Outdoors Bear

Hi Kids,
I like it when Miss Elaine takes me to museums and art galleries but I LOVE it when we get to play outdoors! Last week Miss Elaine and I visited Canyon of the Eagles on Lake Buchanan northwest of Austin, Texas. There are so many things to do there and even though we stayed several days we didn't have time to do them all.




We had a cool cabin with a porch overlooking the lake. This is me enjoying the view. We were so busy I never got to rock in the rocking chair! We arrived in the late afternoon and joined the group as it started getting dark for an Owl Prowl. It had to be just at the right time -- after the other little birds had gone to bed (so the owls wouldn't eat them!) but before it got too dark to see the owls.

Did you know that owls eat little birds and rodents but they can't digest the bones or hair so they barf them up. Have you ever had a cat with a hairball? The barf is kind of like that -- they call it "owl pellets." The naturalist had several dried pellets and she let Miss Elaine put on gloves and pull the pellet apart. Sure enough, there were some tiny bones in it.

As it got darker, the naturalist put on a recording of a screech owl and soon a real owl flew down to see what was going on! It started talking back to the recorder. Then another owl arrived and they started hooting to each other! The owls didn't seem to be afraid of us and let us get close enough to take this picture.





The next morning we took a boat trip up the Colorado River (this is the Colorado River in Texas, not the big Colorado River that goes through the Grand Canyon). We saw lots of birds including five bald eagles. This is me with Miss Cindy, one of our hosts for the trip.




The next day we got to go kayaking on the river. We were at a really pretty place where Fall Creek falls into the river -- see the waterfalls! I hope you liked the video at the top of my post. I was a little worried because Miss Elaine was messing with the camera instead of holding me tight. And, if you'll notice, she did not put a life jacket on me.





Here I am with J.P. Burchett with Buchanan Adventure Tours. He was teaching us how to geocache. Can you see the GPS I'm wearing? Do you know what GPS stands for?






Geocaching is a combination of a hike and a treasure hunt. You use the GPS to find the location of a hidden treasure (cache). You never know what will be inside the cache container, which could be a metal box or coffee can or a plastic cylinder.

Here's a cache we found -- it was hidden under some rocks.

Inside our cache we found some beads, a cardinal feather, a rubber worm and a little notebook and pen to write our names and the date we found the cache. The rule is, you can take something out of the cache if you replace it with something of equal value. We didn't have anything so we just closed it up and hid it again. This is Miss Eileen, another travel writer.







We had another adventure at Longhorn Caverns State Park. We had to walk down some steps to the entrance to the cave. This is an unusual cave in that it was created by swiftly moving water carving through the rock. There aren't very many stalactites or stalagmites in this cave -- those formations are created by water slowly seeping through rock and removing minerals. You can see in this picture that most of the walls are smoothed by the water. But you can also see some small icicles that were created by slow, dripping water.

This cave formation is called "The Bear" -- it seemed like a good place to get my picture taken. Here are two more travel writers, Miss Kendra and Miss Connie. They held me so Miss Elaine could take my picture.

Very few creatures live in the cave -- but there were a few bats. This is an eastern pipistrelle bat and he's hibernating.

One big room in the cave is full of calcite crystals. When people first saw them they thought they were diamonds. Were they disappointed! They are pretty, though. And they look magical with colored lights on them.


One night (Miss Elaine put me to bed early!) Miss Elaine and her friends went to the observatory in the park. They had two big telescopes and Miss Elaine got to look at the moon, Jupiter, Uranus, the Pleiades, the Andromeda galaxy and two nebula. Maybe next time she goes, I'll be big enough to stay up late. I wasn't too sad -- after all the fun I had, I was really tired. And my bed felt really good.

Love,

Fluffy

This Is The Life

Hi Kids,

I LOVE travelling with Miss Elaine. She goes such neat places! We just got back from Wildcatter Ranch in Texas. There were so many things to do I didn't have time to do them all even though Miss Elaine made me get up early. We checked out the swimming pool and hot tub early Friday morning then Miss Elaine let me sit in the seat of a surrey. It has fringe on the top -- just like the one in the song from "Oklahoma!"

Next we went down to the pasture to feed the longhorn cattle. This is me with Big Boy. He has the third longest horns of any longhorn -- they stretch 98 inches from tip to tip. He was very gentle so I wasn't scared but I had to watch out when he turned his head!

We had lunch at the Dinner Bell Cafe in Graham. That's me sitting in the big dinner bell. It looks just like the ones the cowboy cooks used to call the cowboys to dinner -- just bigger. We had a real Texas cowboy meal -- chicken fried steak with gravy, mashed potatoes, beans, a roll and fried okra.

This is me with my new friend Trey. He's in the second grade. His dad works on the ranch. Trey let me ride with him in the back of the mule -- that's a kind of ATV that holds a bunch of people and is good for work. You can haul feed or tools in the back -- or Trey and me!

Here's a picture of Miss Elaine's friends -- they're all travel writers. Do you see me up in the tree? They call this the longhorn tree because it has two big branches like horns.

After such a busy day, a good massage was just the thing!

I'll write another post soon about my horseback riding adventure!

Love,

Vanilla

Yummy in my Tummy

Hi Kids,

I told you about visiting the Blue Bell factory in my postcard but I thought you might like to see some pictures. The second one is me in front of one of the windows that looks down over the factory floor. Most of the tour for the public is on these contained walk-ways.

We (my travel writer friends and I) got to go down on the factory floor. Miss Elaine and all the writers had to wear hairnets. I guess they didn't have one big enough for me! I don't think I am shedding so I don't think I got any bear hair in the ice cream!

The next picture is part of the production line. The empty containers come in on the left. The ice cream comes down that white pipe. You can see the cartons with ice cream in them. See the row of lids on the right? As the ice cream carton goes by, a lid falls down and gets pressed onto it. The cartons are then packed into boxes and taken to one of the freezer rooms.

At the end of the tour, we got to have some ice cream. Miss Elaine chose Pralines and Cream. She ate most of it herself but left a little bit for me. I wanted to put the picture of me with the ice cream here but Miss Elaine is having problems with her computer!

Everything's Rosy in the Bluebonnets

Texas was beautiful. The bluebonnet is the Texas state flower and they were all over. I learned a lot about Texas history this last week. We went to Washington-on-the-Brazos. You know, originally, the Spanish claimed this part of America -- we were part of their Mexico colony. Then the Mexicans fought for their independence so we were part of the country of Mexico. Everything went pretty well -- lots of Hispanic (Mexican or Spanish) people lived in the area and so did a lot of Anglos (people from the U.S.) Then the Mexicans got a really nasty leader and he did a lot of things that made the Tejanos (people living in Texas) mad.

He sent an army and the fought at the Alamo in San Antonio. While that was happening, a number of citizens met in Washington-on-the-Brazos. They wrote a declaration of independence (just like the American colonists did in 1776). The elected a president and wrote a constitution. Lots of Tejanos were killed at the Alamo. Then there was another battle at San Jacinto and the Tejanos won!

They called their new country the Republic of Texas. They didn't belong to Spain or Mexico or the United States. But lots of them wanted to be part of the U.S. That happened ten years later.

I visited Barrington Farm. This was the home of the last president of the Republic of Texas. You can go here and learn how people lived in the 1850s. Even the animals are like the animals they had then. This is a picture of me and a Piney Woods calf. Piney Woods cattle are a blend of longhorn cattle and domestic cattle. This little calf and his half-sister were learning how to be an ox team. The word oxen just means any kind of cattle used for pulling things -- like plows or wagons.

Then we went to the place where the delegates met to write the declaration. This isn't the real building -- but it's built just like it and on the same spot, too. It was very cold when the men met and the building wasn't completely finished -- no doors or glass in the windows. As you can see, the furniture wasn't fancy. But that wasn't important. What they did was!

Teddy Takes Texas

Hi Kids, I went to Frisco, Texas, with Miss Elaine and Mr. Jack. They took me to Safety Town. I thought it would be boring -- let's face it, that's a boring name! They should have called it the Wow Climb on a Fire Engine Hide from a Tornado Visit a Tiny Town Ride A Bike Town. I learned a lot about staying safe -- how to call 911 (do you know how hard it is to use a phone with your paw?), what to do if you den catches fire and practicing safety rules when walking or riding a bike. The town part was really neat -- just like a real town but kid-sized. Fire Chief Ryan Wolford helped me get on a bike but I couldn't reach the pedals.