Where I Was When I Wasn’t Here: San Antonio, TX

October 30, 2018July 1, 2025 / Ally Bean / 82 Comments

TO BEGIN

Colorful bat mosaic on wall at zoo.

“The world is a book. If you do not travel, you read only a page.”

The above quote, that I see every day when I’m at home, is on a framed piece of artwork that I have hanging on a wall in our home office.

I only mention this quote, attributed to St. Augustine, because I believe it to be true, a guiding principle. Thus I said “hell to the yes” when I had the opportunity to spend a few days in pleasant and pretty San Antonio, TX.

You see, last week Zen-Den was in San Antonio for a conference. Remembering how much fun we had there years ago, I joined him after the conference was over and we goofed off for a couple of days doing things in America’s 7th largest city that is celebrating its 300th birthday.

[Did not know either of those facts before visiting there. Feel that I’m a better person for having shared them here.]

THINGS WE DID

• The San Antonio River Walk which is a meandering multi-level path around an urban waterway surrounded by restaurants, shops, and hotels.

• The Briscoe Western Art Museum which was beautiful, and wherein I saw Roy Rogers’s saddle, a real Wells Fargo Wagon, and ate a complimentary cupcake.

• The Alamo Quarry Market which is an open-air shopping area filled with stores and restaurants, not necessarily unique to San Antonio but a nice place to wander around in the warm sunshine.

• The San Antonio Zoo which was lovely, with more animals from South America, Australia, and Africa than any other zoo I’ve been to.

• The Alamo City Comic Con which was our first adventure into the happy, trippy subculture that revolves around comic conventions. Here are my observations: 1) people, often entire families, were costumed like comic book or TV or movie characters [we were not]; 2) people were standing in line waiting to pay to have photos taken with and/or objects signed by celebrities [we did not]; & 3) people were buying memorabilia and posters and t-shirts from the displays set up by many vendors [we did not].

IN CONCLUSION

And with that I’ll end this post with a hat tip to St. Augustine and his travel advice, suggesting to you, my gentle readers, that San Antonio, TX, is a fun + friendly place to visit for those of you inclined to want to read more than one page of this book we call the world.

#ThursdayDoors | Visiting A County Park On An Early Fall Afternoon

October 11, 2018July 1, 2025 / Ally Bean / 69 Comments

Today I’m joining Thursday Doors, hosted by Norm Frampton, so I can share door photos + a bit more.

I took these photos when we decided to stop at Miami Whitewater Forest, a Hamilton County Ohio park. The park is in southwest Ohio, close to the Indiana and Kentucky borders.

It covers over 4,000 hilly acres, features an 85-acre lake, and is named for a Shaker community that used to thrive in this area.

On the sunny day we visited the park we went for a look-see, moseying around, not intending to do anything in particular. Here are a few photos of what we saw.

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DOOR into ranger station office.

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Lake with docks as seen while sitting on bench on nearby hill.

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A small brown leaf… or is it?

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A butterfly that appeared where the brown leaf was!

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A deer doing its thing while standing in the scummy part of the lake.

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My pale scrawny Birkenstock-encased tootsies as seen by me whilst sitting quietly and watching deer doing its thing.

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DOOR, in the sense that a trash can flap is door-like, as seen on a trash can with a lovely lake scene behind it.

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#ThursdayDoors | Visiting A Northeast Ohio Store, Finding A Unique Chapel

August 9, 2018July 1, 2025 / Ally Bean / 73 Comments

Today I’m joining Thursday Doors, hosted by Norm Frampton, so that I can share with you photos of the following doors + a bit more.

I took these photos when we decided, on a whim, to stop at P. Graham Dunn, a factory + retail store + chapel in Dalton, OH.

P. Graham Dunn makes inspirational home and wall decor, often in the form of wooden signs. Above the factory there’s a humongous retail store in which you can lost looking at all the merchandise.

Interesting barn adjacent to retail store.

Outside the store is a beautiful pond with a path around it that leads to a small narrow chapel, named Anna’s Chapel.

The chapel is by the side of the pond and is like none other that I’ve seen. Inside the chapel the raw wooden walls are almost entirely covered with graffiti that praises Christianity + a few personal messages as well.

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DOOR into Anna’s Chapel.

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Graffiti on inside chapel walls.

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Example of P. Graham Dunn’s merchandise as seen inside chapel.

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More graffiti on inside chapel walls.

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DOOR as seen while standing inside Anna’s Chapel.

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One last look at graffiti on inside chapel walls.

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View of pond as seen from within Anna’s Chapel.

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#ThursdayDoors | Visiting A Popular Store In Ohio’s Amish Country

July 12, 2018July 1, 2025 / Ally Bean / 75 Comments

Today I’m joining Thursday Doors, hosted by Norm Frampton, so that I can share with you the following door photos + a few more photos taken at Lehman’s in Kidron, OH.

Lehman’s, originally a small hardware store in Ohio’s Amish country, is now a 35,000 square foot retail store [plus online company]. According to the store’s website, “the full shopping experience is nearly a quarter mile long!”

I believe it. We had lunch, then wandered around the store for over an hour, purchasing gardening tools– and sustenance for the road in the form of fudge.

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