Sneak peek...Eve's Garden

On the first and last night of our Thanksgiving trip to Big Bend, Eric and I stayed at Eve's Garden, an organic Bed-n-Breakfast. Kate and Clyde own this fabulous hacienda in the high mountain desert in west Texas, just 2 hours from Big Bend. It may seem like a long way away from Big Bend, but Marathon, TX is actually the closest town (if you can call it that...they only have 8 football players on their high school team) to Big Bend. Texas is a very, very large state. It was about 6 hours to the B&B and another 2 hours to Big Bend. All in all, an 8 hour trip.

As you can see the architecture is quite unique and Kate can sure cook up a rock'n breakfast. Every detail was attended to including the edible flower garnish. It actually inspired me to start cooking. I'm not committing myself yet. I just said inspired. I need to wait a few weeks to see if it wears off.

The hacienda is made of papercrete, a building material comprised of a mixture of Portland cement and recycled paper fiber — a light-weight, insulating concrete. Check out the website for more info. Click on the tabs for more photos.

http://www.evesgarden.org/

Here's a few pics that I took so you can appreciate it's unique beauty in such a quaint, humble town. Eric was a little less then enthusiastic after the long drive. Please excuse his scowl.

We survived

We survived Big Bend Nat'l Park...pics coming soon!

I'm uploading the gazillions of photos from my camera now. Eric will be in Seattle for the next two weeks on a work assignment, starting Wednesday, so I'll have plenty of time to sort amongst the heaps of images and pick a few representative samples that reflect our trip the best. It will take some time though.

Unfortunatley, on our last day, I accidentally had the ISO setting (similar to film speed for non digital cameras) set at 1600 (fastest...for low light conditions) instead of 100 (slowest...best for great color saturation for landscape photography). The night before, I was trying to shoot the stars (which were absolutely stunning!!!) so I changed the ISO to 1600 and then I forgot to change the setting back to 100 before shutting off the camera. So unforntunatley the next day, I shot about 50 images with the incorrect setting which ultimately results in a grainer, less saturated image. Boo. I woke up at 1:30 that night, in a panic, remembering that I forgot to make the change the night before. I was too scared to check so I went back to sleep and checked the next morning to find that my nightmare was true. Oh well. Lesson learned.

I haven't uploaded those images yet (on my computer) but I bet that they are less than ideal. I'm too scared to look. So much time and energy went into them, but obviously not enough thought. I hope that they're salvageable.

Wish me luck...

By the way, Big Bend was amazing. We had an awesome time. More to come.

Lost Maples

As you all know, Texas is not the mecca for fall foliage. Fall just so happens to be my favorite time of the year and I didn't want to miss it twice. So Eric, Bentley and I decided to drive 3 hours to Lost Maples State park in Liverpool, TX. It's about 70 miles West of San Antonio. The maples that give the park its name are remnants from the Ice Age so Eric and I were pretty excited to see them and to spend some time hiking in the cooler weather especially since the park is known for the best foliage in Texas. Keep in mind that this is in the middle of nowhere (I'm talking people on horseback to "ride" into town "nowhere") and the wait to get into the park stretched about 2 miles down the road and the wait once in line took about another hour or more.

Well it just so happens that the "best" foliage in Texas in peak season is pretty darn pathetic. Definitely not worth the drive and the $12 entry and probably not worth the effort of bending down to lace my shoes. But, it was nice to be outside and to breath some fresh, crisp, fall air. There's just something about the smell of decaying leaves and the sound of them crunching under your feet.

Bentley was a big hit with everyone...from his haircut to his dip in the spring...people were actually taking photos of him and we got a lot of oohs and ahhs when we were taking the photos of him on the rock with us.

However, the hit of the trip just may have been the $1.94/gallon fill up on the way there! Don't get me wrong, it was pretty (more so the landscape than the trees...check out the water color...amazing!) but being from the east coast, I guess I'm a bit of a fall foliage snob. I hope that our Big Bend trip over Thanksgiving is much more worth the drive. It's a little further...9 hours one way. Unfortunately the B-dog has to sit this one out. No dogs allowed there :(
Enjoy the pics...

This was pretty much how the Bentster spent the rest of the evening...pooped out.