Our home in Fredricksburg is the Lady Bird Johnson campground at the Fredericksburg City Park. It’s a small town, a tourist destination for the historic district downtown. The campground is in a pecan grove, and it appears to be mostly people who are here for the winter. Once again, we drag our Cottage in, and we are the smallest RV in the park.
There are tiny houses downtown, they look like children’s playhouses. They are called Sunday Houses. German ranchers built these tiny places to have a place to stay when they came into town on Saturday for shopping. It gave the family a place to spend the night, giving them the opportunity to easily go to church Sunday morning. Our Cottage is larger than some of the Sunday houses we saw! Most have now been renovated, electricity and water added, rooms tacked on the back or side. Reminds me of Williamsburg: those old houses in the middle of the tourist area, behind a picket fence.
After setting up housekeeping under the pecan trees, we headed back downtown, to walk and find the brewery. It’s a beautiful afternoon, Saturday, but a little cold. We poked into a couple of the shops, and decided that finding a barstool would be more fun than looking at Texas trinkets. The beer was good, not great, and we were entertained by a retired dentist from MN. When we told him are traveling with the Cottage, his eyes glazed over and he told us how badly he wanted to buy ‘one of those big bus RV’s”. His wife veoted the idea. Probably a good decision, since he had a little dementia going. He was a happy demented man, though. Dinner at home, no internet access at the Lady Bird Johnson campground.
A lazy morning on Sunday, and while Stuart took our disgustingly dirty truck to the car wash, I walked over to the Park Rec Hall to see the Gem and Mineral Show. This was an education! Local rock enthusiasts and jewelerrs set up displays of beautiful polished and cut rocks of all kinds and colors. Some stones were made into jewelry, some were polished and cut, ready for the jeweler, and some were fossils for collectors. Thank goodness, there was a display set up for children, showing how the rocks are polished. I say thank goodness, because I learned a lot about gems and jewels. It takes weeks of tumbling in a small machine, with grit, to polish rocks. WEEKS. I had no idea it took so long. It was fun, and people were HAPPY to tell us about their displays and the rocks.
Stuart came back with a miraculously clean truck. We drove back downtown, to see some of the architecture this time. The houses and old businesses are mostly built from local stone. The Germans built a church in the middle of town that has been rebuilt (after the fire of 189?). They also built a large, open square and market. There is a most moving sculpture of the local town leader, passing the peace pipe with the local Indian Chiefs, sealing a peacet treaty that is still in effect. The peace accord was settled before the military came to the area, and the story is they tried every way from Sunday to get out of that agreement. You have to love this story of peace!
This is grape growing country and wineries to match, and there is a wine tasting room on Main Street. After tasting, we bought a bottle of Becker Vineyard Chardonnay. Much more money than our normal three-buck Chuck. But, we’re on vacation. Dinner at the Cabernet Grill. It’s a restaurant built in an old cotton gin, with some restored log cabins around it now being used as guest cottages. I had a jalapeno stuffed quail, with ribs. Tasty!
Chester Hicks, from Oklahoma and his wife, are parked beside us, and I think he would have liked us to stay a few more days. He was chatty, and didn’t seem to have anything to do. But, it’s time for us to make some miles, so we hitch up and drive 100 miles to Austin, the Music Mecca. Stuart picked out the Pecan Grove Campground for us, about two blocks south of the river, just south of downtown. Perfect! Uncle Billy’s Brew and ‘Que is next door, and we’ll have internet access from a barstool. This campground would be illegal in Wilmington: people are living here full-time. On one side of this sliver of pecan trees and travel trailers is a new high-rise condo complex. On the other side is a parking deck. Uncle Billy’s is tucked in front of the condo project, it’s been there for a long time, too. Today is MLK day, it’s quiet. The calm before the storm, we soon learned.
The next day, we headed to the Half-Price Bookstore to start our day. A local chain. I do love a bookstore! Then, downtown to inspect the music venues, and to eat lunch.
Antone’s is Music Mecca, in the City of Music. It’s been the birthplace of many musicians, and has been the homeplace for those who live here. Think Marcia Ball, Angela Strayley, Muddy Waters, Pinetop Perkins, Stevie Ray Vaughn, the list goes on It’s mid-day, the streets around here are quiet, but the doors to Antone’s is open and we go in. It’s not a fancy place: you might call it a dive bar. There is a small flurry or activity around some boxes of donated things headed for the poor folks in Haiti…the earthquake was cruel. A middle-aged man asked us if we wanted something, because we were just standing there like country come to town, our mouths hanging open in awe. Here were are, IN ANTONE’S! Well, Jim, took pity on our mental state and gave us a little private tour. He looked around, and said, “just come in here quickly and shut the door”, and the next thing we knew we were in the Green Room, and then we were upstairs in the Private Green Room, and then we were in Clifford Antone’s office! Wow! All the pictures from the past decades: photos of all the musicians whose recordings we have, and love. We took our time, looking at all the photos, and listening to Jim tell us stories about the artists and Clifford Antone. Clifford Antone died 3 years ago, unexpectedly, and the blues music world was rocked. But, the club has continued to host the best music in the business. We soon stumbled back out onto the street, knowing we’d come back tonight, when the place was officially open. We don’t care that it’s Tuesday, a night that doesn’t normally draw the best performers.
Lunch at a Vietnamese restaurant, a pho bowl. Delicious. Afterward, we shake the dreamy feeling, and walk a few blocks to the TX State Capitol. I can’t believe how quiet this city is, a state capitol should be much more chaotic than this. The Capitol building is elegant, looking much like the Capitol in Washington. This one is taller. Hey, it’s Texas, they have to do things bigger here. The building is red stone, local resources. The story goes that the builder said the local limestone would not work out, and that maybe they could import stone from Illinois. The Governor roared that the Capitol would NOT be build from stone from out of state! They found local stone that would work. It is a beautiful building, and completely open to the public. We caught up with a new tour, Byron was a great speaker and well read. We learned, among other things, that the legislature here meets only for 6 months every other year. Saves the taxpayers money. We also learned that today is Confederate Dead Memorial Day. The day after MLK. Wonder who came up with this date?!? Anyway, that explains how we got a parking place so easily, and, why the streets are so quiet.
Enough excitement for the day, and we have a Big Night, so we head home to have an early dinner and get back downtown.
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