Everyday Images & Nikon Images from Texas

 Linking up with Kym for Everyday Images photo prompt and link up:

Here are the photo prompts:

out for a walk

logo

at home

inside and/or outside

good food

curlicues

texture

Out for a walk

I took a few walks when I was in the Dallas, Texas area recently with my sister. She was there for work so I had some downtime. While we stayed at a place where we didn't need to leave (and frankly was not in a super walkable area), I knew that I wanted to get out and see some of the area around the hotel. Plus, it wasn't nearly as cold in Texas as it has been in Ohio- I wanted to take advantage of that. I'd brought work out clothes for the gym but decided to make long walks my exercise of choice while I was there. While running on a treadmill would have given me more bang for the buck fitness timewise, I wanted to take advantage of being in a new to me area and check it out via walking. 

In the newer business district of Grapevine, Texas I may as well have been in the Midwest for the most part. I passed many chain restaurants. But then I came across a Whataburger. We do not have these in Ohio. I had Whataburger for the first time last summer in Las Vegas. It tasted ok but I have no desire to have it over almost any other fast food burger place. I do want to try In-N-Out. We don't have those in Ohio.  

Logo

Jacob's snowy Jeep!

At home

There's no place like home- even when the furnace isn't working. 😢 And it's below zero degrees outside. 😢😢Nine days of the past two weeks were defined by not having a functioning furnace. Between our gas fireplace running almost the entirety of the nine days, keeping six space heaters plugged in and running in various rooms of the house, keeping the doors closed of the girls' rooms and the study, and having the blinds open whenever the sun was out, we were able to keep the house of the temperature between 68 and 70 degrees. 

Inside and/or outside

So grateful to be inside almost the entirety of time of the cold spell. 

Inside, looking out and down...

Good food

My sister and I had some good food in Texas! The hotel had several restaurants in it- there were no other restaurants we could really walk to readily (my sister didn't bring sneakers; restaurants outside the hotel were at least a mile away so without a car to get places, walking with comfortable shoes was a must have. Ergo, we ate all of our meals inside the hotel.)

I forget what these were called. They were like a mozzarella stick except the outside was bread not just breading like a traditional mozzarella stick. We loved them!

These mini tacos were good!

The queso was delicious at the Tex-Mex restaurant on site

Pistachio gelato tasted better than it photographs :)

Curlicues

Curlicue-ish and I'm including two since the prompt is plural :). 

Mr. Redlegs' 'stache is sort of curlicue shaped. This was at the Cincy airport.

The dough hook of my mixer (with dough on it) looks a bit curlicueish. I took the photo to show how the dough went everywhere- way higher than the dough hook attachment which was kind of gross (the dough went onto the machine itself). It's only the second time that I've used the dough attachment. The first time, I don't remember the dough rising up way past the attachment. This was for sandwich bread. 

.

Texture

A variety of textures here:

Pictures from my Nikon- I brought my Nikon to Texas figuring that I'd have plenty of down time to take pics.... and I did. 

My sister's flight left about twelve hours before mine did on Sunday :(. So, on Sunday before I checked out, I took some photos in the hotel. After I had to check out, I stored my luggage in the hotel and then took off for a walk into town to check it out again (I'd been there before). I ended up walking seven miles from the time I had to check out (noon) until I boarded my plane in the early evening!

The hotel's atrium had lots of small water features and many plants. The sound of water cascading was very serene sounding (I wish the country music they piped in hadn't been so loud- the two sounds really competed with each other).

There were many beautiful plants to enjoy looking at, too. 

We enjoyed sitting out near the water to eat several meals

There were also water features in the front of the hotel

Grapvine Lake is directly across the road from the hotel. It's a large (8000 acre) man made lake.

Walk into town- these were different and pretty

The hotel from a bit of a distance

The cattle aren't too far from the property but they're far enough away that you wouldn't see them from the main entrance. I only saw them because they were on my walk into town. I read that they're there for tax purposes? Like the hotel qualifies as a ranch or something for tax purposes?? It cracks me up to see them with the background of Great Wolf Lodge's water park.

The first part of town had all the chain restaurants but I found Main Street that had a large assortment of older buildings that housed restaurants, wineries and cute businesses.

City Hall

The Dallas airport was near the hotel and on my walks into town, I saw many planes fairly low in the sky as they were getting ready to land.

I decided to snap a pic and couldn't  help but notice how incredibly blue and cloudless the sky was. Are there clouds in Texas? I don't recall seeing any the entirety of the time I was there. That could be the title of a country song, "Are There Clouds in Texas? (Or Did My Tears Chase Them Away?)"

Also linking up with Joanne for Talking About it Tuesday