog! 155 lbs. sitting with owner at restaurant.

 

Fiesta - food, music, dancing, buying and people watching. 

 St. Mary's Catholic Church

Bell's on River Tour

More Riverwalk

The Riverwalk is more upscale than what we thought - not run down at all!  We took the boat road on the river and were surprised that it is 25 ft. deep in some places.  Surprised because there are so many tourists walking around and in many places there are no railings - you just have to figure out for yourself that if you could fall in - I didn't even see a warning:  "Notice: Water is wet, cold and deep _ Caution should be used!".  I wonder why we need notices on carry out coffee cups that say coffer "may be hot" but we don't need railing with crowds?

We also went to the Alamo - just because it was there and listened to the history of the area.  The volunteer did a very nice job.  Our weather was threatening with lots of rain in the area but we had quite a nice day.

San Antonio - Finally!

Wefinally made it to San Antonio River Walk and already love it and are over whelmed with things to do.  It is rainy here tonight so the photos are not bright and shinny - just like it looks in a rainy day.

Fort Worth Art Fair and Area

We're
really loving the Fort Worth area. Dallas is BIG but Fort Worth is manageable and has some history.
These wire art images floating in the air were my favorite art show pieces.  

This cattle mural is very big and represents the Fort Worth cattle history.  

You
can't have a good art fair without food.  I saw this "plate" of "insects" being shared by a very happy looking couple.  For outside fair food, I think I prefer a carmled apple!

Joel Hill, Bob's brother-in-law loves to take Max, his Babe Magnet to such events! Max soaks up the attention and honestly, so did Joel.  Bob is now considering a small dog  :(

Bob's sister has been cooking wonderful meals for us, I'm gaining weight and our vacation is only a week old!  Once we don't have these steak and shrimp and pasta dinners with bottles of wine, maybe I'll be able to focus more on salads :(.  Not nearly as much fun.

If anyone is considering a TX vacation, I suggest this time of the year.  We're hoping to see some of the blue bonnets and other wild flowers as we drive to San Antonio.  The weather is wonderful and the antique malls we've been to have been very, very big!  Texas sized, I suppose.  Big enough to have shopping carts!  I've never been to an antique store with a shopping cart and I don't think I like it - sticking antiques into a Big Lots type cart just doesn't do anything for the ambiance of the shopping experience.

Well, today we're going to Grapevine and Central Marketplace, a "destination" shopping experience for international and deli foods.  Yummm. 

Day 2; The TX trip

No shopping today - just driving. But we finally got out of Florida! It was 605 miles from our place to the FL border - that is about 1/2 of the trip to Bedford, TX according to the AAA Trip Tik.

We stopped just before we left the state and I took a picture of a nice park that looked like there weren't any aligators lurking! It really felt like "home" - a non-threatening park. In S.W. FL there is always the threat of aligators or wild boars or monitor lizards, etc. so a nice park with just trees was a treat!

We're in Lafayette, LA tonight with the weather in 60s. We had some rain during our drive with the temps in the 70s, just lovely driving temps today. We didn't stop at the Pensacola Beaches because of the rain but did see the huge interchange leading to the beaches. Huuummm...navigating that will be a challenge. We should be able to do it with all of the navigation equipment/supplies we have with us. I've been testing out my new GPS, Bob is using his favorite AAA Trip Tik and we tossed in the maps AAA gave us and an Atlas (I need the bigger picture).

The MSN that the Garmin GPS uses would have made us take a couple of very wrong turns if we hadn't used our heads and not listened to "her". I put in "Bedford, TX" while we were still in Alabama - that may be a bit of a stretch - maybe directions should be for more local addresses 0r shorter distances. We'll see but at least I'm getting pretty good at using it - even got us to the right motel tonight without clearing out the original destination. Maybe I'll learn how to tell it to stay on major roads to get me to major cities?

One more day of driving and then the partying begins. Here are a couple of pics you might enjoy. Madlyn

Nice FL park.The Chamber building - very nice.Bridge in MississippiMiles of this kind of bridge.