Texas Hill Country
By Ross
We like Texas way more than we thought we would. The Lone Star flags fly everywhere and the streets are wide and always in good shape. Texans take pride in their state. We've seen roadside volunteer groups picking up trash on the country roads. And like the owner of the Fredericksburg Pie Shop exclaimed, "We don't take any shortcuts. We prepare our pie crusts over three days and make everything from scratch." And it tastes like it. So good. And everything IS bigger in Texas, like the cheeseburgers at Alamo Springs Cafe where if you eat the Jefe burger made of six patties, you get your picture on the wall and the burger is free.
We enjoy walking the downtown streets of the places we visit. We hardly ever go in a store, shop, or gallery. That's really not our thing. We like to get a sense of a place based on the types of businesses, number of empty storefronts, and its general vitality. Kerrville impressed me because they've recently invested in connecting 4 miles of walking and cycling paths along the Guadeloupe River. I'm sure not everyone is excited to have a public access path behind their homes. Several properties recently installed tall fencing (without gates) as a barrier but I wondered how they would access the path themselves. A couple other properties had menacing "This property under Video Surveillance" signs to warn people about venturing off the path. It's always been amazing to me that some folks worry that living on a park or walking path lowers their property values and places their property at risk. In contrast, Robin and I would pay extra to live on park (we did this in Louisiana) or a path (our current condo is on the Bend river trail).
Using the Trailforks iPhone app I found two trail systems near Kerrville. I was pretty excited about checking out the mountain biking in central Texas. Unfortunately, both were closed during hunting season. Dang! One of the systems was in the city-owned park. It seems odd to allow hunting (and close off access to all non-hunters) in a city park.
By The River Campground in Kerrville has been our home base for the past week. Our trailer is parked overlooking the slow and lazy Guadeloupe River. Bird life in this neck of the woods is something: differing species, a variety of bird calls, and large flocks of black birds that would overtake the area for an hour or two and then completely disappear. T'Chat spent hours watching all the activity out the back window. Robin said she was watching "Duck TV".
Over the next week we'll be winding our way towards family in Louisiana.
Ross digging into his burger at Alamo Springs.
Enjoying a bourbon tasting at Garrison brothers distillery.
Tucking into a banana cream pie and lemon meringue at the Fredericksburg Pie Company.
Hunting bugs at our Kerrville camp site.