Thursday, 18 March 2021
This KOA was huge, with 138 campsites and 18 cabins - and it was nearly empty. Agreed last night was a Wednesday, typically the lightest night of the week, but I'm not sure why they'd have prepared for so many guests way out here. They do advertise access to the Nueces River, so maybe fishing and boating are the draw. Still, the extra space made it easier for me to walk the dogs.
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| today's route |
Soon after I left the campground I started to see a lot of oil-related businesses. First was NuStar Energy, with huge squatty silos and what looked like a small refinery. In fact I saw quite a few of those squatty silos - much bigger around than a grain silo and only about a third the height. In fact, at one point I saw a batch of grain silos near a batch of these squatty silos.
Then farther on I saw 4 working oil rigs spaced out on the left, then 5 right together on the right. There was so much oil industry work going on in the area that I started to wonder if this were Permian Basin oil. But I've looked at online maps and as best I can figure, it's coming from a different oil field.
The Frio River is well-known in Texas both for the temperature of its water (cold) and for its recreational possibilities. It's been very popular lately as a place for people to go tubing. Today I crossed the Frio and found a very long bridge and no water at all.
I ended up getting off I-35 sooner than I'd planned because DOT had closed the exit I wanted. Instead, they sent me on a long detour, but without posting enough signs to tell me where I was supposed to go. I had to figure it out for myself with my trusty AAA map.
Today I saw 7 Trump signs/flags.
I passed the turn for the UT Devine Test Site, but with nothing explaining what they were testing. What I found online is that it's 100 acres donated to UT by British Petroleum, and has become a "public-access field research laboratory" for "developing geoscience" - in other words, training folks to work in the oil industry.
As I drove north I was still seeing plenty of mesquite but also a lot more oaks and other trees. Still lots of prickly pear.
As the water level in the Frio indicated, that drought was a problem for much of this area and many of the stock tanks I passed had very low water levels. One had a Great Blue Heron looking for food.
I passed a very large pecan orchard, though I think those are called plantations.
I saw a highway sign that said, "Watch For Mud on Road." I never did see any mud and wondered why on earth it would ever have been enough of a problem to warrant a highway sign.
I came to Hondo, that rated a sign but not a sign that included its population, which I found was 8,803 in 2010 (enough to warrant a mention on a highway sign). Hondo is a county seat, but I've planned to visit it in a few days so we didn't stop today.
In this area I've started to see fields both plowed and planted.
I passed a facility labeled Martin Marietta Hondo Quarry. Martin Marietta is an international company that supplies mostly building materials, and apparently it gets some of its stone and aggregate right here in Hondo.
Both yesterday and today I saw a lot of Caracaras (those large black-and-white vulture-like birds).
The countryside began to change from Rio Grande Valley to Texas Hill Country - lots of hills (instead of flat land), lots of brown dirt (instead of tan), lots of cedar/juniper and oaks joined with the mesquite, with the occasional redbud thrown in for color in the green & brown landscape.
All day I was battling crosswinds so strong they were literally blowing me off the road. They kept up so long and so hard that the drive was much more exhausting than it should have been and it was hard to enjoy because I was having to fight so hard to keep us on the road.
We came to Bandera, pop. 857, established in 1853. It claims to be the Cowboy Capital of the World and has a sign to prove it.
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| Cowboy Capital of the World |
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| detail from the marker - it's really a great sculpture and even shows the rope between the cowboy's teeth |
This marker is in front of the county courthouse, which is another one I'd planned to visit in a few days, but we were tired and wanted a break from the road, so we stopped by the courthouse today.
Also on the courthouse grounds was this marker (at right) detailing local involvement during the Civil War. I include it mainly because it gives some insight into local attitudes about the war.
This courthouse, built in 1927, is a Beaux Arts/Georgian Revival style building. I would have liked to walk around the grounds and see what's on those historical markers, but I'd gotten to town at lunchtime and there were no parking spaces to be had.
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| Bandera County Courthouse in Bandera |
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| local Civil War information |
Only 24 miles down the road I came to Kerrville, pop. 22,347, established 1889. The town seems to be centered around the Guadalupe River, which runs alongside and through the main part of town. Kerrville, too, is a county seat.
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| Kerr County Courthouse in Kerrville |
I finally parked some distance away on the street, just so we could all eat a bite. But some other time, this seems to be a nice town to spend some time in.
And after another 24-mile drive, I came to Fredericksburg, pop. 10,530, Home of the Battlin' Billies (as in goats). And this is another county seat.
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| Gillespie County Courthouse in Fredericksburg |
This 1938-39 building is considered Art Deco in style.
Fredericksburg, founded in 1846 and named for a Prussian prince, really tries to capitalize on its German heritage, with signs saying "Willkomen" on the way into town and "auf Wiedersehen" on the way out. It also touts its connection with Adm. Chester Nimitz, who was born and raised here; in his memory the town hosts the National Museum of the Pacific War. And if all that fails to interest a tourist, there's always the peaches, with Fredericksburg claiming the title of Peach Capital of Texas. And they are good peaches, I have to agree. Unfortunately, just not this time of year.
I passed a vineyard, a lot of cows and a lot of sheep, both species with quite a few young 'uns.
A real eye-catcher out here is the Blue Skies Retro Resort, which I passed and almost drove off the road in surprise over. Take a look at these photos (click the "Accommodations" button) of the retro camping trailers they offer at nightly rates. https://blueskiesretroresort.com There are 5 of them at this property, all in pastel colors, each offering the amenities of an individual hotel room. I was interested to see that the owners will let folks rent the entire property, useful for a family reunion or a group of friends, because it offers 5 separate bedrooms plus a common area with firepit and so forth. They tout its convenience to nearby destinations, but this is still Hill Country, which isn't everyone's idea of scenic.
Speaking of Enchanted Rock, which the Blue Skies website does, I passed the entrance and was stunned to see a sign saying a reservation was required, apparently even for entry, let alone camping. Enchanted Rock is "a massive pink granite dome rising above Central Texas [that] has drawn people for thousands of years," according to the Texas Dept. of Parks and Wildlife.
I remember coming out here from Austin with my friends back in the '70s and I'm pretty sure nobody even noticed we were there, let alone counted how many of us there were. Fortunately the answer to this memory is on the website for the Enchanted Rock State Natural Area: it was on privately-owned property which was sold in 1978 (after I'd left Texas) to the Nature Conservancy, which then sold it to the State of Texas. I guess it's good, though, that the state's regulating the number of visitors - not just because of COVID but because there are so very many more people now than there were 50 years ago, and that amount of pressure can ruin any natural area - even one made of granite.
I skirted Llano, another county seat that I'll visit tomorrow, and ended up on one of Google's truly bizarre shortcuts. Instead of sending me by the perfectly respectable route of a Texas highway to the state park road, it told me to turn on a county road. This county road had a posted speed limit of 35 mph, which I'm sure is what Google's algorithms were looking at, but it included numerous cattle guards in the road and signs that warned "Loose Livestock," so between the two, I didn't dare go anywhere close to 30, let alone 35. Yet more confirmation that I should look Google's gift horses very closely in the mouth.
On the other hand, that oddball route took me past 2 points of interest. One was the Hoover's Valley Cemetery and this historical marker.
The other point of interest was a sign I passed that advertised the Smoking for Jesus church. With a name like that, I wondered if they were in fact smoking something, so I looked them up. And found a very interesting article from the Texas Observer about this New Orleans transplant after Katrina. https://www.texasobserver.org/smoking-for-jesus
You just never know what you're going to find when you start looking around you.
When we got to the campground, we found hoards of people - mostly because of it still being Spring Break, but also because it's within easy driving distance of Austin. Inks Lake State Park is a very large facility, with hundreds of campsites and cabins and easy access to the lake in numerous places. There are hiking trails and boat ramps and fish-cleaning areas and playgrounds. I'd never been out here, even in the years I lived in Austin when I was younger, and I'm guessing it's the intense pressure I see being put on the natural resources here that they wanted to avoid at Enchanted Rock.
Even in the small section of campground where we had a reservation there were several big and small dogs, and between them and the little kids using their outdoor voices we had a hard time finding a place to walk. Otherwise it was a very attractive spot.
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