All of the girls at D'Vine Wine in Grapevine, Texas
Katerina and I sipping our wine at D'Vine Wine
Tabatha and I at Cowtown Diner with jalapeno flavored margaritas! (almost just like college, except in college we were at Roadhouse at 4pm on Thursday afternoons!)
The next weekend was full of graduations. My cousin Mary graduated from A&M with her Bachelor's on Friday and Katerina graduated from Prairie View A&M with her Master's on Saturday. Lots of people at the house with the perfect host (my husband) while I furiously worked to get everything done before being out of the office for 2 weeks! Yikes! (one weeklong conference and one week of vacation!) Really and truly - right here is where Vic wins the award. While I worked until 10 pm on Friday night of that weekend, he took care of my family that was in town, hosted at the house to allow Mary to have her dinner there and still provided lots of laughs as he always does. Then, on Saturday he also organized dinner with lots of people coming over to pitch in and had another fun evening of dinner and Guesstures while I packed for my trip to Alpine for the week. He is so good to me (and all of our friends!)!
Lisa, Sara and I celebrating with Katerina after she got her diploma!
Isn't Katerina adorable as always?
On Sunday after Katerina's graduation, I loaded up with 3 other girls from the office for the 9 hour drive to Alpine, Texas (Sul Ross State University specifically) for the annual Rio Grande Basin Initiative conference that our office helps put on annually. It was a good conference and a good week and I had never really been to West Texas before so I was glad to get to go. Well, let me tell you about the scenic drive to West Texas.....wait there is not much to tell because there is not a lot to see. There was nothing bad about it, but it was just a lot of land without many houses, towns, or even livestock like I expected. I know this does not represent all of West Texas, but for our drive, it was pretty easy and pretty uneventful. We made it to Alpine about 8 or so on Sunday night, checked into the hotel and got some sleep. Monday we began setting up for the conference, but also got a little bit of shopping in on their main road. The town is actually really cute and one of the things they are known for are their murals.
Hello from Alpine!
Later in the week, we also attended the field tours (part of the conference). We went to the Chihuahuan Desert Research Center and were able to choose 2 of 3 different tours to take. The first one we took was a "hike" down into this canyon. Now, I knew hiking was not exactly my area of interest because it's more for the geology and water folks and true outdoorsy people. But, until I "hiked" down into the canyon and back out, I did not know how LITTLE I was interested in ever doing that again. Here is my first and hopefully last story of hiking. First of all, about 20 or 30 people attended this tour. We start walking on regular ground with maybe a little tilt here and there. I knew that we would be "walking down about 200 feet on steps to get to the bottom" because our tour guide specifically told us to be sure not to take this tour if we had any knee problems or issues. And, I felt confidant that I could handle a bunch of steps - I mean, I do boot camp and a million other workout regimens from time to time to attempt to keep my body in as good of shape as possible. And, since my plans to workout in the gym all week hadn't really panned out during my trip, I was looking forward to burning some calories. But, I truly did not know what was ahead. (for those of you who are the outdoorsy, hiking type, feel free to just call me a big wimp right now and it won't hurt my feelings at all...).
So, we reach the area that starts to go down into the canyon and I see some steps. We start taking those. Well, my vision of 200 feet down on steps was truly taking steps down - you know the kind that are all the same size and go one direction. This was not the case. As we started going in a single file line, I started to fear for my life just a tad. For those of you that do not know, I am clumsy. I don't wear heels because I will just trip on myself. And, even on easy steps, I typically walk close to the handrail just in case. I mean, why put myself into a position where I just might fall? So, as we start do go down into the canyon, I become very nervous. These are not just steps. They are ROCKS! Big ones, small ones, loose rocks, slick rocks. And, since we are in single file line following our guide, there is not really any slowing down or stopping to carefully step over and under and on top of these rocks that they call steps that guide us down. At least if we did stop, it just stopped the entire group, so I kept on trucking along. But, really in my head, I kept praying "Lord just give me strength and balance" because that is what I needed. It was just a lot of walking down on these rocks that made me so nervous I was going to fall. I wanted to enjoy the hike, I really did! But, I was just too nervous. I really do not know how people hike in those conditions. I guess I always pictures hiking to be walking long distances on grass - not mountains. Not sure what I truly envisioned, but it was not this. And, I'm sure had I been able to go at my own pace, I would have enjoyed it more. But, all I could keep thinking was "when is this ending?". Do I sound like I'm complaining? I don't mean to - really! But, I typically am a go with the flow kind of person and enjoy doing something new at least once....just not hiking. Looking back, it was pretty comical because when we finally reached the 1/2 way mark of our hike (where the water was), all we really found was about this much water....
That was it! Well, there was a little more but that was about it. You can barely see it. I really was laughing inside when I took this picture thinking "I am risking my life to see this!?". It is pretty funny now. Oh and while I was so glad we had made it down to the Canyon to get a break from rock hiking, then we had to go back up. That was more taxing simply because going up something is usually harder than going down. But, at least I could go at my own pace and stepping up on something is usually easier (clumsiness-wise) than going down. It was a long trip back up and I was out of breath for sure, but at least I survived! Needless to say, the next tour I took was walking on level ground through lots of plants. What a day!
The other AWESOME thing about Alpine is the lack of humidity. It was really nice to have so little and so nice to not be sweating all the time as we are here in College Station this time of year.
Alpine really was a nice trip and we had a great time! See a couple other cool pictures below...
Pink Cactus!
Alpine, Texas mountains; not as pretty as the ones I would see the following week in Colorado, but still very different from College Station!
View of the treacherous rocks from down within the canyon (this is looking up)
So, we reach the area that starts to go down into the canyon and I see some steps. We start taking those. Well, my vision of 200 feet down on steps was truly taking steps down - you know the kind that are all the same size and go one direction. This was not the case. As we started going in a single file line, I started to fear for my life just a tad. For those of you that do not know, I am clumsy. I don't wear heels because I will just trip on myself. And, even on easy steps, I typically walk close to the handrail just in case. I mean, why put myself into a position where I just might fall? So, as we start do go down into the canyon, I become very nervous. These are not just steps. They are ROCKS! Big ones, small ones, loose rocks, slick rocks. And, since we are in single file line following our guide, there is not really any slowing down or stopping to carefully step over and under and on top of these rocks that they call steps that guide us down. At least if we did stop, it just stopped the entire group, so I kept on trucking along. But, really in my head, I kept praying "Lord just give me strength and balance" because that is what I needed. It was just a lot of walking down on these rocks that made me so nervous I was going to fall. I wanted to enjoy the hike, I really did! But, I was just too nervous. I really do not know how people hike in those conditions. I guess I always pictures hiking to be walking long distances on grass - not mountains. Not sure what I truly envisioned, but it was not this. And, I'm sure had I been able to go at my own pace, I would have enjoyed it more. But, all I could keep thinking was "when is this ending?". Do I sound like I'm complaining? I don't mean to - really! But, I typically am a go with the flow kind of person and enjoy doing something new at least once....just not hiking. Looking back, it was pretty comical because when we finally reached the 1/2 way mark of our hike (where the water was), all we really found was about this much water....
That was it! Well, there was a little more but that was about it. You can barely see it. I really was laughing inside when I took this picture thinking "I am risking my life to see this!?". It is pretty funny now. Oh and while I was so glad we had made it down to the Canyon to get a break from rock hiking, then we had to go back up. That was more taxing simply because going up something is usually harder than going down. But, at least I could go at my own pace and stepping up on something is usually easier (clumsiness-wise) than going down. It was a long trip back up and I was out of breath for sure, but at least I survived! Needless to say, the next tour I took was walking on level ground through lots of plants. What a day!The other AWESOME thing about Alpine is the lack of humidity. It was really nice to have so little and so nice to not be sweating all the time as we are here in College Station this time of year.
Alpine really was a nice trip and we had a great time! See a couple other cool pictures below...
Pink Cactus!
Alpine, Texas mountains; not as pretty as the ones I would see the following week in Colorado, but still very different from College Station!
View of the treacherous rocks from down within the canyon (this is looking up)
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