Taking the road less traveled fom San Antonio to Dallas

While we enjoy our annual visits to Dallas we don't enjoy five hours of dodging trucks on I-35.  As a major route running 1500 miles from Mexico to Canada, I-35 is pretty busy most of the time so this year we avoided the traffic and headed to Dallas by way of US 281 through the beautiful Texas Hill Country.  This route was so much fun we returned along the same route a few days later even though it takes a bit longer.

It's a two-lane road much of the way with passing lanes on the hills so traffic moves along quite well.  We stopped a few places along the way, especially when checking out ranch gates like this one which is a favorite way to pass the time....



...and at other times I snapped photos out the window at full speed because there is no safe place to pull over.  This photo of native yuccas and wildflowers blooming on ranch land is an example of the latter.  Those fuzzy white spires behind the fence are all yucca blooms and this view went on for miles.

Taking the Two-Lane: Cow's Tongue Cactus

Yesterday I headed up to Hill Country Gardens in New Braunfels to retrieve my cuttings from the propagation class I attended in November.  I took the back way along a series of two-lane roads which is much more interesting than I-35.

A recent post on Cow's Tongue Prickly Pear at Las Adventuras had piqued my interest and I wanted to stop along the way to take photos of some I had previously seen in a pasture.