What a Grand View!

This post is actually a little late in getting out into the world-wide web but only because the past week was a little rough for me. I’ve not had a fever that kept me in bed in many years and yet, this past week, that is exactly what happened and it has taken me several days to recover from it. So, this PhotoFrenzy took place a little over a week ago with my two trusty FrenzyFriends, Lisa and Karlie.

It started out like any other Frenzy…in the car, on the road, headed towards a location but no real destination in mind. All we knew is that we were headed for the Grandview area of Texas which is about an hour south of where we live. The other things we did know…we had our assignments for the day which were: livestock (boring!) and numbers, and that we were on a hunt for a particular order of people.

After visiting the Pennsylvania Amish last fall, we’ve been searching online to find any Amish in our great Lone Star State only to find a couple of links that would give information on a few small Mennonite communities in the area. Well, if that is as close to Amish as we can get, we will take it. So after reading about a small church that had a congregation of Mennonite families, we headed that way.

We found the above mentioned church, but with no signs of Mennonites (truth is, there were no signs of any life at this particular time and on this particular day even though we were under the impression it also housed a small school.) We decided to do what we do best…just drive!

It wasn’t too far down the road that we made our first discovery of the day. It was a sign of things to come! It was glimmer of hope! It was worth pulling over on the side of the road to traipse through the grasses to get to. It was even worth laying on the ground to get just the right photo. What was it? Wildflowers! The first of the season and a welcomed sight to sore eyes.

At this stop we also met our first assignment for the day. There under the big ole tree was…yes, you guessed it…livestock! It was at this point that I voiced, “if we have to shoot livestock again, then I want to find something more than cows and horses!” Was I whining? Well, maybe just a little! 🙂

We also met a friend. I’ll call him Rover. Rover looked happy to see us and even let me take his mug shot as he smiled.

Back on the road and headed towards Wherever, we came across another Livestock shot. The Lord heard my prayers as this was not your standard livestock. I’m still not completely sure what they were, but appeared to be some form of elk. Regardless, it wasn’t cows and it wasn’t horses so I was happy. No more whining!

With no Mennonites in sight, we decided to drive to Italy. Italy, Texas that is. And do you know what they serve in Italy? Chinese Food!

On the way to Italy, we decide to take a side road that had the appearance of quite possibly an interesting find at the end of the path. For my two FrenzyFriends, who happen to also be horse lovers, the find was a pot of gold. Seems like there is never a trip that doesn’t include at some point, stopping to take photos of, love on and feed horses.

Just a short distance from Italy we passed a very interesting sight. It was so interesting that after we passed it, we turned around and drove back just to get these shots. For some reason we began singing, “Flintstones, meet the Flintstones. They’re a prehistoric fam-i-ly…”

In addition to getting these interesting shots, we also were able to accomplish our other assignment for the day…numbers, with these mailboxes.

Oh, and speaking of assignments, we were able to get one more shot of livestock. Nope, not a cow or a horse but this time…goats!

Time to head home. As I’m navigating I notice a small town on the map that Lisa had mentioned earlier that had a residence of a small Mennonite community. I figured we’ve come this far, so, why not!

As we are heading to the small town of Osceola, we pass a small bakery on the side of road in a small manufactured house. By this time we are all very hungry so decide to stop to see what we can find. And what a find we had. The bakery, Seven Sisters Bake Shoppe, is owned and operated by none other than seven Mennonite sisters! Out of respect for the sisters, we did not take their photo (although Lisa REALLY REALLY wanted to!)

After filling up on the delicious, fresh-baked goods, we loaded back in the car and headed home. We were full and satisfied and left feeling very accomplished!