Texas Hill Country To The Border

After the unexpected tour of the Lyndon Johnson ranch we arrived in Fredericksburg around noon on Sunday and we were not impressed. It was our fault partly. A sunny Sunday in the holiday season and the sidewalks were packed? Amazing! It looked like Duval Street during Fantasy Fest (except everyone looked respectably dressed) and it was clear taking. Rusty stroll and window shopping was not going to be relaxing and enjoyable. I hope the good people found their stocking stuffers.

I had been looking forward to Fredericksburg as an unusual outpost of Germanic culture but what I found was a four lane highway driving through downtown with all the intimacy of a freeway. Sidewalks crowded and fast cars pushed us to get on with it.

I think Layne nailed it when she said we need to come back in Spring for wildflowers which are said to be astonishing, or Fall after schools get busy and devote some time to the area. Part of this journey is exploration and we are taking notes on places we want to see next time around.

I was surprised by a couple of things about the bits we did see of Hill Country, and that was the total absence of billboards on the highways, no neon advertising and not much of anything between towns. Someone has been taking care of the tourist attractions here because the roads are broad and smooth and the towns are focused on local business and local stores. Clearly this is a valued attraction for Texans and I felt lucky to get a small look in on the place.

Outside Fredericksburg we were driving southwest to a distant point on the Rio Grande about three hours away. I don't know if the countryside was technically desert because there are tons of scrubby little trees that look like live oaks to my mediterranean mind. Without doubt it was deserted.

Texas is not a popular RV destination for people looking for deserted boondocks, informal camping on broad swathes of public land, minimal impact no facilities, open skies and all that back to the wilderness stuff. There is no Bureau of Land Management land in Texas and National Forests are sparse and small so most of the time the highways through all this open space look like fenced in luge tracks, we were in a sled sliding past a whole lot of nothing but unable to get off the road. Until we could.

It was where Interstate 10 crossed our highway and there we found an old roadside stop that had seen better days. Not too scenic but it was unfenced which worked for us, and for Rusty.

I don't know when Texas last saw regular gas at $1:45 but this place looked like it had been shut down for a while. I don't suppose the arrival of the freeway helped.

Layne heated our savory kolache buns from Austin while Rusty wandered around being a dog. We had a decent Verizon signal much to our surprise so we weren't as lost as we felt. That changed.

The road went on and on shedding miles and cell phone strength as we went. The gas gauge said we had 109 miles of gas but Del Rio was 139 miles away. The numbers did not add up. "Well," I said, "We are bound to find a gas station somewhere." Layne stayed silent. The little blue dot kept tracking our progress and I was reminded we had paper charts in the attic, a shelf above our heads.

We did find gas eventually at a highway intersection. We stopped and looked. "That's going to be horribly expensive," I said. It was a run down convenience store surrounded by All Terrain Vehicles and men grouped in camouflage hunting clothes  looking very butch. In my own head I could see myself showing up in great big box with my goofy accent, a pansy mask and a dog more at home in a salon than out tearing out the throat of a wild boar. "I'll bet that place is full of Omicron Covid," I tried playing my ace. All I could see was me being strung up by my knackers and getting slow smoked for dinner by hunters who had suffered a fruitless hunt. I couldn't see any dead game draped artfully across their machines. "If you're sure we'll find gas," my wife said. Say no more, I put the poofy van in gear and we continued rolling like the pioneers of the wild frontier we fancied ourselves to be, Conestoga prairie schooner catching the wind as we went. Yea-haa!

I found a Shell station when the gauge showed 20 miles to empty. Layne had discovered in Rocksprings, a cell phone oasis, that gas in Del Rio costs $2:56 a gallon. That was fatal. We loaded up with the bare minimum at $3:10 a gallon and set off full of optimism. The road did not get more inhabited. It went on and on like this:

Or this:

Google sent us left when we had no signal so I stopped and pulled out Mr Rand McNally's great paper invention. I flipped the pages and founds on the paper. I made an executive decision. "We are not turning left," I said with authority. Rusty was reluctant to get back aboard the capsule, the life support system in this wilderness.

The fences around here are huge and I couldn't make up my mind if they were to keep deer out or in, or to keep lost Mexican migrants out or what. We drove for miles  and miles alongside  eight foot fences in perfect order. We meet a couple of stags alongside the road with huge racks of antlers and an astonishing turn of speed when they ran alongside us unable to escape across these massive fences. 

It was warm, in the upper 60's windless and very dry, not an unpleasant afternoon but the gauge was dipping again and there was absolutely no sign of a town anywhere. Mathematically we were safe with 80 miles in the tank and thirty miles to go. But still...

I had ants in my pants because we couldn't stop, we had lost the power to decide, the road had no shoulders, no pull outs, no picnic areas, no parks, no scenic overlooks. We rolled along at forty miles an hour staring at nothing at all. This was like sailing when you get caught up in the shape of the waves and the little bubbles on the crest as they pass under the hull, and your mind goes blank. I settled back and let my mind go blank, I put aside the desire fo an empty dirt sidereal to drive up and park for the night here, where there would be nothing but stars.  The impenetrable fences pushed us on, squeezed us like toothpaste out of the tube.

We arrived of course, welcomed to the county seat of Val Verde County by two portapotties in a dusty empty lot. We greeted them like old friends and took advantage to empty our own tank while Rusty welcomed himself back to civilization with a quick tour of not very much. We turned onto Highway 90 and Del Rio made itself known to us, an all American city with cheap gas and every fast food outlet and box store known to any American.

We had bought a hotel room for the night, a Hampton Inn on Hilton points so it was free and thus much cheaper than a night in a full service campground. The showers, laundry and central heat were welcome and a quick check of my Google maps put us 7.7 miles from Ciudad Acuña in Coahuila State. Del Rio seems a world away from the Port of Entry and the whole other world we want to see. That will have to wait till Arizona; family obligations call us west, but north of the Rio Grande.

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!