HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!

We wish you all a very happy 2012!  We pretty much had the last minute idea of traveling to San Antonio Texas to bring in the new year, so around 2:00PM on the 31st, we got in the car, stopped for gas and a
Subway sandwich and drove south.

We read that morning about the celebration that would take place at Hemisfair Park and the Riverwalk, and the fact that it was a free event.  What better than free!?  We arrived at the hotel around 8:30 (I know, we made a few stops to pick up our much needed yellow underwear), checked in and walked down to the street.  For starters, the weather was amazing!  T-shirt, jeans and a pair of chucks.

We first stopped to get the mandatory picture of the Alamo.  I'm pretty sure I have enough of those but it's close enough to the hotel not to have done it.  Then we walked down to the Riverwalk which was packed but everybody seemed to be having a good time.

We made it over to Hemisfair Park and people were everywhere.  The usual pushing through crowds holding your beer up in the air to avoid spilling it.  I was impressed that I did not see a single fight break out as they usually do in drunken crowds.  Everyone was having a good time, there were several stages with live music, and food vendors of all kinds.

We walked around and finally made it to the main stage for the countdown.  It was the end of a good year and the beginning of what I hope is an even better one.

More fossils?

No, not more fossils.  In fact, we haven't seen any fossils lately.  But here are a few more of the animals we saw at Fossil Rim Wildlife Center.

Not sure what the deal is with these animals staring us down.  All we were doing was driving through their living room!

Audad - Ammotragus Lervia.  I believe the true name is Rammus Staredownus.  At least that's what the Internet says.

Giraffe - Giraffa Camelopardalis.  This one we will call neckus longeritus.  This guy actually stuck his head in through my window.  Another hungry one.  There were about 6 of these walking around.

We've seen one of these before.  Or two?  I don't recall which one this is, but it is definitely one of the zebras!!

Axis Deer - Axis Axis.  This guy looks so mean that his scientific name is self explanatory.  He'll give you the ax, and then again.

Fossil Rim, Glen Rose Texas

So we took a little road trip about two hours from our house, down to the Fossil Rim Wildlife Preserve in Glen Rose Texas. We had been there before, only last time we took the mountain bikes to ride around certain areas of the park.

This time we decided to get up early to beat the Labor Day crowd, but as it turns out, we had some work to do here at the house & didn't leave for the park until 10pm.

We drove into Glen Rose looking for a place to eat as it would take us about two hours to drive around the park. After driving around for a while, we backtracked to a Mexican restaurant we had seen on our way there and stopped for some tacos. I'll give them a 7.

Once we got to the park we were surprised to see how many people had planned on doing the same thing. It was a holiday after all. The sign said the tour would take between 2 and 4 hours TO THE HALF-WAY MARK!

Over the hill we could see the line of cars slowly driving through the park. We figured WTH, we're already here, might as well do it.

Off we go...

Who would have thought, 2 different species of zebras. Eqqus burchelli and Eqqus canadensis tabida. Can you spot the differences? The first is black with white stripes, the second is white with black stripes.

And yeah, they are right there.  They are so used to people driving around the park feeding them that they pretty much just come in through the windows looking for food.