San Angelo/Fort Concho

The day after Thanksgiving, Mayce, her brother Dave, and I went to San Angelo (about an hour from her parents' ranch).

We shopped at Eggemeyer's, which was the coolest gift shop EVER. It was HUGE and there was so much stuff, it was just overwhelming!

Just outside of San Angelo, there is a restaurant called Lowake Steakhouse. Apparently it is so good that there is a heli-pad and landing strip in the back where you can land your helicopter or plane and go inside to eat. I guess it's so out in the middle of the country that it would be too far to drive for one meal - so people fly there! Also - they did so much business at this restaurant, that they had to create a post office and zip code for just that one restaurant!

Another thing I learned was that mistletoe is a parasite in that it is a airborne spore that just attaches to whatever tree will take it, so to speak. One tree that is susceptible to having mistletoe attach to it is the mesquite tree. Mesquite trees are basically the only type of tree you will see in west Texas since there is pretty much NO rain there and the mesquite tree has such a deep root system that it can get water from way down deep in the water table, not surface water from rain. Here's a picture of a nice big mesquite tree!

And here's a picture of some mistletoe that was growing on the tree:

I just loved that big mesquite tree so much that Mayce and I climbed up in it to take a few pictures!