New Mexico and Texas y'all!

Stayed just one night in a pretty little town in New Mexico called Las Cruces. Not too vegan friendly although we did find a place called Paisanos that had some yummy New Mexican food. Hiked at a beautiful place with red rocks, rolling hills and cactus, called "Dripping Springs" and went to "La Cueva" a cave that had inhabitants over 7,000 years ago.

At "Dripping Springs" park

On the way down the freeway out of town though, it was dairy after dairy factory farms. So sad. I really hope everyone gets off dairy soon! It is such a cruel industry. I dream of a vegan world and that makes me happy. 

Ok on to Texas and while I'm on my vegan soap box, I will just say one thing about Texas and then on to all the fun we had there. Please Texas please stop with the exotic game hunting ranches! We passed one where we saw a bunch of zebra and wildebeast they were raising for people to come and shoot for fun (I looked on their website when I saw their ranch sign, and it literally made me sick). OK now on to more positive stuff!

We stayed a couple of nights in San Antonio. Went to the Alamo and the Riverwalk. They were OK, not our favorite sights...food was not too great at the "Casa Rio", the oldest restaurant on the riverwalk. 

Jossy and I thought the coolest thing at the Alamo was this old live oak, it could be the perfect climbing tree!

And there were scooters in the square! San Antonio and Austin had these all over town for just 15 cents a minute plus one dollar to unlock, so cool!

This place in San Antonio was very cool. Jossy LOVED their biscuits and gravy and they had the cutest Christmas cupcakes! They used CANNED jalapenos though...really? Were you out of the fresh ones in Texas??

Jamison gave his notice and finished up his last few days of work while in Austin. We found a really, really good deal on a lovely airbnb in a great location on the eastside. 

We really liked visiting Austin. It is a beautiful, sunny city with a lot of things to do. It has lakes, rivers, hiking and a huge vegan scene! And we loves us some vegan restaurants y'all!!
It has 3 whole foods!! The one we went to has a Next Level Burger right in it. So yum!
There was a lot of new growth and sometimes the websites couldn't keep up though...we went to several food trucks and even brick and mortar restaurants that had changed their location without showing it on their websites yet. One day we walked and drove around all morning and kept running into this problem, but it turned out ok because we got some free roasted potatoes and beets from a street vendor who was trying to promote his new food truck! All in all we found more than enough to eat though, and most of it was delicious!!

 eating our free beets and potatoes!

 Juiceland for some healthy, organic and nutritious juice and smoothies!

 The Bouldin Creek Cafe. So, so good!!! 

 Nada Moo. Need I say more?

Oh, but this food truck was our absolute favorite meal ever. AMAZING ROCKIN Vegan Tacos at the VEGAN NOM!!!!!!

Some of the things we did for fun:
We stood on the Congress bridge at dusk and waited 2 hours to see the famous bats...in the summer there are up to 1.5 million bats that fly out from under the bridge and it is supposed to be really cool...but the night before we went they must have flown south! They had an estimated 43,000 the night before, and on our night...no flight! Still an adventure though, as the city was decked out for Christmas, and has such a beautiful skyline. 

Here we are standing on a bridge in the city, waiting for the thousands of bats who had already flown south the night before.

We went to a really great animal sanctuary called the Austin Zoo and Animal Sanctuary. They said they call it the Austin zoo, because more people will visit and help to pay fo the animals that way, although it isn't really a zoo, all of the animals are rescues and they have a lot of room and great care it seemed. It was one of the best I have been to from what I could tell. Jossy loved feeding the deer and goats and llamas, and of course seeing the wolves, bears and big cats! A lot of their animals were rescued from other zoos, or from people who thought it would be easy to have a wild animal for a pet.

 The Austin zoo is an animal rescue sanctuary

 These guys roamed around all over the expansive grounds

 The wolves looked just like Delberta the Woog

 These two were hilarious

This is not a zoom, we were right on the other side of the fence! He was so beautiful. They had a couple of males and we heard them roaring up a storm right before dinner time. I liked that they seemed to only have animals who could live comfortably in this climate. (I think). Not like Seaworld who uses their animals for entertainment and keeps Polar bears in 80 degree heat.

Another thing we did was visit THE BLUE CAT CAFE. We didn't eat there, but we paid $5 to hang out with a bunch of cute cats.

This is a minute and a half of pure kitty love. A free meditation for you. You're welcome (^.^ )~

After Austin, we drove to Galveston. I visited my lovely and sweet friend Janie. It was so great to catch up!!! She let us stay in her beautiful beach house rental just a couple of blocks from the beach. It was a blast from the past to be here. I had forgotten how uplifting and colorful the homes are with the charming architecture. We found some great vegan options here too at Eatcetera and Pho 20. 

On the pier with my friend Janie at a Greek restaurant.

We took the free ferry across to Bolivar Island and saw lots of dolphins swimming next to the boat!

We swam at the beach and it was so warm and beautiful, no crowds. We went to the fountain that I used to take Dell to jump in after a walk. Thanks sunny Texas!!