San Angelo. 22nd October 2025.
Even this far away from home you can still bump into people from the U.K. and this happened at breakfast today. As I was putting some bread into the toaster a tall heavily tattooed young man said in an East Midlands accent “Where are you from” , he was from Leicester and is a member of a French “death-metal” band called Ten56. They are currently touring the States and appearing in Austin tonight. The rest of the band were also there but are all French. Death-metal is not a genre of music that I am well acquainted with but I looked them up on the old internet and it seems they are relatively well known within that circle.
Reading through the leaflets we picked up yesterday, it suggested the best time to see the blooms at the International Waterlily Centre was around 10 in the morning. With this in mind we set off early and arrived at around 9.45 but were a little disappointed as not many of the lilies were in flower.
It was quite a cool morning but as the sun broke through it appeared to have the effect of opening the flowers to give some very nice photos.
The collection has over 300 varieties of the plant accounting for nearly 90% of all the Worlds varieties. October is probably not the best month to visit to see them in all their glory but nevertheless it passed an enjoyable hour.
We followed the waterlily visit with a walk along the River Concho passing some very noisy geese as we enjoyed some of the art along the way.
It was a pleasant walk but in honesty nothing like the river walk at San Antonio and therefore a little disappointing. We walked into the downtown area where we viewed some more murals and some interesting street art.
Finally a visit to the open air Pop Art Museum with brightly coloured pictures on the walls of a derelict building.
After all that walking a good lunch was called for and today’s choice was the Angry Cactus restaurant, which although seemed quiet from the outside was full of life when we entered.
Sylvia chose fried catfish and house salad….
…….while I went for chicken fried steak (nothing to do with chicken but fried breaded steak made to look like chicken) with sweet potato mash.
The portions were once again very large in fact I had to help Sylvia finish her fish, a very nice lunch.
“What do you do after having a good lunch ?”, you may ask, visit a bordello is the answer. Well actually Miss Hattie’s Bordello Museum! Situated above a jewellery shop two doors away from the restaurant we ate at yesterday the museum was opened in the 1970s and features five bedrooms that tell the story of the girls who worked in Miss Hattie’s.
The building was originally owned by Mr and Mrs Hatton but after their divorce the husband operated a saloon on the ground floor while his ex-wife opened up the house of ill repute on the floor above. This was of particular interest to me as my Great Grandmother was a Hatton so may well have been a distant relative.
We were shown around the various rooms and the guide told us stories of the girls and how the business operated and we had plenty of opportunities to take photographs. A great little museum with some interesting tales.
On the way back to the car we couldn’t resist yet another photo of the San Angelo sheep.
Tomorrow we hit the road again heading north to Lubbock.