This is something I've been meaning to do for sometime now, but I won't apologize for holding back for so long. ^_~ Anyway...
Sometime back in mid-April my mom, grandmother, sister (Aduro) and I went out into the backroads of Texas to have a look at the wildflowers. The particular section we go to is between San Antonio and Fredericksburg, and usuall at that time of year the place is literally overflowing with beautiful flowers. The main two flowers that we look for on these roadtrips are bluebonnets (pictured below for those who don't know what they look like) and Indian paintbrushes (which is not pictured below, but I highly recommend that y'all look it up), but there are others of great interest along the way to see, such as wine cups and other little oddities. There's this one place in particular that we love to stop at that looks over a valley because there are so many bluebonnets in that place that it looks like a lake. (One of these days I'll get my mom to give the the picture that she took of it one year that way I can post it up to show y'all. Honestly, words alone do not do that sight justice! >_< )
However, we haven't had nearly as much rain as usual this year, so the only places that truly had a great deal of anything were alongside the highways. This may not sound like much to some people, but that really bothers me. I'm so used to seeing all of the wildflowers out and about at this time of year and not even seeing their buds pop out of the ground...to me, that's just freaking scary, if not a reminder of how precious water is to our fragile environment.
In other news, while we were driving by we came across some other things, both interesting and...not so interesting, along the trip that I want to mention to y'all:
- Along the way we came across a few ranches that had llamas
- We got so see another ranch that had a good amount of buffalo
- Oddly enough, we came across another ranch that had two camels (my grandmother told me along the way that the Texas Rangers or some other organization actually used them for something back in the day, but I'll have to look up on my Texas history to be sure)
- Before we came across the worse smell I ever had the displeasure of whiffing (which I will mention after this bullet) we drove right past a freshly killed skunk (did I forget to mention it was kinda warm that day?) >_<
- Along the track, just about ten minutes or so before coming across the skunk, we came across a dead carcass. >__< There is a story that goes along with this, so I'll go back to using a paragraph for this one and end the list
The moment we stopped the vehicle to have a better look at this clearing I caught whiff of something that smelled like stinkbait. I asked if anyone else had noticed it and the answer I got back was "it's all in your head." I don't know why I believed this, but I did, and went out with my mom and my grandmother to investigate. After a few seconds of this, both my grandmother and my mom figure out what I was trying to tell them. We continued on anyway until mom, who was in front of us, figured out were the God-aweful stentch was coming from. We think it was the body of a dead antelope because its fur just wasn't the right shade to be a deer. Either way, it was dead, and that smell refused to leave our nostrils until long after we got home...almost five or so hours later. >__< What's really sad? I can still remember what that smelled like just at the mere mention of it. >___<
One of the other things that occured on this trip (bad smells aside) was a trip to the Wildseed Farm. This place boasts the largest collection of wildflowers in Texas (and possibly the country). The place is really nice and pleasant to walk through because of their huge collection, and sometimes they have some new stuff on display. For example, this time they had a flower that they called a redbonnet. It's just like a bluebonnet, only its more of a maroon color (courtosy of Texas A&M University who's science department created it).
That's all ladies and gentlemen. Later! ^_^
