Tuesday, May 06, 2008

Don't Mess with Texas

Friday morning, I went to the front yard and found these little guys (above) . I'm not sure where they came from, but I did have a lot of fun feeding the female bread crumbs. The male came over to investigate my offering, but turned his beak up at it. Well, well aren't we just special....

Saturday morning my mom in law and I went to Temple, Texas to see this little cutie.
And this one.

Carol and I also did a little wine shopping. OK, a lot of wine shopping. In Texas you can buy wine in grocery stores. Good wine, not Thunderbird or rot gut stuff. I picked up seven bottles of wines from Texas wineries. I try to get at least half a dozen bottles of Texas wines each time I go to Temple. At some point this summer we are going to have a wine tasting at our house with our dinner group, so I am trying to stock the cellar. We will have a Texas tasting and then a Kansas winery tasting later. We have several really good wineries here in Kansas and we drink wine from Smokey Hill winery (Salina, Kansas) frequently. Very good stuff. I like having wine tastings. You get to sample a lot of different wines, find your favorite ones for future reference, and since the bottles are being samples by a group--I don't have to worry about the rest of the bottle getting oxidized before we finish it off. It's a win-win situation. Plus I get to have the fun of pairing food and wine.
It was nice to get to see my sister in law and her family. My niece and nephew are real cuties.
The past couple times we have gone to Temple, we stayed pretty close to my sister in law's area and the hotel. This time I had read that Temple does indeed have a downtown, so I wanted to find it. We did a little riding and found it. At one time, downtown Temple must have been a beautiful place. The architectural detail and the set up of the streets has incredible potential. It made me really sad to see that rows and rows of beautiful storefronts and buildings were empty and in disrepair. Unfortunately that is a trend in the United States.. This downtown could be a real showplace. I really hope someone has the vision to get a revitalization drive going. Next time I'm there, I'll get pictures of the incredible buildings. I think this is one of the reasons I like to frequent shops in downtown areas like the Delano district in Wichita and the downtown in Newton. If Temple had artists and shop owners who were willing to be trailblazers, it could really be fabulous. Support your businesses that are in your downtown! You also save the architectural character of your town! Think of all the downtowns that you have been to that have preserved the old buildings as opposed to the feeling you get from the strip malls. You are spending your monsy on supporting not only businesses, but also history. OK I'll get off the soapbox..but do think about it.............

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