Finding "two many adventures" along I-10 in Texas

LaGrange, Texas

February 19, to February 22, 2015

After all the chaos of New Orleans and Mardi Gras, we needed a little quiet break.  We drove from New Orleans to a little road side camp in Alleyton, Texas.  The Happy Oaks campground is not so happy.  The campground is for sale and it seems the owners are over it all.  They were friendly and nice, but when we tried to hook up the power, the pedestal had been overrun with webs.  Not a big deal and Eric plugged into the next campsites power.  He went and advised the owner and they were like “oh well”.  With Passport America it was $20.00, cash only.  It was ok for a nights rest, (if you can get past the road noise, you are right next to I-10) but certainly not any longer.  While we were there we altered our westward plans a little.  We had made our usual stop at the Welcome Center at the state line and found more things to do. 

Houston

Are we there yet?

Seems the Texas Quilt Museum was only 30 short miles north in LaGrange.  Of course I had to visit.  We found a campground on the Colorado River for $22.00 a night for 2 nights, then $34.00 thereafter.  The sites were very long and wide and I think perhaps it was a Mobile Home Park recently.  There were a few mobile homes there and the park was clean, well maintained and oh so quiet.  The river was right there with walking trails along side it.  The pups loved it with lots of smells and fun things to do.  

The Colorado River

Walks along the river were awesome!

LaGrange is home to the Chicken Ranch made famous by the musical Best Little Whorehouse in Texas.  The ranch operated from 1905 till 1973.  It was the oldest continually operating non-floating whorehouse in the US.  Seems the town, including the Sheriff was fine with the operation and the Sheriff credited the establishment with solving many crimes through the years.  Seems many clientele bragged about the other exploits while visiting the ladies.  The ranch got its name supposedly when the great Depression hit.  Times were hard and discretionary spending cash was tough to come by.  Miss Jessie (the proprietor) began using the “poultry standard”: one chicken for one uh hmm service.  The ranch survived the Depression wars and an untold number of Texas A&M freshman cadets until 1973 when Marvin Zindler, a tv reporter from Houston did an story on the ranch.  He said he did it for the publics safety and local police to help combat organized crime and corruption.  The Governor was forced to close the establishment due to the coverage.  The Sheriff and Mr. Zindler had a feud and I don’t think the town has forgiven Mr. Zindler.  The buildings are all gone now, they were sold to two attorneys in Dallas who moved them and tried to use them as a chicken restaurant.   The restaurant failed.

The Texas Quilt Museum changes it’s exhibits every few months.  The current exhibition is Traditional Quilts.  It was a very nice exhibit with about fifty quilts on display.  There were lots of appliqued quilts, scrappy crazy quilts and some newer non traditional quilts that used some traditional methods.  It was well worth the $8.00 admission.  Just next door is a cute little quilt store.  For the size I was amazed at how many bolts of fabric they had.  I picked up a pattern and some fabric for a paper pieced Mariner’s Compass, something I’ve been wanting to try.  They also had lots of yarn and patterns for knitting and crocheting.  The Texas Quilt Museum also had a Grandmother’s Garden.  There were some flowers already in bloom and it was really well laid out.  

The garden outside the Quilt Museum

LaGrange City Hall

The houses here are so pretty

For a little town we found lots to do.  We took a ride to Shiner, Texas to visit Spoetzel Brewery-home to Shiner beers.  You get four good sized samples of any of their brews on tap.  My favorite was Ruby Redbird and thus began a quest to find it.  It was refreshing made with Ruby Red grapefruit (Texas grapefruit of course) and ginger.  There was not anything else there to do so we headed back to gather some kolaches from Weikel’s.  A kolache is a pastry with fruit in the middle.  I wish I had taken a photo of the display case.  Imagine a bakers case 10 feet long, with 5 rows of pastries all full.  Very colorful!  It was hard to decide which ones, but we powered through and selected 6.  The bakery is in a shell station and was packed.  We went the next day to get more for the next leg of our trip and they were all gone.  We got cinnamon rolls instead and boy were they good.  

Spoetzel Brewery in Shiner Texas

A longhorn

yummy!

You can’t go to Texas and not get barbecue.  We stopped at Back Porch Barbecue in LaGrange.  Oh my, the ribs were beyond yummy.  The baked potato salad was crazy good.  We ate our lunch and ordered a picnic meal to go for the next day on the road.  Clearly we have eaten our way across these United States and yes the weight gain reflects how much fun we have had.

After LaGrange, we traveled to the Hill Country of Kerrville, TX.  There was an RV Resort we had heard good things about and it was on our way.  Buckhorn RV Resort was nice!  We got a site in the adults only section right on the river.  The weather turned cold, windy, and wet.  We hunkered in on the cold day and I worked on the Mariner’s Compass.  It was nice to be sewing again and I am happy with it.  It measures 35 x 35 and I have no idea what I will do with it.  Time will tell. 

We ventured out to Fredericksburg one day and had German food at AusLander Restaurant.  Fredericksburg was settled by German immigrants and the main street has lots of really cute shops.  After lunch we went to Luckenbach Texas.  Home to Waylon, Willie and the boys.  Only there is nothing there except the dance hall, which is huge, and the old Post Office which is a bar/souvenir store.  The population is 3.  While I was snapping photos, a guy pulled up with a truck bed full of Honda generators for sale.  Odd place to try to hawk what I would think would be stolen merchandise.  You never know what you are going to run across on these adventures.  We passed on the super good deals offered.

Downtown Fredericksburg

What would German food be without beer?

A Rueben and Schnitzel

Luckenbach, TX building 1

Building 2

Another change to the itinerary was the next stop-McDonald Observatory.  The weather is turning wet and cold again with freezing fog forecast, so we are heading out earlier than originally planned to miss it.  This weekend should be clear-perfect for star gazing!