A Day of Butterflies

Sunday came, and we went to Cedar Ridge Preserve. CRP is run by the Dallas Audobon society. It has a lot of walking trails and nature study-type activities. It also advertises a butterfly farm, and that's what we came to see.

Monica has a thing for butterflies, so when I read about a butterfly farm, I thought it would be the ideal place to go. I didn't really know what to expect, but I was expecting something a little more grandiose than what we found. It turned out that CRP has a Butterfly Garden as opposed to a farm, so there were far fewer butterflies than I would have liked, but there were enough, and Monica and I began taking pictures.

I brought both my cameras. I had one, and let Mon use the other. We took a lot of pictures. There were Monarchs, Yellow Swallowtails, and a few others. Monica rattled them off by heart. I just snapped away and let Mon, the expert, do the identifying. We stayed a couple of hours--it was hot, and we soon got hot and bothered. Before we left we were permitted to see inside one of the buildings they had out there. Inside this building is conducted more of the hands-on type stuff. We saw fossils, mounted insects, and other physical specimens in various stages of preparation.

We left tired but satisfied and repaired back to Monica's apartment. I thought that would be the end of the day, but Herman and Jen wanted to have us over for dinner and a game night, so after cooling down a bit, we grabbed some of Mon's board games and headed up to Roanoke.

It was a rare night! Herman is an excellent cook! He made grilled fajita steak and chicken to which was added Mexican rice and beans. Mon and I brought queso and chips. We sat down to eat and nearly burst--the food was that good. Herman didn't have desert, so he and I went to Braum's to pick up pie and ice cream while the girls cleaned. We got nine pints of ice cream and an apple pie. Back at their house Herman popped the pie in the oven, and we proceeded to play Scattergories, Mon's favorite game.

At least it was until Herman and I started playing. He and I found more ways to invent a scattergory than was known, and Monica swore she'd never play with Herman or I again. (She will--we just had a few antics on our part.)

We left after 1am. Actually, if I remember right, it was closer to 2am. We had a date to go geocaching with one of her colleagues from Dallas. All in all it was a fun but tiring day. I didn't know how I'd make it the next.