I drive West to the ‘hill country’ of Texas. Mostly, I am just trying to get away from the City, to find a slightly more quiet spot out in the world where I can not listen to traffic, not hear people, etc. I drive out to a town called Fredericksburg, not a place to find quiet, but just a place to find some pictures. Lots of people throughout Texas have told me to visit this town, apparently ‘it’s quaint’.
It is a town founded by a German immigrant, and thusly there are German restaurants as far as the eye can see. Bier gartens, sausage, German bakeries, etc. Sadly, I can afford none of them so I content myself with walking around snapping away. As you’d expect, there is a proud representation of the lone star state around every corner:
There are vineyards in the area as well, which means lots of wine tasting rooms:
Apparently, the town also has one of the very few unbroken peace treaties with the local Native American population, from the times of the original settlers:
And they also have some odd ides about what philosophies should be bedmates:
From there it was onto a little place called Luckenbach, which Catalyst told me about. There are only a handful of buildings that constitute the ‘town’, the busiest of which is the general store/post office/saloon/gift shop:
Everybody there was friendly, so I sat and had a few beers while the locals pickers did their thing:
There is a dance hall here too, which is fairly famous (with the likes of Willie Nelson, Waylon Jennings, and Lyle Lovitt playing there), but since it was a weekday there was no dance going on while I was there.
After Luckenbach I hit the road for Enchanted Rock, hoping for peace and quiet there. The locale was great, a nice hike up the rock just as the sun set, with lovely views along the way:
But sadly, even here, the sound of loud and exuberant hikers were to be heard throughout the hike. I contented myself with the beauty of the colorful horizon, then climbed back down the rock and headed back for Austin.
3 comments:
You haven't really been to the Hill Country if you haven't been to Luckenbach. Glad you made it. My only visit there was mid-week too and it was v-e-r-y quiet.
We made the drive across West Texas on 10 before we left AZ. If you're looking for space and quiet, there's a whole lot of both to be found out there. And a Dairy Queen at every exit, even if there's nothing else for a hundred miles in every direction.
Cat - the bar was actually full when I was there, although as you know - it is tiny so being full isn't saying a lot. I did truly enjoy luckenbach though, thanks again for the heads up on it!
Ric - indeed! All the parts of west texas I went through were fairly desolate. I didn't notice the dairy queen phenomenon, but I wasn't on I10 either. Funny things like that happen in texas though.
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