We were there the last week of December 2017. I stood there ecstatic, allowing this sign to help me do the ‘pinch me if I’m dreaming’ thing. Nancy and John had kindly suggested that I join them for that week, and I jumped at the offer! Flew out of Atlanta to San Antonio, rented a car there and John drove the 4 hours to Alamo, Texas. Stayed in the Alamo Inn and the next day we drove up to this sign!!

Think on this. In the perennial gardens at the National Butterfly Center near the border wall in Mission, Texas I was in a state of OMG! Butterflies I’d never ever seen before. I just watched ‘Pickers’ on the History Channel, and working the gardens at the NBC was one tintillating find after another. Hairstreaks, Metalmarks, Sulphurs, Brushfoots, Blues, Skippers everywhere you turned. I felt like a kid again, “John,” what’s this one? That one? The one on the 3rd bush?”

It was like I was meeting Sophia Loren, Brigette Bardot, Marilyn Monroe, Mia Farrow, Gina Lollabridgida and George Peppard, Clint Eastwood, John Wayne, Joe Pesci, Jimmy Stewart and Roy Rogers, it was.

I’m booked to return there in November, 2019. That and some time at “The Wall” and Bensten State Park and Santa Anna National Wildlife Refuge and Falcon State Park and, and, and.

Two visits to the NBC in one lifetime. Neat, that.

Jeff