Lyndon Baines Johnson Ranch

We left the cider company in Hye and were aiming to get to Fredericksburg, a town a half hour away along Highway 290 and the unofficial center of the Hill Country. Five minutes on the road and we came to a halt- again. A solitary sign invited us to check out the 36th President's ranch, known informally as the Texas White House.

Lyndon Johnson and his wife Ladybird were devoted to the Texas countryside where he grew up and where he liked to return as often as he could. The state has created a separate park next to the national historic site so the two parks, both free to visit, sit on opposite banks fo the Pedernales River which runs through the middle.

In the state park side e came across ball moss which a helpful sign explained is related to the pineapple, I kid you not. It is described as epiphyte which is what Spanish moss is also, a parasite basically but living off the air, not the host plant. There you have it.

They also have a 19th century demonstration farm operated by state park rangers living the life of German settlers. We kept going as farming is not our thing but we could see form the road they are pretty good at running a vegetable garden.

Bison are a big draw and the herd here crosses either side of the river. The state park notes professional hunters destroyed the herds on the Great Plains killing 30 million beasts. Nowadays happily the herds are being brought back but the great open ranges for them are gone.

The state park is actually quite large with a number of pull outs, picnic areas and trail heads. I can imagine in summer the huge live oaks provide welcome shade. On a 65 degree winter day they were what I would call picturesque. With all the driving we're doing we didn't need to worry about our 400 watts of solar on the roof topping off the batteries. A couple of hours deriving and our 600 amp lithium battery bank is fully charged by our twin alternators.

I was busy chasing the statue of the President while Rusty led Layne toward the park road and the Pedernales River.

The statue apparently catches President Johnson in a typical gesture pointing to the river which was the center of his home in Texas.

You can see why he liked it here and in a minute we'll cross the river and check out his ranch.

Rusty could wander anywhere with us, very civilized, except inside the buildings as usual.  He didn't seem to mind.

There are no wildflowers in December but there were always reminders of the founders of this collection of fields and prairies.

The national historic site respects the entry sticker the state provides (for free) on the other side of the river and there wasn't anyone there to check us in. We crossed several cattle guards as we drove through the ranch which is how cows are kept in their various pastures. But inside the fences they roam totally freely. 

And have right of way.

This is a real ranch, please note.

Layne loved the calves here they are, a bunch of teenagers at lunch.

And there were deer too. I don't think cattle guards faze them.

The ranch is on a slope rising above the river valley. Interestingly the top of the ridge is... just more fields! You get to the top and among the many pull outs you can stop and read little blurbs about farming in the President's day.

The dark green in the distance is the normal ground cover in the Hill Country, dark leaved live oak trees, rolling to the horizon and beyond.

You drive yourself through the ranch on the single lane road, past private residences, park volunteers living in their RVs on the property and of course past the animals wandering loose.

LBJ was fond of his western image and he liked to play the country hick during his political career, but everyone who came up against him said he was a consummate politician always working to make a deal to further his agenda.

Any plane the President rides on gets the "Air Force One" call sign and the plane that brought the 36th President to his ranch is now stored on site not far from the paved landing strip on the ranch. 

Rangers are doing an exterior tour of the Texas White House and people were gathering but decided to keep going.

It was a lovely sunny day on the ranch and we left the cattle doing their thing in fields planted specially to feed them.

Back on Highway 290 we settled in for a drive to Fredericksburg 20 minutes to the west. We passed breweries and wineries and wondered what a German town in the American west might look like.

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!

Kerrville's Museum Of Western Art

An association of cowboy artists was pondering where to build a home to store and display their art when a man from Kerrville, Texas spoke up and said he had land to spare and would they like some? Which explains why this highly rated museum is located off the beaten path near Fredericksburg, Texas, if it's near anything at all.

It's a building filled with art and artifacts. Take the Conestoga wagon, named for the manufacturer in the Conestoga Valley of Pennsylvania (who knew?). The pioneers called them prairie schooners owing to their white canopies billowing like sails on the horizon. As they moved at a slow walking pace to the Pacific Coast...I know there is no resemblance but I saw our Promaster when I looked at these rugged homes away from homes for those hardy travelers.

The building was created using locally sourced mesquite wood to tile the floors and the ceiling is dotted with 28 specially arched skylights built by a Mexican specialist brought to Texas to do the work. He only got a thirty day visa so work that was planned to take 60 days was done in half the time.

Pretty impressive work:

Clearly a lot of thought has gone into the design and layout of the place and they are proud of it. 

It's called the Museum of Western Art but that in the end boils down to cowboys and related scenery and paraphernalia. I included this painting, by native Texan G Harvey, in an effort to illustrate the allure of the hill country in its prime: wild flower season, the best time to visit I am told.

Of artifacts I was struck by the bank donation of a shoeshine bench. It screams period dress and habits, like the swinging doors of a saloon bar on the wild frontier...

There were so many paintings, statues and items on display it was incumbent on me to try to find the ones that spoke to me. This one, below, by Fred Harman of Red Ryder comic book fame, took me back to the Conestoga wagon theme. The Italian journalist Oriana Fallaci interviewed Henry Kissinger in 1972 and in that interview he confessed to his immigrant's idea of the cowboy as a metaphor for the American experience:

She asks him how he explains his popularity. At first he declines to answer. Then he gives in to her line of questioning: “The main point arises from the fact that I’ve always acted alone,” he says. “Americans like that immensely. Americans like the cowboy who leads the wagon train by riding ahead alone on his horse, the cowboy who rides all alone into the town, the village, with his horse and nothing else.”

After being published in L’Europeo, the article is reprinted in several American newspapers and read all over the United States, where it becomes a scandal. Nixon is not at all pleased by the cowboy metaphor. Kissinger tries to deny that he has said these things, but he is contradicted by Oriana, who has a recording. 

For me the wagon gives me the stability and the independence that a motorcycle never did. I love stopping by the side of the road and having lunch "at home." But the lone cowboy is the romantic image. In the two pictures below, by Joe Beeler, I was fascinated by the study on the left and the final image, so much stronger with the powerful background, my favorite leading lines:

I'm not sure this painting translates well into a photograph because what grabbed me was the three dimensional quality of the red dirt. In person it was startling. Close up I saw tiny dabs of paint, red orange brown and yellow that together brought the dirt the cows were running over right into my face. Very impressive.

This cowboy was a modern representation, no guns, sunglasses (!) and quite fashionable at that... I loved the style of the rider, the pose, the long hair, the giant hat, the perfect control of the lasso, the ease of the posture. 

This painting below is the work of Harvey Young who studied in Munich and Paris came back to the West with what looked to me like a very European style. The light on the mountains reminds me of works set in the much less wild regions painted by British artists of the 19th century. Young had money apparently because ehe had a private rail car which he attached to trains as they went his way and which he used as his own home and studio on wheels. Not bad.

A section of the museum devoted to the education of the young tried to present a realistic view of the tough challenges of pioneer life. Fair enough.

The exhibits side step the more awkward questions raised by the migration westward. Indians and buffalos are notable by their forced submission to the new country expanding west but they really don't get a mention here.

In my mind the people who took to the trail and went west bus have been desperate in their lives back home wherever that was. This was no easy journey to a place known to them by reputation. And as far as this exhibition space goes that's enough. 

What I like most about the museum is the recognition it brings to a group of artists not well known or often shown. Frederic Remington is who we the general public know about, vaguely, but the others? It's really nice to see this art in this place celebrating a time and a place and a romanticism that lives in us to some degree today. Rolling across Texas in my covered wagon I spend time behind the wheel thinking about covered wagons taking all day to cover ground that took me half an hour. 

Hunting for the answer to my own question about the respectability of "cowboy art" in the art world I came across a great article published in 1987 in The Oklahoman and still to be found online, about an exhibit of western art in Paris of all places. 

A section from that article:

“But even in a country that invented the expression avante garde, it seems that everything old can be new again.

Jean-Claud Farjas, an artist with a painting hanging in the exposition, said: "I love it because it's painting that will come back to fashion. It's an honest kind of art."

Anore Jacque Min, a member of France's Legion of Honor, which admits only the most respected artists, went into more detail on the subject.

"I think that in the American painting of the West, the structure or construction of the landscape and personages are very special and characteristic of much of European paintings.”

I could have spent half the morning looking at the row of western saddles on display. Personalized, obviously loved in a way that goes far beyond the utility of a tool needed to ride a horse. The pommel reminds me of a cleat on a sailboat, used like the pommel to secure a line.

And then there were a couple of high class models, a stage coach and a chuck wagon. Amazing.

Nick Eggenhofer. was born in Bavaria. in 1897 and worked out of a studio in Wyoming. There is apparently a huge desire for cowboy stories in Germany, and in Italy when I was a child we loved a comic book series, still published about the adventures of a Texas Ranger called Tex Willer. 

I look at the chuck wagon model and think of the modern small camper trailers with kitchens built into the back offering an open air kitchen for campers who manage to sleep inside the tiny confines of the small tear drop trailers.

Looking at the stage coach I saw for the first time the structure of these machines, a flat ox cart frame underneath with the carriage body suspended on suspension above it for the comfort of the passengers. Brilliant.

Well worth the time to visit.

Rusty got his time around outside. It's a weird setting for a museum. It's plonked in the middle of a country club, between a swimming pool, a golf course and a bunch of private homes. 

We took off across country again and happened upon a lunch spot, underneath a raised portion Interstate 10. We got a bit muddled in our mapping and pulled over. As always Rusty wanted to get out when the van stopped. 

Layne said this looks like a good spot for lunch. Thats what I mean about traveling by van. You have your home wherever you are. A prairie schooner. 

In this instance lunch was a couple of Czech savory pastries from Austin. Kolaches they are called, pulled from our fridge and heated in our microwave. Easy.

Lunch where you want: life on the road.