Travel Photographer

[jimellijay]

3/8/14

In looking over my past posts I noted that I had not added the mission churches near El Paso, namely top to bottom Carmen Mission, Socorro Mission, and the outside and inside of San Elizario

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4/13/10

Here are a few more wildflower photos from the Hill Country trip with the last three taken in Ennis, famous for their wildflower festival each year.

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4/10/10

I plan to upload photos from a trip I took to the Texas Hill country in Spring 2010.  Until then here are a few of my favorite wildflower photos from that trip.

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5/11/17 On a hill by I-10, overlooking Kerrville is The Coming King Sculpture Prayer Garden.  Is laid out  in the shape of a cross and has a number of sculptures and promotes meditation.

With Kerrville this ends my journey visiting all 254 Texas counties.

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5/11/17 An early businessman was Charles Schreiner who owned 600,00 acres and built his home and "department store" in the downtown and founded Schreiner University.

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5/11/17 The town has some beautiful old buildings like the 1890 Masonic building and the 1926 Arcadia Theater , but it also has more modern downtown structures.  Below are two sculptures in front of the Museum of Western Art.

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5/11/17 Kerrville is beautiful town with a number of attractions.  Here is the Kerr County courthouse.

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5/11/17 Reached only by gravel roads is the Hill Country Recreational Area.  Currently the area is used mostly by campers and equestrians.

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5/11/17 Lost Maples State Natural Area is like a state park and probably much more beautiful in the fall.  Here the maple trees lie along the Sabinal River.

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5/11/17 The 1918 Classical Revival Real County courthouse in Leakey has a limestone façade.  In 1978 it was expanded and the original doors were transformed into windows.

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5/11/17 One of our nicest state parks is Garner SP, which has a lot of attractions for kids, beautiful trees, and the Frio river where you can boat.

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5/11/17 Kickapoo Cavern state park is mostly a desert type layout, but with a cavern that is home to Mexican Free-tailed Bats.  Texas is home to 100 million of these bats in the Spring and Summer, where they reproduce. I thought that bats normally leave the cave at dusk, but when I was at the cave entrance at 9:45 am I was surprised to see a bunch of bats leave and then enter the cave extremely fast with a whooshing sound.  They came out of the cave like "Bats out of Hell".  The photo shows the bats going into the cave.

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5/11/17 Started in Del Rio and my first stop was the Kinney County courthouse in Brakettville.  This 1911 Beaux Arts Classic courthouse has bell tower with a nonworking Seth Thomas clock.

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5/10/17 Just northwest of Del Rio is the Amistad Reservoir which straddles the American-Mexican border.

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5/10/17 Seminole Canyon State Park is located near the Mexican border in a mostly desert landscape.  Of interest is the bake oven built in 1882 for the workers building the Southern Pacific Railroad that ran through the park, but abandoned.

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5/10/17 This 1871 building is now the Whitehead Memorial Museum with an outside area.  Also shown, "The Wall", which actually has US territory on the other side.

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5/10/17 There have been beautiful wildflowers this spring along the roads.  However this is one of the few times I have seen entire pastures with the flowers like this field northeast of Rocksprings.