Hill Country, TX - Apr. 5 - May 4, 2006

Green.  Rolling hills of beautiful rich shades of green. 

This was our impression upon arriving in the Texas Hill Country after three months wandering in the desert.  We were amazed at how beautiful this part of the country is with its lazy rivers; verdant hills sprinkled with blue, red, white and yellow wildflowers; jagged white limestone cliffs; and the stately oaks and cedars. 

The Hill Country is so inviting we were very tempted to invest in property.  We even talked to a realtor.  Then the heat wave came - dripping with humidity.  The heat was accompanied by nightly thunderstorms and tornado and hail warnings.  The humidity encouraged us to rethink our investment strategy.

The Hill Country presented many pleasant surprises.  For example, we didn't expect to find a Stonehenge replica or Easter Island heads just down the road from our Texas home.  Nor did we expect to see zebra, wildebeest, African antelope and Asian deer grazing in the fields.  We were also surprised to see so many goats and are still puzzled as to what they do with them all.  But, as we Americans have learned in the past five years, there is a lot of brush to be cleared in Texas - at which goats (and other critters) are quite adept.

We selected the Guadalupe River RV Resort in Kerrville as our home for the month and highly recommend it.  The resort is beautiful, clean, conveniently located and the staff is very friendly.  There is a wide expanse of open, treed area sloping down to the river where deer graze and fireflies flicker in the evening.  The riverbank hosts an abundance of ducks, frogs, turtles, herons and snakes (SNAKES?), and bunnies, doves, squirrels and grackle (a noisy crow like bird indigenous to the region) inhabit the grounds.  For hours of free entertainment, make yourself comfortable and watch the courting antics of grackle.  Quite amusing.

The Hill Country is famous for its bluebonnets so our first excursion was in search of wildflowers.  At this point in our visit Texas was experiencing a dry spell, consequently there wasn't the usual abundance of wildflowers.  We decided to go for a sure thing - Wildseed Farms just east of Fredericksburg.  We were well rewarded and as a bonus were able to visit a butterfly house.  We then strolled the quaint streets of the German village of Fredericksburg and enjoyed a pleasant lunch.  Later during our stay, when the thunderstorms rolled through, the hills and fields exploded in wildflowers blooms. 

A couple of weeks later we returned to this area to visit the  LBJ Ranch on the Pedernales River and Johnson City, the site of LBJ's boyhood home.  The ranch includes the mid-1960's Texas White House and auxiliary buildings, the home in which President Johnson was born, and the family cemetery. Lady Bird is occasionally in residence so the Ranch House is not available for touring.  The Johnson City location includes the family home and ranch buildings restored to the 1920's.

We watched a film at the Visitors Center about LBJ and his presidency.  The time, 1963-68, was one of such turmoil - the assassinations of Martin Luther King Jr. and Bobby Kennedy, the Watts Riots followed by riots in other cities, the civil rights movement and burning of the southern black churches.  For us, the Vietnam War overshadowed nearly everything else in our memories and we had forgotten the many good things President Johnson did like the Civil Rights Act, Voter Rights, and the war on poverty, Medicare, Medicaid, Head Start and a host of environmental protection laws.  The experience made us pause to wonder how we would view the current administration 30-years hence.

We attended some of the numerous Hill Country weekend events and festivals including a barbeque and chili cook off in Kerrville.  Our advice is to arrive at cook offs early - and make sure they are taster's choice, which means you get to sample.  Texans are very serious about their barbeque.  Some of the barbeques require a truck and trailer just move them around.  Makes our little baby Weber rather pathetic.

Susan's bike was in the shop during our first two weeks in the Hill Country, but once we got it back we enjoyed a few bike rides along country roads.  We also spent a day hiking at Lost Maples State Park, about a 40 miles drive up the Guadalupe River.  The drive was breathtakingly beautiful and the hike was pretty awesome - and very, very sweaty. 

We visited several of the Hill Country villages including Bandera, the self-proclaimed "Cowboy Capital of the World".  In the 1800's, this village was the staging area for cattle drives up the Western Trail to Dodge City and prides itself in its cowboy heritage.  It is worth a visit just for the cowboy paraphernalia and to browse the general store.

San Antonio - Our biggest excursion was to San Antonio for a belated celebration of our 25th wedding anniversary (January 17th).  We treated ourselves to a bed & breakfast hotel on the famed Riverwalk and were pretty decadent for a couple of days.  Our visit coincided with the 127th Fiesta Texas, a 10-day annual event celebrating Texas' history, culture and diversity.

In addition to strolling the Riverwalk and touring the Alamo, we spent a wonderful evening of music and revelry at the "Night in Old San Antonio" (NIOSA) with thousands of close - very close - friends.  The NIOSA is held for four consecutive nights in La Villita, an historic district adjacent to the Riverwalk.  We were amazed at how many people, bands and vendors could squeeze into the area.  If you have personal space issues - don't go.  But if you want to enjoy great music in a fun atmosphere...

So there we were shaking our bootys and singing along to the music when then band suddenly stopped playing and, of course, the audience continued singing.  Well, half the audience.  The band chastised the other half saying they sounded pathetic - like Sacramentans.  Say what?  Turns out, the San Antonio Spurs had just defeated the Sacramento Kings in the second game of the NBA playoff series.

The next day we went to the Mercado to continue the Fiesta fun, then to a very romantic dinner at Biga on the Banks.  We had our own little table with a curtain that could be closed for privacy.  Oooh La La!  Before leaving San Antonio we visited the beautiful McNay Museum of Art to get our cultural fix.  The museum is housed in the Spanish Colonial Revival style McNay mansion built in 1926 and situated on 23 beautifully landscaped acres. 

San Antonio is a beautiful, fun and lively city and we hope to spend a bit more time on our next visit.