Hye Cider Company

The Hye Cider Company is another Harvest Host discovered by Layne on their app. The parking area for the cider company is next to Highway 290, as Hye lies between Austin and Fredericksburg. However the highway is a level above the business so traffic noise is surprisingly muted. We arrived in the afternoon but after the requisite Rusty-walk we took to our bed and had a nap. You get to do that in retirement.

We walked across the lot at dusk and had a look at the ciders produced by this innovative company. Mandy the manager told us there are 148 wineries in Texas Hill Country but they are the sole cider makers. There are three in Austin but none others in the boonies.

They make a range of ciders that are different to any I've tasted. There was one that showed 9.1% alcohol which were that an IPA beer I'd find horribly bitter and nasty, but in cider it just had a dry champagne taste. 

The rose was strong and fresh but the Volume Five had a strange Indian cardamon scent which didn't appeal much to either of us. They have eight different flavors on tap so there was more on offer than we could taste. We ordered a couple of glasses of the note to have with dinner, which came from the food truck in the background, above.

Travis and his wife Loren are both chefs but their tried to farm out the food truck to anyone interested but they couldn't find anyone reliable, even the successful operators who tried their hands. So in the end Travis the Texan barbecue chef and his wife Loren, classically trained in Italian cuisine tried their hand and they came up with some weird Asian fusion as described on the chalk board. The food was astonishingly good, peppery and full of flavor, we couldn't get enough...

Above Mandy the manager at the draft tap. The staff was kept busy Saturday night with a forecast of 27 degrees overnight and the threat of freeze that would wreck their potted plants.

The cider company is obviously a labor of love and everyone seems to enjoy working there. We liked it a great deal and were happy to heat leftovers for lunch on Sunday afternoon as we drove toward Del Rio on the Mexican border.

A Studebaker I believe, which was a nice coincidence after learning that day about Studebaker the car brand which started out in 1852 building Conestoga wagons in South Bend, Indiana, for the pioneers traveling to the west.

We took Rusty for a walk up the road. The cider company has loose cats and chickens apparently though we saw. but one cat, and they want dogs on a leash. On the road we let him run as traffic was sparse and he hasn't forgotten how to sit on the shoulder while cars go by. A lesson taught slowly and painfully over the months on Blimp Road in Cudjoe Key many years ago.

The well groomed white dog was hanging out with the goats and was delighted to see another dog. Rusty is doing much better with big dogs and he sniffed or a while through the fence. However when the white dog ran off up his side of the fence Rusty just stopped and stared and refused to play. 

He was fascinated by the goats. 

Our night in Hye was as predicted, freezing. We ran our portable electric heater while we streamed some TV and jumped into bed before the warmth wore off. I have to say that with our padded window liners in place our well insulated van isn't nearly so bad anymore on a freezing night. We got good practice driving to Chicago and we are handling low night temperatures better than ever. It was quite encouraging.

The front blew through and Sunday dawned clear and sunny but still cold, barely above freezing. Rusty yawned a bit as he lay next to me but I ignored him till 8:30 when I got up, turned on the engine to blow some heat into the van for Layne still under the covers. 

We walked back down the road to the goats but there were none in evidence. I had noticed the sign, above, which tickled my funny bone and by the time I got back sleepy head was up and boiling water for tea. Rusty sat and watched the world, his favorite occupation while I took down the window covers and Layne cleared the decks inside the van.

I did, by the way see some actual frost which I hope shows here:

Next stop: The Lyndon Baines Johnson Ranch just up the road. What a busy pair of retirees we are!

Harvest Hosts

While I appreciate the notion of stopping in rest areas may sound a little odd but easy free stopping is valuable for us when we are driving between areas we want to visit in depth. Interstate freeways get a bad rap as they deny the traveler the ability to experience the places they are driving through and I can't disagree, however the ability to get somewhere is also useful I find, and rest areas are much easier to deal with than motel check ins. We pull in and walk Rusty, brush our teeth (the sink drains to a holding tank thus no mess) and go to sleep. In the time it takes to unload your luggage in the room and find the soap we are snoring.

And then for those times that you aren't rushing hither and yon there is Harvest Host. Layne the navigator runs through the app which includes a map to pinpoint the locations. Harvest Host is an adventure and it's not meant to be the equivalent of KOA, the sort of corporate experience that guarantees the same service and identical facilities at each stop. The philosophy here is the total antithesis of the franchise  plan and it is truly amazing, an overused word that I try to avoid. Amazing. Consider me amazed.

Beer, ribs and fried chicken. That was our fee to stay at a ski resort.  A ski resort?? Yup, in the ever astonishing Upper Peninsula of Michigan (thinking we were still in Wisconsin - idiots loose on the road) we stayed at Indianhead Mountain Ski Resort.  If you wanted to participate in corn hole tossing, or whatever it's called that was an option. The family participating eight feet away did a lot of laughing as you do in these situations. The views were spectacular as you might expect at a mountain resort.

The thing about Harvest Host is any outdoor activity with room to park a few RVs is qualified to participate. In low season pack in four or five campers and you get a few extra sales at the bar and at dinner time. The black beer was 5% (my maximum bitterness) and flavorful and delicious and I had two because all we had to do was walk Rusty across a field to find our own beds. No driving required after imbibing at Harvest Host.

We find some Harvest Hosts are more to our taste than others and you will too. Some are free with dogs and others require leashes. We got a shower at one but only because they mentioned it. You can only stay one night unless they offer you a second one. Never ever ask. Some might offer electricity but most offer spaces to park and you are expected to be completely self sufficient. Generators are frowned upon which is okay as we don't have one but if you must use it that say do it briefly to get your charge up. The rules are obvious for grown ups.

One Harvest Host offered a shower, another offered us popcorn along with a dog to help consume it. Rusty watched and waited his turn...in between playing with the other dog. No leashes required obviously.

Harvest Hosts can be goofballs or quiet and reserved. One farm we parked at had seen an RV sink into a mud patch and required towing out. If that sort of thing throws you out of gear then maybe you need organized camping or state parks and nothing wrong with that. This is what I like:

Rusty and I got up at dawn and I soaked my sneakers in dew because I was too stupid to put my Crocs on, but we had an excellent walk through the vineyards, more or less together. This stuff is very nostalgic for a man who spent his young summers on a farm in central Italy. Let me say right now I have no regrets about emigrating because this work is hard. My sisters still do it, farming and hosting and I know it's not an easy life.

It's easy though to pay $79 a year and become a Harvest Host member. Want to stay at a distillery? They've got that. The restaurant and tasting area was so crowded we called a Coronavirus Veto and didn't visit. Oh well, next time once we are vaccinated...

The rules for these places are simple: you can't sleep in a car, in a tent or in a tent on a car (Overlander-style). Be neat tidy quiet and unobtrusive and plan to spend some money. The idea is to support a small business and we are all ready to do that. Taste some wine, buy a gift, a meal or food to go. At one place we got several pounds of home cured pork in various forms. We tasted and bought wine, we ate breakfast served at our van:

We have parked in fields, alongside woods, alone and alongside strangers who thanks to Coronavirus remained strangers, but we have also parked in parking lots. I also swam in Lake Michigan at one host's private beach. No seriously.

While there Rusty met a local whose owner told us stories of growing up in Michigan while we stood in the lake and she watched her (human) child dipping in the Great Lake.  These I assure you are magical memories. Rusty learning to drink the ocean was a crack up.

If you like Thai food I know a Harvest Host who is Phillipina and travels with her husband to Thailand and brings back extraordinary recipes. I'd rather stuff my face on organic vegetable green curry with flounder than pay for a cement pad with hookups in a row of RVs. The cost is the same, the only difference is the RV park will let you stay as long as you want and Harvest Host keeps you moving. Your choice, your needs. I Love America.

These fabulous people actually want you to stay. It's weird but I am getting over the feeling that I am intruding or taking advantage. Harvest Host shows you the America we all fear is disappearing.  It's alive and well and quite visible from your RV.

Gratuitous Rusty picture: