Wednesday, December 11, 2019 - Waco, TX
I took the afternoon off to do some sight seeing in Waco. Since the Magnolia empire is not open on Sunday and that is something I really wanted to see while we were here, that was our first destination. We had lunch at Magnolia Table. When we arrived there were 2 people standing at the door and when we went to go in they asked if our names had been called. When we said "No", they told us we needed to get our name on the list. Well, you can't tell by the picture below, but off to the left is an "Entry Maze" to line people up just to put your name on the list. Fortunately, we went during the week and it is a little off season, so we only had 2 people ahead of us.
You can see the 2 people standing at the door of the restaurant. :)
We only had to wait about 30 minutes. While we were waiting there is a gift shop on the other side of the building that we visited. We did not buy anything. :) We also read the Historical Marker that was on the side of the building that told a little of the history of the building.
Eventually, I got the text message notifying us that our table was ready. When you put your name in, they ask if you mind sitting at a high top table or a community table. I told them any of the above was fine. I was kind of hoping for a community table. :) But we got a high top table.
It is not exactly what I was expecting from a high top table as it was facing a wall, but it was nice and at least it faced a mirror.
This picture is looking over at the other side of the restaurant.
Lunch was good, but nothing really special. While we were there, I asked the waitress if Chip and Joanna ever come out to meet the public. She said normally they just come in and out the back door, but one day about a month ago Chip came running out from the back and announced if anyone wanted a picture to come to the front. She said the entire restaurant got up and headed for the front of the building. :)
After lunch we headed for the Silos. They were not any where near as crowded today as they were on Saturday.
Our first stop was the gift shop, where we found the t-shirts and hats were both $26. Mike looked at a mug and it was $45. I was not able to find any iron-on patches, so we did not buy anything.
Out back they had an ice skating rink set up. It was all plastic, including the "ice".
The actual silos are also out back.
There are also several food trucks in the back. And a place where the kids can see Santa on the weekends. Someone took this picture of us in Santa's chair. Mike reciprocated and then kept getting asked to take more pictures. We were laughing that we could probably charge $5 just to take pictures for people with their camera, and people would pay. :)
Finally I wanted to get something from the bakery. Once again they had someone standing at the front door making sure it did not get too crowded inside. Fortunately, I did not have to wait through the "Entry Maze" that was outside the bakery, but I did have to wait through a smaller one inside.
They hand you an order card as you enter to make your selection to help make the line go faster. In the picture above, you can see a couple of people holding their order forms. I ended up getting 2 cupcakes and a cookie. They were all very good!
Next we went to the Waco Suspension Bridge.
Of course we had to walk across it. :) And on the other side was another sign that I took a picture of.
There is a river walk on both sides of the river, so we walked down to the next bridge so we could get these pictures of the suspension bridge.
I took a couple more pictures of the bronze statues of the "Trail Boss and Longhorns"on the Chisholm Trail. They were on the grounds right by the Suspension Bridge. I even got Mike in the pictures. :)
I saw online that the park in town had Jacob's Ladder, so I wanted to check it out. So we headed for Cameron Park. The park is approximately 425 acres and has numerous trails of varying degrees of difficulty.
After checking out the trail map we walked over to "Jacob's Ladder".
The steps are very irregular. None of them are the same height or width. There were 2 ladies that were taking them very quickly, but I was not about to try doing that. :)
It is a very nice park. After going up and down "Jacob's Ladder" we drove around to check out more of the park.
Soon we got to the area where there were 3 trails that were marked as double diamond. Well I wanted to check out what makes a trail a double diamond. So we headed down Bat Cave trail.
Once we got to this we decided we had walked enough for one day and we turned around and headed out. :) That and it was starting to get late.
This evening when I went out I noticed how beautiful the moon looked. Of course the picture does not do it justice.
It was another wonderful day!
