Texas Hill Country......part 1

Pam in Luckenbach Texas

But we are getting ahead of ourselves.....Luckenbach is a fun, quirky place but it will show up in a later blog.   

 

Our trip here was less than a 2 hour drive so we took secondary State routes and took our time....as a result we were rewarded with many distant vistas of the approaching Hill Country.

 

 

Very dry conditions in rural Texas are evident on all secondary roads.  There has been a serious drought for the last few years.   Normally this time of year there would be more green grass in the photos.   This is FM (farm to market) rural route 1376, a 30 mile stretch with mostly large ranches along the way.

 

A little beyond half way to the Hill Country town of Fredericksburg the view opens up and you feel you can see 'forever'.  As a matter of fact, that is Fredericksburg some 12 miles or so in the distance.   Fredericksburg, along with the larger Kerrville, are the two predominant Hill Country towns.   But that's where the similarity ends....while Kerrville is twice the size and shows evidence of some sprawl, Fredericsburg retains much of the charm it had from its beginnings in the mid 1800's when German immigrants settled the region.  Strict zoning has kept the growth in tourism in the downtown under strict control...for example, no chain restaurants or box stores are allowed in the village area of Zone 1....so the downtown is very quaint.   A place you don't mind spending an afternoon strolling the sidewalks and stopping for a meal of German delicacies.   We had breakfast the other morning at the Old German Restaurant and Bakery....the German pancakes were excellent!!

 

We arrived at the Fredericksburg KOA and pulled into our (end of row) site #L5.   We overlook the pastures where at any given time we see the lone horse, the three donkeys (who always stick together), or the lone Angus bull and or the 3 longhorns.   Here is a photo of the longhorn with the longest horns.....

 



 

This longhorn must have measured 6 feet from tip to tip.  No wonder there are signs saying "no children or dogs within 20 feet of the fence".  

 

 

We had never seen a purple motorhome before.....that's a LOT of purple sitting a few sites away from us at the KOA.

 

 

We close out this blog entry with a photo that could be entitled "In photgraphy, timing is everything"......or maybe "Nature is as nature does".....or my favorite "When the longhorns have a little extra time on their.....um, hands"

 

 

 

 

 

 

OK.....not the best photo to end a blog with....so try this one....

 

 







 

A Hill Country Texas sunset.