Texas Hill Country – Leakey and Luckenbach

First we have two important dates to mention.

Monday, March 3rd - Terry and I celebrte our 45th anniversary.  We were married as toddlers.

Tuesday, March 4th, our grandson, Justin, turns 21 -- so  Happy Birthday, Justin!

The Texas Hill Country is a pretty big area.  It stretches quite a distance west and east.  There are many hills, lots of trees and plenty of rivers in the area.  There are also lots of definitely Texas little towns.  Taking the back roads of Texas you can definitely immerse in real Texas culture.  

  

Saturday morning we were off to the little town of Leakey, population 425.  Our GPS kept wanting us to turn around and take highway 41.  We all know the GPS usually tries to direct us the most direct route and rarely the most scenic.

Someone built this dam

This fence on both sides of the road had shoes on each post.  

 Sometimes the GPS doesn't direct you where you want to go at all.   This day I had to let it continue to recalculate over and over.  I didn’t want to go via highway 41.  I knew that road was too straight.  I wanted highway 39 that wound around the Guadalupe River and through the little town of Hunt.  Many youth camps, vacation homes and off-beat resorts are on this road.  It’s definitely not straight but it’s very, very scenic.

Highway 39 crossed the Guadalupe many times.

Wild Turkeys

Hunt is another small ranching town.  It’s home to the famous Crider’s.  Crider’s is open on Saturday night during the summer.  It’s what we all think Texas should be.  Locals head to town .. well, there really isn’t much of a town   Crider’s is host to summer rodeos, toe tapping and an open-air dance hall. All the ranchers and cowboys congregate here on the weekends.  Even the city folks travel to Hunt to take part in the weekend hoe downs.  If you haven’t been to Crider’s on a Saturday night in the summer, you haven’t experienced true Texas.  We've been there done that before but never walked away with a t-shirt to prove it.  This time we were invited to stop by and take a look.  It wasn’t quite like the last time we were here.  There was no country music, no local band and no rodeo going but we still stopped and took some pictures while they fed the horses.

On down the road we went.  We wound around the river and crossed over the many crossovers.  Every one of the cross-overs had warning signs and flood markers.  We weren't worried as it was a beautiful day.  We saw wild turkeys and lots of axis deer.  I tried to take a picture of some wild turkeys sitting on the fence but they were rather camera shy and so were the Axis deer.  We also saw goats and rams and a few other exotic animals along the road.  Some of the ranchers open up their lands to hunters.  A couple even bring in the exotic to give the blood thirsty hunters a thrill … obviously the only type of shooting I like is with a camera.

Creek runs over roadway to cemetery

My GG grandfather rests here.

Outside of Leakey was a cemetery I wanted to stop at.  I’d been there before but still wanted to visit again.  It’s a private cemetery in a very remote setting.  We also chatted with the neighbor … very friendly chap and I discovered another third cousin!  My great grandparents were buried there.  They were also his great grandparents.   How fun that was.

Welcome to Leakey, Texas

Next stop was the Historical Museum in Leakey.  It wasn’t big but Terry and I spent some time walking through and checking out all the displays

Next stop ----  Friends Grill for lunch.  The little grill was packed with the Red Hat Ladies.  They were having their monthly get together but they couldn’t have picked a better place to eat for sure.  The tables were all antique dining tables and chairs.  Even the waiting room was warm, inviting and decked out in years past furniture.

Eating area

Waiting room

Then, it was off to the cemetery in town and more pictures.  This time it was of my great grandparents.  My father lived with them when he was young.  He went to the Dry Creek School.  At that time it was quite a distance from his grandparent’s ranch so he and his brother rode a horse to school.

That was Saturday.  Sunday was moving day but it was a short 10 mile move .. just down the road to the Kerrville Elks.  We did it early and we were the only one in the lot.  It was like boondocking with hookups.  We like that.  The move was obviously short which left plenty of time in the rest of the day to take the 34 mile ride to Luckenbach.  We’ve all heard of Willy’s Luckenbach, Texas.  Right?  Well, that’s where we decided to go. 

Even though the day before was a warm 85 degrees, this day wasn’t so nice.  It was downright nasty with lots of clouds, fog, wind and a little rain.  The forecast was even nastier with the weatherman forecasting a low of 25 at night.

Luckenbach, Texas

Saturday would have been the day to be at Luckenbach.  There was a large crowd and even the Texas Rangers were in to help with their party.  We noticed they also brought lots of horses.  They didn’t tell us the horses came with the Texas Rangers but it was certainly easy to figure out.

Now we’ve been there, done that again but this time I even have the t-shirt to prove it.

Next stop was back at Fredericksburg for lunch.  Since Fredericksburg is a German town I figured I needed to order German food. That’s what I did.

Since we have so many RV friends who are into rocks, I thought I’d send a picture along of a big rock we saw in the window at Fredericksburg.  It’s for sale and at a discount too.

We are absolutely struggling with where to go next.  It’s not that there aren’t places we want to go.  It’s that every place around seems to be full.  Our timing isn't the best.  It just so happens that it’s spring break time in Texas and we're thinking that everyone owns an RV.

I do want to pass something along that I wasn’t familiar with that Peter commented about.  I had never heard of Boondockers Welcome.  It’s a site where folks invite you to boondock on their property. Check it out.  It just might work for you.  Thanks, Peter.

PS .... The weatherman blew it again with the forecast.  He forecast 25 overnight.  He was wrong.  I woke up to a temperature of 20!!!  We're thinking it's probably time to get out of this weather but where??

'Tis life on the road.

“For every minute you are angry you lose sixty seconds of happiness.”