The landscape is changing dramatically on route 10 as I enter the Texas hill country. It is very quite hilly, with walls of exposed limestone at the numerous road cuts. The vegetation and trees are also changing and it’s all so green green, I’m not used to that !
I make a stop in Junction, Texas which is on the Llano River where I find a great tree lined town park. You can camp there with tents or small rigs, free, in the shade with a river view. I walk down the main street to the attractive stone Court House, most of the nice public building are made from this beautiful local limestone that is everywhere here. I also notice that many of the downtown building are in this stone also, but were covered with siding and false fronts. I suppose the bare stone was not as appreciated back then, now owners are removing that siding, cleaning the stone and it looks great. I also notice that many of the monuments to important citizens tell them to have served on the confederate side in the Civil War, but this is the south and this area seems to have been confederate territory. I may be wrong on this, it needs to more research and I actually don’t care at this point, I’m so tired of all the division about everything in this country today.
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| Old Spanish Trail map |
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| One of the covered up stone buildings |
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| A nice camp site |
I then exit onto route 290 to the town of Fredericksburg, Texas. Fredericksburg is a bustling tourist trap with a downtown full of restaurants and stores of all kind. The streets and sidewalks were full of people in a frenzy to dine and shop. Historically the town was settled by those hard working, industrialist Germans and it shows. I parked and walked around for a while to check things out, bought absolutely nothing and left, very hot, should of had bought ice cream, but instead continued down the road.
Actually I was more focused on finding my way to Luckenbach, Texas which is about 30 miles away.
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| Interesting building |
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| Another |
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| Beautiful Library |
Luckenbach, Texas is a mecca for old country music, not really so much my thing, but it’s just one of those places you need to see. It was a real country hangout back in the day, but it is pretty much just another tourist trap now with the old post office converted into a souvenir shop. It does have the real old country vibe going though, you can buy a beer and sit outside under large shade trees and listen to real live music. It would have been easy to stay longer, probably could have parked the van and slept overnight right there in the parking lot. But, I had made a reservation for the night at a Days Inn in Kerrville, Texas which is about 30 miles away.
My destination, Kerrville Texas has a very vibrant impressive downtown on the Guadalupe River with a great river park and trail system. I also found a great brew pub/ cafe called the Pint and Plow where I had a great pulled pork sandwich. I thought it was cool that the buildings exterior was painted in hobo symbols.
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| Beautiful stone building in downtown |
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| The entire downtown is attractive |
I went for a 3-4 mile hike on the river trail in the morning before the heat set in and then spent a few hours in the public library which was excellent.
In the evening there was music concert in the river park with two bands, a classic rock one and a hispanic band, it was entertaining, but not my style.
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| The Guadalupe River |
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| Pint and Plow brew pub |
I next drove to San Antonio, Texas to visit my daughter Miranda, her partner Beth and son Tristen. They have been married for 20 years now, getting to be an old couple, which makes me ? They recently moved toSan Antonio from Portland, Oregon, have bought a house and are possibly settling down ?
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| The Witt Museum |
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| Beth, Tristen and Miranda |
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| Along the Riverwalk |
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| A pose with Tristen and Miranda |
I ended up staying an additional day to do the National Park Service Mission tour route, see more of the downtown area and visit the Museum of Art. The Art Museum was incredible, one the best museum for early native art collections covering many distinct areas of the world.
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| One of the oldest settled areas in Texas |
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| This Indian tribe came with the Spainish following the Indian revolt |
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| There are four missions spaced a few miles apart |
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| The Aztec Theater in downtown |
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| The impressive Bexar County Courthouse |
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| The impressive Kress department store |
Next stop was Gruene, Texas which is a fascinating historic village built by the very enterprising and prosperous Mr Gruene, until the Boll Weevil wiped out his cotton crop. The townsite lay dormant for many years until the property was sold and developed. It is now quite a prosperous tourist attraction.
The famous Gruene Music Hall located there, one of the oldest in Texas, was built by Mr. Gruene and has operated continuously throughout this period. It is very rustic and filled to the brim with Texas country flavor. They had a band in the evening which I stayed for and since they had this large parking field, I stayed right there for the night.
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| Henry Gruene was quite a capitalist |
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| Interior of the music hall |
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| The Gruene Hall |
Finally, on to Austin, Texas where first stop was a tour of the Texas State Capital. I’ve been to many impressive State Capitals, but I wasn’t so impressed with this one. It does have a great exterior appearance, but inside it’s gloomy, mostly black and white with no murals or artwork. I really grew tired of the black and white identically framed portraits of all the past Texas governors on the interior walls. Also a little too much glorification of the Texas involvement on the confederate side during the civil war.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Austin,_Texas
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| The capital exterior is impressive |
I went to the famous Broken Spoke Dance Hall in the evening, just about all the famous country performers / bands have played there at one time. It is like a museum inside, with two rooms filled with photos and memorabilia from the past 50 years or so. They had a good band playing and a good dance crowd, not my thing, but I did note one old man (definitely a regular) who was asking all the woman to dance, mostly the young ones and many did. It seemed a little perverted to me ?
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| The lights add romance to it, it's really pretty boring |
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| The history is truly great ! |
I then toured around an area of 5th and 6th streets in the midst of what looked like college housing, it was more trashy than hip, but many good murals and street art was in this area.
My next day was a ride north into the Hill Country almost to Johnson City and then a side trip on Ranch Country Road 32 through an area called the “Devils Backbone". The scenery is unique in places, but you can’t really see much from the road especially when everyone was driving 70 MPH. It wasn’t nearly the scenic back road drive portrayed in the travel guide.
The rush hour traffic back into Austin was horrible, I took an exit and just parked for a while. I was tired, but didn’t feel like cooking, so I stopped at a Taco Bell for a quick, easy and pretty healthy meal. Sad to say, but I like the Taco Bell tacos better than most of the real hispanic street tacos ? While chowing down on my taco combo meal a huge parking lot at the adjacent Fitness Club looked like a good overnight prospect and I stayed.
Time to do laundry and I luck out finding a decent one which also has working internet, what a deal ! While there I did some research and located several great street murals further down Congress Street.
I also found a street art tour which sounded great, I immediately decided to spend another day in order to do it. I also located some live music sites that may be feasible later. I am on a roll today !
The area on Congress Street where the murals were located turned out to be a popular tourist area with many restaurants and shops, I luckily found a parking spot nearby and spent an hour touring around a few blocks there. I then returned to the 6th Street area, but to the southern end which is the so called “party area”, but looks more like the homeless "loser area" to me. It’s sad actually as this is the best historic area with many old stone buildings of note where the town business district began.
This area of Austin is rapidly changing as it is the closest remaining residential area to the new booming downtown business district. As a result house prices are through the roof, people will pay a million dollars just to get a lot, tear the old house down and build a new one on the spot.
Austin has obviously given the developers free rein to do whatever they please and as a result development is skyrocketing out of control.
I need to get out of this place, can’t take the crazyness any longer, my next stop is La Grange, Texas.
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