Wordless Wednesday: Bumper Crop

Little trip to the big city

Last weekend I visited my old home town and had a great time seeing old and new college friends. A group of women more or less my age holds these informal reunions every year and I finally was able to attend one.

Since most of the weekend was spent with a bunch of old ladies in rooms chatting, sipping wine and eating cookies, I didn't get many pictures to share.

But one of our dinners was at Discovery Green, a relatively new downtown Houston park, and a few of us walked over there from the reunion hotel. So I was able to snap a couple shots of some of Houston's impressive urban scenery (I took better photos during a 2012 visit, if you want more).

The restaurant was quite nice, and so was the park. Perhaps a little more crowded than usual since there was not only a baseball game going on nearby, but later that night an NBA playoff game, too. (I SO wish our one major league sports venue was downtown; the San Antonio powers-that-be really screwed up on that one.)

In addition to being in close proximity to baseball, basketball, and soccer venues, the huge Houston convention center is also right there. You can see it in the shot above. Yes, I know it looks a lot like an ocean liner, with those red pipes, but it's a convention center, big enough to host the offshore tech conferences that take up a lot of room.

Here's a couple more shots of scenes around the park:

an interesting fountain

the Rubik's cube-like wall you may have seen in my last Wordless Wednesday post

If the little bit of greenery you can see in these photos looks really green, well, that's because it's Houston and everything always looks greener there than in San Antonio. But we also had some big rains while I was there. The friends I stayed with measured 7 inches in their rain gauge over 35 hours!

On the way home I documented some of the leftover evidence of the rain, at the Colorado County Rest Area near Columbus, perfectly situated to relieve travelers of the tea they drank at brunch...

Wordless Wednesday: two walls met

Foggy mist + flowers

What a great combination! On our walk around the family land on Canyon Lake last weekend, there weren't any bluebonnets (which gave me the idea to do some seeding, perhaps, before next spring?).

But there were plenty of spring flowers, and most were wearing fog-deposited droplets of aqueous jewelry, which made them even lovelier...

Given that the land there supports a varied ecosystem, some plants have a topsy-turvy schedule and were looking more fall-ish...

...but there was plenty of spring finery to go around!

Before there was a Canyon Lake...

...there was a canyon, and creeks feeding in to the Guadalupe River, which cut it.

All that's left today to show you where these creeks were are the skeletons of trees that lined them.

When we made a quick trip out 281 to the Lake last weekend, the foggy weather Sunday morning was perfect for taking some atmospheric shots of some of these skeletons.

Our creek is Tom's, and its old course makes our little arm of the big Lake.

Looks pretty desolate, doesn't it? But of course there's plenty of wildlife (or semi-wildlife) that finds the old trees quite comfortable. Plenty of fish in the water, and guys like these on the surface...

Evidence of the fecundity of the wetland is all over the shoreline...

There was more to see on our nice walk, and I'll show you some of the other sights next time.

Wordless Wednesday: new growth

Glories of spring

I would put Texas' state flower up against any other. Especially as a herald of spring. And especially this year, when our wetter-than-usual winter is resulting in a bumper crop of blooms of all kinds, all over town.

The yard above is one that I pass twice a day on my way to and from the bus stop. Isn't their mix of colors a delightful one?

I also pass a rose bush with spectacularly-smelling blooms. It's just inside the fence delineating the University boundary. I can't go by, even if I'm running a little late, without taking a whiff of beauties like this...

Gorgeous to look at, too, right?

Here's more roses, this time in front of an apartment building near where I park to catch the bus:

Not as fragrant, but pretty flashy!

Further up the path from the rose bush, between the street and the science building on campus, are these handsome guys:

And next to the Library's patio, this hawthorne is trying to break some kind of bloom record:

For just a brief moment, though, flowers aren't the only vegetation worth watching on the campus.

Other trees might be more stately, or noble-looking, and might provide more shade. But for a few days in the spring, I submit that there is no more lovely tree than the lowly mesquite...

Several of these lacy beauties grace my path to the edge of campus, and they've just taken my breath away this week...

Here's a close-up of the leaf growth that makes these delicate natural sculptures:

Before long, they'll have matured out of their bright spring green and somehow just won't look as striking. So I'm trying to enjoy them as much as I can in their early finery. Hope you do, too!

Wordless Wednesday: staying in line