Flying South for Rainy Weather and a Beautiful Wedding....

Ummm, I didn't really think it would be almost another month before I would sit down and try to catch up on the blog.  I really like writing on the blog and Sundays are a great day to do it but somehow time has just been flying by.  Well, on with "Flying South for Rainy Weather and a Beautiful Wedding".

When Jordan (Giberson-my niece) announced March 20th for her wedding date in Houston, I was so excited.  That is about the time that I am ready to get out of the winter weather in Utah and love to head south for any reason.  This year, however, the weather has been so mild.  We have only had 3-4 snow falls throughout the whole winter so far (which is bad for the water storage but nice if you don't care for snow.).  It was a beautiful week here in Utah but Texas had gotten a terrible ice and snow storm a week or so before my trip and it rained off and on for the first three days of my trip.

I flew from Salt Lake to Austin on Wednesday, the 18th, rented a car and drove to Houston.  Since the wedding was taking place at the Houston Temple, I decided to take advantage of it by sneaking in a short visit with my friend, Andrea Pederson Slack (a friend from Richland and my one of my roommates at BYU as a freshman).  She wasn't going to be home until 9:00 p.m. so my brother had given me some places to check out along the way.  The weather was okay with it only raining from time to time along the way:

The Austin airport was busy.  It was during the South by Southwest week when they have over 1000 concerts throughout the city of all types of music.  Rental cars were sky high for those who didn't book ahead.

Guitars in the Austin Baggage Claim
Yes, I think I posted one of these in September when
we went to the game but this is during the day
and turned out much better.

 I took route 71 from Austen and stopped along the way at historical markers and other places. My brother had suggested  Bastrop, so I actually spent some time there.

They had a beautiful area of historical homes



The detail of the front

The clouds are approaching.

Small town Baptist Churches--Sometimes their signs
are great!  This one says:
Hope is hearing the music of the future-
Faith is dancing to it today!

I liked it!

City center

These clouds look painted.  They were amazing!

A tribute to fireman and their life saving work



The fire station above
Downtown below

Metal relief of the history of Texas
The picture doesn't do it justice.

 And I found a historical bridge.  It now is only a walking picture with a new road built beside it to handle traffic.

 So, of course, I walked across it and back---and took pictures!

 Along the side of the bridge I noticed all of these things attached....

 And when I got close enough I saw that they were combination locks.  There was no one around to find out why they were there and if they meant something significant.  Was it an anti-suicide message or the local spot where young lovers acknowledged their eternal tie to each other?  Who knows?

This bridge actually had water underneath it which isn't always
the case in Texas.

Views off the other end of the bridge:

 How many state flags have you seen designed as a roof of a house?  Texans love their flag.

 The other end of the bridge.

 No historical town pictures would be complete without one of a Church.

I continued southeast on Hwy. 71 and tried to take pictures to communicate flatness.  I have pointed out to my Texas friends that you really can't see "forever" because of the curvature of the earth.  In places like Utah you can see mountain tops from far away and in Washington on a clear day you could see the tops of the Blue Mountains which were very distant from Richland.  However they don't call Texas Big Sky county for nothing.  The skies are amazing especially on a day like today when the clouds are rolling past.

More clouds

Road to Flatonia

 I stopped at a view area and took the following pictures from that vantage point:

 I love the variety of colors in this picture. (below)

cell towers instead of windmills

Wildflowers were begin to bloom along the roadsides

Historical marker along the way
"Woods Fort"



 

Yes, I am one of those weird people who will pull over and take pictures of wildflowers.  LabyBird Johnson when she was first lady of Texas had the vision of seeding the high ways and byways with native wild flowers.  Seriously every state in the Union should do that.  It is beautiful.

 

 And I also stop for random other things:  These are two random pictures I took and texted to Austen, our lover of all things airplane and automobiles--that were in the same shop in the middle of nowhere on the freeway.

I arrived in Houston and headed to Andrea's house.  We had such a fun few days talking and enjoying each other's company and this time Corwin joined in some of the conversations.  In the past, we usually were surrounded by children and dads were at work--that was years ago when we were living in Texas ourselves.

I had a very special treat on Thursday night of being able to attend the dress rehearsal for the Houston Symphony and Choir.  Andrea sings in that group.  They were performing Verti Requiem that weekend and this was their last practice.  It was AMAZING. I haven't attended a similar type performance for a long time and I forgot how great that type of music was.  It was in a Italian and they put up subtitles of the words which were all about Christ from Revelations.

Andrea and I also wandered around her beautiful house while I collected suggested books to read.  The nice things about cell phone is that you can write notes and find them later and Amazon where you can actually get the books that you have heard about.  I came home with a long list of books to read.

This post is long enough so the "Beautiful Wedding" will be its own post!