Monday, 14 December 2020
Buescher State Park, Smithville
Tuesday, 15 and Wednesday, 16 December 2020
Bastrop State Park, Bastrop
Thursday, 17 December 2020
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| route in the metro area |
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| route on highways |
These four days included 2 vet appointments, 1 dentist appointment, errands at the liquor store, the grocery store, the pet store, picking up some Lockhart barbecue at Smitty's Market, and driving around to see what's changed in the last 3 years. The answer to that last is: a lot.
Campgrounds
Not listed above is Sunday night's campground, Lockhart State Park. I thought I had a blog post from the time we stayed here 3 years ago, but I can't find it right now. I remember that stay fairly well, partly because it was what I called my shake-down cruise - my first one in my new RV and a chance to see how my cats and dogs would handle it.
I also remember it because it poured down rain most of the time we were there, and I was absolutely unprepared for that. Luckily I'd taken a bunch of towels, so I had something to dry off the dogs after we'd gone out for walks. Of course, then I had to string up a clothesline inside to try to dry out those towels. In a 24' space, that clothesline took up all the available space inside.
During that trip, there was almost no one at the campground besides us; it was very different this trip, when there were almost no empty campsites. Many people had dogs and, because it's a small campground, we had a lot of trouble finding anywhere to walk. But it was a little stroll down Memory Lane.
Regarding the other campground stays, I couldn't find any place that could take us for the whole 5 days we were in the area - I guess Austin's just too popular a destination, and maybe this is a vacation time near the holidays. So I had to settle for a night at Lockhart, then move to nights at the 3 state parks listed above, followed by Friday night at Lake Somerville, before heading out of the area. The whole thing was as unsettling as all my bouncing around in the previous week had been. When I'd wake up in the morning, I'd have to spend time figuring out where I was this time before getting up to deal with it. Odd situation.
Thanks to some truly lousy directions from Google, coupled with a complete lack of highway signs from the direction I was coming, I had a very hard time finding McKinney Falls State Park. In fact, I only found it in the end by getting lost and coming at it from a different direction, at which point I finally saw a sign. So I was pretty peeved by the time I got here, and yet another campsite on a slope didn't help much. On our morning walks, the dogs kept scaring me by acting like they'd sensed deer, and sure enough, we saw 2 near our campsite before we left. One was likely older and more experienced, because it casually walked across the road from one campsite to another next to ours. The other looked full-grown, but was much more timid and kept hesitating about following the 1st. It waited and waited and waited, and then a car would go by, scaring it back into the bushes, then it would come back out and hesitate and hesitate and hesitate . . . . I'd put off our own departure to give it a chance to cross the dadgummed road but finally got tired of waiting and got us pulled together. After that, I wonder if it ever got up the courage to follow the 1st deer.
I'd stayed at Buescher State Park 3 years ago when I was cleaning everything out of Momma's house. This time that camping area wasn't open; in fact, they'd opened only 1 of their camping areas - I imagine in response to the virus - and since that one had only 18 campsites, it was hard for me to get a reservation. Although it was a nice place (despite my site having a distinct slope to it), I couldn't get an internet signal so couldn't spend as much time here as I would have wanted.
Poor Bastrop State Park. In the fall of 2011 it was the site of the most destructive wildfire in Texas history. Three fires started in separate places for separate reasons, but it wasn't long before they converged into one massive fire that burned for weeks before going underground, and then finally being extinguished. Ancient trees that were part of the Lost Pines Forest are gone forever.
In the 9 years since then, Nature has been doing its best to stage a comeback, but the damage is still in-your-face bad. Here's the link for information about that terrible fire. https://en.wikipedia.org/Bastrop-County-Complex-Fire
I took this photo at dawn, and my camera wasn't quite able to take a photo that showed what I could see, which is the burned tree trunks still standing, while new growth was getting a hold. It'll be many more years before the destruction is hidden, but what was destroyed - those wonderful old trees - will never be replaced.
Appointments
Because we were back where we used to live, I'd made appointments with our previous doctors/vets, which is what this trip was about. I was glad my vet, Hyde Park Animal Clinic, was still open because I was afraid they might have retired in the meantime. I got the dogs' records caught up on one day, and now have it consolidated instead of spread out over multiple vet visits to other vets. On another day, they met Lily, who I've had only 2 years now so they hadn't seen her. She didn't act any better for them than for anybody else, I'm sorry to say, but we got her shots up to date and got her claws clipped.
At Shoal Creek Dental Clinic, I was relieved to finally be back with a dentist I trusted in a stage of the pandemic where everybody's figured out workable precautions to protect everybody else in a situation where one of us (me) has my mouth hanging open without a mask. My dentist told me the problem I've been worried about for the last year and a half was worth worrying about: one of my teeth is dead and needs a root canal job and crown to prevent a whole lot of trouble in the future. He referred me to a guy that my guy trusts who seems to do a lot of root canals. So I've got an appointment with this new guy after Christmas. At least I'll get it done before the new year.
Errands
It's not that Austin stores have things stores in other places don't have, it's just that I lived here for nearly 10 years and got to be very familiar with the stores, their locations, and where I could find things I needed.
So I went to Twin Liquor on 41st; I'd forgotten what wine snobs they are, carrying rafts of expensive wines but none of the cheaper but decent wines I can afford. I have to get those at grocery stores, so I went to Randalls Grocery on 35th, where I used to be a regular. I went to PetsMart in that development where the airport used to be on Airport Blvd.; I needed to get a new name tag for Gracie's collar after she lost hers in Paris.
Other observations
I went back to our old neighborhood because I knew a place I could park while I walked the dogs. That was actually not as pleasant as I'd hoped because we got there while the Baptist school had the kids outside for gym class, and Gracie got really upset about the sounds of balls bouncing and kids shrieking.
I was interested to see that what used to be Hyde Park Methodist Church (a block from our house), and then became Trinity Methodist Church, is now Trinity Church of Austin, which says online it's a combination of the Church of Christ with the Methodist Church. While we lived there, the hierarchy in the national Methodist Church voted to continue to declare homosexuality as immoral and therefore to oppose same sex marriage. In response, Trinity Methodist Church put up a banner proclaiming continued support for the LGBTQ community, and I know for certain the pastor there performed at least 1 gay marriage ceremony. It looks like now there've been more changes. Having been raised in the Methodist Church, I was stunned at their decision that ignored the reality of homosexuality (might as well declare being brown-eyed as immoral, it too being born into a person) as well as ignoring the tenets of Christianity to love and respect one another, regardless of differences. Interesting times we live in.
One day I finally had a Whataburger Green Hatch Chili Baconburger, and I'm sorry to say I was disappointed. Such a shame that what they hand you never looks like what they show in their ads. In this case, my burger looked about as squashed as if someone had sat on it, certainly not that big puffy product I see in ads. I guess it tasted okay, but I'd just as soon stick to the regular burgers I've always had - along the lines of Jimmy Buffet's Cheeseburger In Paradise.
Without really intending to, I ended up doing a lot of driving around town, just getting from the campgrounds to the places I needed to go.
Austin is one of those cities that I believe sold some of its soul when it allowed beautiful old buildings to be torn down and replaced with glass towers, but here and there I found pockets of the downtown I remember from my childhood.
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| Texas State Capitol |
The capitol sits at the end of Congress Avenue, so you can get a good view of it from a long way down the street.
South Congress Avenue, south of the Colorado River, is an example of what North Congress might have looked like if they'd tried to preserve their buildings. On South Congress there're a few new buildings, but it also looks like a concerted effort has been made to keep the old ones and revamp them for current uses. The result is a strong sense of character, which North Congress is sorely lacking.
Austin is the county seat for Travis County and I didn't even think to go by the county courthouse, though I know where it is. Maybe on a return trip.
Coming into town from Lockhart State Park I passed the turn for Circuit of the Americas, a world-class car racing facility that hosts the Formula One US Grand Prix. I remember a little of the controversy about it around the time it opened in 2012, but it seems to have figured out how to deal with problems it caused for the neighbors and it took to offering events for the community that weren't car related. Anyway, it's there now.
I passed St. Edward's University on S. Congress, a fixture in the community since it opened in 1885 (same year as the Capitol was opened - must have been quite a year). It has 3,400+ students now.
I made a special trip back down to Lockhart, designated by the TX Legislature as the Barbecue Capital of Texas. Since I was essentially in the neighborhood, I wanted to pick up some Lockhart barbecue from Smitty's, which is my favorite of the many BBQ purveyors there. And once again I wasn't disappointed, though it was hard to drive with that great smell from Lockhart to Bastrop State Park, which is where I was staying then.
In Lockhart at a truck stop I saw a sign saying "Comming Soon." Seriously? People's spelling is this bad?
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