Texas Traveler

Adventures in organization

2011-01-29T22:21:00.000-06:00

So, what do we do when we can't go on a road trip? We tackle projects around the house. Over Christmas, this meant hitting the tip of the iceberg that is our kitchen.

I have no love at all for my kitchen. For a room that I spend so much time in, I'd like it to meet my exact specifications - recessed lighting, lots of countertop space, cabinets that fit the odd-sized pots and pans that come with being a budding foodie, and a deep walk-in pantry along an outside wall. Instead, we have small cabinets, very little counter space, fluorescent lighting that buzzes and gives me a headache, and a pantry that, until very recently, was dark and crowded.

We have a dozen things we plan to do to the kitchen to make it at least tolerable if not more functional, but the first thing ended up being the pantry. For Christmas this year, a lot of kitchen stuff was hiding under the various family trees. Some of it is stuff not meant for every day use. Randy also got me some storage items I'd been eyeing that were meant for the pantry, but a deeper look made us decide to just re-do the entire space.

All this coincided with the annual Elfa sale at the Container Store, and a couple of afternoons later, Randy was ripping out the rotting, warped wooden shelves, repainting, and putting together this gorgeous storage and organizing unit. I married the right man, y'all. :-)

Some before and after shots:

You can see the problems, right? The shelving on the left was two feet deep, and I had to use the baskets as a way of just keeping certain goods from getting lost in the back forever. The pictures don't really show how bad the bottom shelves were - the front-facing one in particular had begun to bow. The interior walls were painted the same peach-beige color our entire house is done in. The previous owner had the place painted, and generally we've made the color work, but in the pantry it just soaked up light.

So, all of this had to go.

The first discovery Randy made was that in some places, the wood shelves were painted to the wall. In other places, they were barely sitting on the supports - we were surprised that the shelving lasted through all the stress we put them through the last few years.

Painting meant prepping the walls - this is Randy priming.

This is our pantry, existing on the dining table for almost a week. Not everything here was in the pantry beforehand - a lot of the original box items were Christmas gifts we needed to create storage for. This picture also really gives you an idea of the tiny space that exists as our dining room. The orange curtains are covering the back door, and to the immediate left of the wine cabinet is our living room couch.

Randy putting in the shelves. See how the pantry door collides with our refrigerator in the background? What on earth made builders in the early 80s devalue kitchens so much???

Getting there! This is all the Elfa shelving. We opted to go across the back wall in full, instead of recreating the L-shape of the wooden shelves. And see how the drawer unit created extra counter work space for me!

The drawer unit, and the spice racks installed above it. The spice racks were actually what inspired this whole project - I wanted to move my ever-increasing stock of spices into the pantry, and had intended those racks to go on the back of the door. When we decided to go for the Elfa shelving, this idea came to us at the store.

And this is to show off another awesome feature - the varying drawer sizes. We customized this so that we now have a place to stow our wedding silver and extra cooking utensils. In the drawer above that, I picked up a plastic divider to store teas of varying kinds.

I will have to share the final "after" picture another time, since I haven't actually taken it yet :-) I got so excited about putting everything away that I forgot!

It is amazing to me what changes as simple as this can do for the peace one feels about one's home. Clearing out the clutter, putting things in some kind of definitive order, really made a difference in the natural harmony in our home. And just having things easily accessible and easy to put away made me like being in the kitchen more. A good thing, since I love cooking, and not being happy about the kitchen took some of the joy away. Also, hurray for finding a better, more efficient way to use small space like this. The pantry is now one of my favorite places in the house!

The latest adventure

2011-01-27T23:59:00.000-06:00

I do sincerely wish I had a travel-oriented update for you all. This blog's title gets to be a little ridiculous, I know, when you consider how little we've been able to travel in the last year. We're also feeling the ache of not being able to untether ourselves and find wide open space. It's an ongoing challenge to find balance, and contentedness, without a few days out of our fair city.

That being said, life is not without adventure, and the Lord blesses us with opportunities to learn things about ourselves every day. The latest adventure is missional community leadership training at our church (The Austin Stone). We're doing this mostly out of curiosity, a desire to know more about missional community, and to have some grounding going forward. Two classes in, we are learning quite a bit - not least of which is what it means to have a literally Christ-centered, gospel-centered, community-focused life.

If you'd like to get an idea of what I'm talking about, I'd like to recommend the book we are reading with this class: Total Church: A Radical Reshaping around Gospel and Community by Tim Chester and Steve Timmis.

If reading a whole new book about this idea is too much, then I recommend the Book of Acts. The actions of the apostles and early church disciples are inspiring, and humbling.

Welcome 2011!

2011-01-01T12:32:00.000-06:00

Wow, we haven't updated here in awhile.

Looking forward to 2011, we hope to get some traveling in, so there will be more adventures to post about here. And we're kicking it off right - this afternoon, despite the chilly temperatures, we're going for a drive in the Hill Country, to enjoy the scenery and each other's company before the first work week of the year begins.

Here's to your own adventures this year, whether close to home or far away.

VOTE

2010-11-02T09:20:00.001-05:00

'Nuff said.

Adventure in Little Rock

2010-10-16T20:58:00.000-05:00

We did two trips this year that included presidential libraries & museums - I realized today I forgot to share pictures from our trip east to Mississippi, which included a stop in Little Rock for the Clinton Library.

Back in May, we traveled to Dallas to help my parents pack for their big move, and from there headed out to Oxford, Mississippi to watch Randy's brother Scott graduate from Ole Miss. This short trip was really our only "vacation" time this year, and since most of it was spent packing boxes and driving, I don't think "vacation" is how either of us would classify it. But because it was us, we took the time to stop and see some sights.

The Clinton Library was important to us, because we've made a habit/tradition of going to presidential spots. With the trips we took to Little Rock and College Station this year, we're up to five presidential libraries and one presidential birthplace.

The nostalgia factor was high for us both. We each remember all of Clinton's presidency; it was part of our landscape growing up, and the events of those years are important events in our lives.

The library was a lot more modern in terms of architecture and layout than previous libraries had been (Reagan's is close; it's very open, and Clinton's had a similar feel). I was a little disappointed because I felt it wasn't a very "deep" experience. You don't come away with a sense of having learned more than you already knew, but that may be because Clinton's presidency is barely history.

I did really love that we were able to get close to so much. A few of the libraries are bad about letting you take pictures or get any kind of tactile experience. But at Clinton's, I got these:

The Oval Office! If you're a West Wing fan, you'll recognize the couches - I had forgotten they used Clinton's Oval as a model.

This is me sitting in the Chief of Staff's chair, in a replica Roosevelt Room, I believe (if I'm wrong about the room, excuse me - it's been a very long summer).

See?

A collection of campaign buttons from all of Bill Clinton's various campaigns over the years; I think this specifically in a display about the 1992 campaign for the presidency.

You can't expect a couple of Republican political operatives to miss out on this!

View of the Arkansas River from inside the museum; also pictured is the old, original railroad bridge.

This is a good shot to give you an idea of the layout; there is a lot of natural light, and the archived documents are all stored in the columns in plain sight. The timeline portion was not very naturally laid out; we found it a bit difficult to navigate properly. We also had limited time, as we arrived late in the afternoon, and so missed a handful of exhibits (presidential gifts of state, that sort of thing).

One thing I noticed about this library compared to others was the lack of pomp & circumstance surrounding the First Lady's history; I'm sure this had something to do with Hillary Clinton's prominence separate from her husband's legacy, but it was still odd (compared to LBJ's library, which is much more focused on Lady Bird's contributions and legacy, almost out of balance in the opposite way).

When we finished at the library, we went in search of the Arkansas state house.

Beautiful grounds and building; I really liked this, and wished we could have gone inside, but the doors lock at 5pm and we needed to find food and press on to Tennessee.

This stop in Arkansas was our first introduction, in this trip, to the South. There was an atmospheric change from Texas; we notice this whenever we venture out of state, but the South had a unique feel. There was a palatable sense of time having rewound, or at least slowed down so significantly as to give the idea that it never passes. This only deepened as we went on, through Tennessee and down into Mississippi. I hope to be able to post about the rest of this trip soon, so I can try and convey what I mean.

In the meantime - if you have a chance to visit the Clinton Library, I highly recommend it. It has a lot to offer and it is a must-see in Little Rock.

Adventure in Aggieland

2010-08-04T21:42:00.001-05:00

Well, partially in Aggieland. Several weekends ago, we decided we needed a break from our routine, which has gotten rather busy and kept us from having a lot of time on our own. And instead of our usual getaway habit of heading up to Llano or Fredericksburg for the day, we opted to go in another direction.

First stop was Snow's BBQ down in Lexington. This place is all about the experience, though I admit, the food was also more than worth the trip! Snow's is open only on Saturdays, and you'd better go early and plan on BBQ for breakfast if you want anything good! They told us, chicken is usually gone by 10am, and when we got there they were also just about out of ribs. Of course, we're mostly all about the brisket and sausage when we hit a BBQ place for the first time.

From Snow's, we drove on down to College Station, completely leaving our comfort zone and heading into the land of everything maroon and white. The way we went, Kyle Field was the highest point on the journey, announcing with authority that in case we doubted it, Aggie football rules the land (down that way, in any case!).

We have been making a point of visiting presidential libraries/museums since our honeymoon, and the George H. W. Bush Library was our destination this weekend. Kind of an amazing thing to see, mostly because we have such clear memories of the Bush years, and we had more time to go through it than we did when we visited Bill Clinton's library in Little Rock earlier this year.

This picture is of the Camp David office replica inside the museum - note the IBM computer on the desk!! I had trouble getting this to center, please ignore the formatting issue.

This one's of me in the "press room", pretending to scold a reporter CJ Cregg style.

A copy of a campaign flyer, from Bush's 1964 run for U.S. Senate in Texas. Please note that there's a Spanish language version of the text on the bottom half - and this was from a REPUBLICAN campaign in '64, out of Midland, Texas! I was impressed.

The Bush Library's portion of the Berlin Wall. I've seen parts of the wall at three museums now (the Reagan Library and a museum in Oklahoma City were the other places).

After a really thorough visit at the museum, we headed into Bryan for some pictures of the courthouse and the historic downtown area. Check out the Carnegie Library:

When we'd had our fill in Bryan, we decided to head home - but we stopped for some Slovacek's sausage in the tiny town of Snook! I wish I'd gotten a picture there, but Slovacek's is not the most photoworthy location, and I was kind of exhausted by that point in the day.

I leave you with this picture of the sculpture outside the Bush Library. It is an interpretation of the fall of the Berlin Wall, based on a dream the artist had.

Fourth of July on the campaign trail

2010-07-04T09:02:00.000-05:00

We're heading out to the Wells Branch neighborhood 4th of July parade shortly. Check out the truck!

Once upon a time, sixty years ago, a little girl lived in the Big Woods of Wisconsin....

2010-06-07T01:18:00.000-05:00

Tonight I opened up my ancient copy of Little House in the Big Woods. I had almost given up my complete set for lost. They were packed in a box twelve years ago and because I was away at school, I had no idea that they were then stuffed in the attic, where they remained until a month ago.

Somehow, they survived and when I finally unpacked the box on Saturday, they got proper storage on the bookcase Randy made last fall.

The smell made me cry. Pay that part no mind - I've been prone to tears easily these days, and I didn't smell the books until tonight after a series of other things made me nostalgic. It was inevitable. The musty smell of old books is my favorite smell. It is comforting, it is peaceful, it smells like "home," which for a very long time in my childhood had no particular meaning and was more easily attached to the cabins and castles in my imagination, all built by others' words.

I know a lot of people who grew up on L.M. Montgomery or Frances Hodgson Burnett, C.S. Lewis or other authors. My formative reading was all Laura Ingalls Wilder. I grew up in places so similar to the ones Laura did. In fact, I spent most of the ages between 2 and 9 in northern Oklahoma, not thirty miles from the homestead chronicled in Little House on the Prairie.

There is something about pioneer stories that is so achingly familiar to me. I have discovered in recent years that an open prairie and wide sky speak volumes to me. I long for the silence there - but of course, if you're from those places, you know there is no real silence. There is just a different kind of noise.

Laura's stories fueled my imagination early on in life, and helped shape the wanderlust that I experience even now (you can blame it primarily on my dad's company, but Laura definitely helped).

I look forward to this re-read with something very like love. I feel like every kid should have to read these books - but I figure, everyone has to have their own Laura Ingalls Wilder (or L.M. Montgomery, etc), their own adventure with reading, have their imaginations grow on their own terms. And I know from long personal experience that what I got out of these books is not what someone else will get out of them.

A couple of years ago, during a phase of heavy biography reading, I sought out a book on Laura. And just reading the reactions and reviews on Amazon made me decide against it. They were positive, for the most part, but in reading them I discovered that Laura, for me, lives just in the pages of the books she wrote. I do not need to know the rest - or rather, what I know of Laura comes from her and from Rose, and others' considered opinions may spoil it all, good or bad.

I did not have flowers or anything else to leave on her grave when I went two summers ago. Only because I did not know that I would end up there, until I found it. I might have taken wildflowers with me. I might have taken a penny. A piece of ribbon candy. I don't know. Standing there I closed my eyes, and imagined I could hear Pa's fiddle, and little Laura's laugh over the prairie wind.

As I type this tonight, some part of me feels like getting in a car, and going out to whatever open space I can get to. This is not infrequent on my part. I feel like Charles Ingalls would understand and encourage me in this whim.

These pictures represent one of the first times I knew, really and truly knew, I had married the right man. We went on this epic road trip through Oklahoma, Kansas, and Missouri on our way to my family reunion in 2008, and I kept finding places like these to stop. They had no meaning for him whatsoever - Little House was just the tv show to him, he didn't even realize there were books - and he still stopped with me, lingered, took pictures and listened to me wax nostalgic.

The Wilders' grave, in Missouri. Taken July 2008.

Rocky Ridge Farm, the home that Almanzo built for Laura and their daughter, Rose. Taken July 2008.

The replica log cabin that sits approximately where the Little House on the Prairie actually was. The homesite was mostly barren when rediscovered, but territorial maps and records helped historians find the location, and the well onsite, as well as the foundation for the home, were still there. You can visit it, too, if you're driving in deep south Kansas. Taken July 2008.

(more on the Little House site can be found here)

Adventures in the South

2010-05-02T23:54:00.000-05:00

This is going to be a busy week for us. We're headed first to my parents' house in Lewisville, where we'll help pack up the house for the big upcoming move (the first in twelve years - a record, since we moved all the time when I was a kid and the longest we stayed in one place was eight years). After that, we're headed out to Oxford, Mississippi (home of my first literary nemesis, William Faulkner - I still haven't reconciled myself to The Sound and the Fury) for my brother-in-law Scott's graduation from Ole Miss.

We plan to take lots of pictures on our way out there, though we won't blog as we go. Expect plenty of updates when we get back next weekend!

(the pic below is of the Ole Miss campus - gakked off the interwebs, of course, since I've never been)

Adventures in Homeownership

2010-04-25T21:55:00.000-05:00

We have had a busy time lately, keeping up with all the little things that come with owning a home. Or, really, just living in our own place, because some of this we would have to deal with even if we rented! Last year at this time, we discovered that we needed a new air conditioner (the old one was original to the house, 1984) and heater, an adventure that put our home warranty to the test and our wallets as well. I've documented on this blog the home improvement projects Randy has undertaken (next up: kitchen improvements and finishing the master bathroom). And of course there are the day-to-day tasks (cleaning, scrubbing, airing out). It seems to me, though, that the problems that arise from time to time do so in clumps. We've been blessedly free of issues for awhile, and then....

Just today, the garage door opener, which is about 17 years old, decided to crap out on us. The quick fix is re-lubricating the chain, and the long-term fix will likely be replacing it. Since it didn't come with a clicker (who knows), this could be an improvement.

While Randy was tinkering with the garage door opener tonight, I went out to the front porch to sweep all the dirt and grass clippings from the recent storm and Randy's edging/mowing today. I made my way to the railing only to find carpenter ants all over it, and up the side of the house to the fence, and across to the neighbor's tree and yard. Randy sprayed some quick-fix Spectricide, but closer inspection and some research made us decide we'll have to call an exterminator. No way to know for sure on our own whether the ants have a colony in our house or someplace else, and either way, their presence is not at all comforting. Hey, maybe when the exterminator comes, he can do something about the birds that took up residence in the attic???

Of course, these things occurred after a good, restful weekend, right at the tail end on Sunday evening. Right before a busy work week for both of us, and a week out from a trip out of town.

All of it is more than worth it, of course. We're thankful for the opportunity to be stewards of our own home, and for the ability to afford such a thing in this economy (or really, at all). I admit, though, that owning a home has also been a test of our patience (with each other, with ourselves) and of our fortitude at times!

Easter Bluebonnet Adventure

2010-04-04T22:27:00.001-05:00

This spring is already an abundantly blessed one for central Texans. We've had beautiful weather, just the right amount of rain and sunshine, which has brought on the best bluebonnet season in at least three years. This weekend, Randy and I ventured out to Llano, for Cooper's BBQ and to get pictures of the blankets of blue (we also ended up at the Texas Hills Vineyard and Winery, and scored an Orange Moscato and '07 Syrah from the friendly KU fan working this weekend). We weren't able to stop at the best bluebonnet places, along winding backroads between Llano and Johnson City, but we were able to stop for these not far from the Pedernales River.

I love the bluebonnets among the cacti. Beautiful.

Some Indian paintbrushes fight for attention.

Yours truly, clearly trying to camouflage myself - and again, the Indian paintbrushes fight for attention.

The real goal of the trip, of course.

And, the Pedernales, one of the treasures of the Hill Country. We're looking down river here.

Hope everyone had a blessed and happy Easter. Celebrate, for He is risen!

The kitchen, after an adventure in cake-baking

2010-03-26T22:38:00.003-05:00

Lots of pics to show off from this venture, but the one I wanted to share the most for now is the messy kitchen!

Several things to note, the first of which is that this is a picture of my entire working counter-space. Not even kidding. Second thing to note is the mixer, which is one of my joys in life (it kept Waylon out from under my feet while making this came, thank goodness!).

Also, see Mickey Mouse? That's a cookie jar that my mom gave me when I moved into my first apartment. I don't often have cookies in there (right now there are shelled pecans in it), but having it on the kitchen counter at my first house - at the first house Randy and I are able to call ours - is kind of important to me.

Now for a wider shot, after I cleaned the monumental mess left by making this awesome lemon cake:

The far left counter is home to the bread basket and is usually wear I lay the cookbook or recipe. The far right counter is home to my new KitchenAid food processor (my 30th birthday present from Randy), and just out of the picture on the right is the refrigerator.

Okay - now, the lemon cake is for tomorrow's baby shower, being held by some friends and I for another friend, Brooke. And I still have brownies to make, so time to get offline and get some sleep before the next adventure!

Adventures in Home Improvement: The Back Porch, Completed

2010-03-24T00:12:00.005-05:00

So, two weekends ago, Randy put the finishing touches on the back porch. Here are some pictures of it that I took on Sunday.

Waylon thinks Randy is going to come through the door, and stares at it impatiently. Meanwhile, check out the roof! (and yes, that's a fire hydrant - don't ask)

A side view, looking up at the roof. You also get to see the trunk of our sad Arizona ash tree, which does nothing that backyard trees are supposed to do (provide shade, provide a good place for climbing, provide a limb for a tire swing....), but which is very good at overgrowing and messing with power lines, and shedding seed pods.

And this one is looking out from the back door. The sun was in a bad position for this shot, so I'll retake it at some point. But you still get the idea, and can see better the slab extension Randy did last summer/fall. Waylon is standing in a very familiar pose - this is his "why do you keep saying my name? I hear the call of the wild!" stance, which he takes when he's determined to stay outside despite being called in to eat or because it's freaking cold/hot/windy outside and we're not coming out to play anymore.

This back porch project has two more stages. One, getting rid of the plastic vertical blinds on the sliding back door (done) and replacing them with thermal curtains (done, on Sunday). Two, purchase a BBQ grill, for I have a tiny kitchen that becomes an oven in the summer.

Randy's done an amazing job with home improvement projects (among other talents!). I am everyday ecstatic and grateful knowing I married this man.

BBQ Adventures: Smitty's versus Kreuz

2010-03-23T17:09:00.004-05:00

Man Up: Tales of Texas BBQ, one of our favorite food blogs, reminded me today that on the Travel Channel's Food Wars tonight, Lockhart's own Smitty's Market and Kreuz Market are battling it out.

Personally, I prefer Black's when in Lockhart. Mmmm, brisket. To each his own!

Check out Food Wars on the Travel Channel at 9pm Texas time!

Wine Road 290 Event - 3/20

2010-03-20T00:14:00.002-05:00

I so very much wish that Randy and I could go to this!

Vino and Pasta, on the Wine Road 290 near Fredericksburg.

Sigh.

The weather is supposed to be crappy, but I sure hope someone I know is making the trek out there for this - too good an idea to pass up!

Sláinte!

2010-03-17T20:35:00.001-05:00

Waylon's Adventures in Home Improvement

2010-03-06T22:44:00.005-06:00

Waylon is our very large dog, an American bulldog/black labrador mix we adopted from missionary friends almost two years ago. We love this dog to pieces - he is friendly and well-trained, and a definite joy in our lives. He reminds us of the things that are important in life, and we can't see him without thinking of the sacrifice our friends are making in the name of winning souls for Christ.

Waylon is very attached to Randy, and when Randy is working in the backyard, Waylon really cannot stand staying in the house. Lately Randy has been working on the porch roof, and Waylon decided he needed to help out.

First, to explain what I mean by "working on the porch roof" - last fall Randy framed and poured the concrete to expand our back stoop into an actual back porch. Two summers in this house proved to us a couple of things - one, Waylon cannot stay outside in most kinds of weather, because of the lack of shelter from heat/wet in the backyard, and two, we want to have a grill, and the "stoop" was not sufficient for one. The idea for the porch was born fairly early on. Waylon has been staying in the house and it works out just fine, but as we anticipate more long days during election season this year, we know he'll need something to provide shelter from the heat. And dang it, I really miss having bratwurst, which only really works on a grill!

So, here is a picture from midday Saturday, to show you what Randy is doing:

We're going to extend the extension with brick squares, left over from other projects, and Randy will build a lean-to for Waylon about where the chair is in this picture.

Waylon, of course, was outside the whole time Randy was working:

The only thing our dog is afraid of is the lawnmower. He was totally unfazed by the chainsaw while Randy was cutting the wood (to the point of rolling around in the resulting sawdust, both in the garage during the early phase and outside today). He was also so eager to be near Randy that while Randy was painting the wood, Waylon offered his tail and his face as extra brushes (his nose is already white - but note the latex paint on his ear and face):

Our poor puppy was so worn out by his adventures in home improvement, he was asleep before Randy tonight (a very rare occurance!), and he didn't quite make it to his bed:

SNOW IN AUSTIN!!

2010-02-23T12:28:00.005-06:00

This is what we get for mocking the weathermen who predicted it.

Snow in Austin!

Waylon does not know what to do (he wouldn't step off the concrete!):

Our neighbor's tree started to bloom over the weekend, lulled by false spring:

Looking across the street from our front porch:

Valentine's Day Adventure

2010-02-14T19:16:00.007-06:00

We celebrated Valentine's Day this year by going out to our favorite Austin restaurant, Mesa Ranch (hurray for fried cactus!!), on Saturday evening, and spent the actual holiday enjoying a very normal Sunday. It was beautiful in Austin this morning, sunny with pleasant temperatures; we actually envied the Austin Marathon participants we saw on our way to church! Our pastor, Matt Carter, started a convicting sermon series entitled "Biblical Manhood," and we came away with lots to talk and pray about.

Once home, we planned our afternoon. Randy was going to get started on the back porch roof he's been planning since last summer. I headed to the grocery store and started some laundry. Mid-afternoon, a cold front hit, and the weather turned abruptly colder (dropping almost 30 degrees in about an hour). Luckily, the rest of my own afternoon plans did not include heading outside!

Randy spoiled me with a mini rose bush for Valentine's Day. I returned the favor by baking brownies. And not just any brownies - Best Cocoa Brownies, as shown over at Smitten Kitchen.

I've always made brownies from a box, a habit I picked up from my mom. And there isn't anything wrong with doing that, by any means! But I've been experimenting in the kitchen a lot lately (some day I'll share those stories!), and I figure I've used Randy as a test subject for plenty of meals, and it was high time I tried my hand at a new dessert.

The brownies came out very well, and Randy wasted no time in enjoying them!

Couple of deviations from Smitten Kitchen. I used my microwave to great effect for melting the butter (she used a skillet with water). I also only used about 1/3 cup walnut pieces in the actual mix, and saved the rest to sprinkle on top before putting the brownies in the oven.

I do highly recommend following Smitten's advice and putting the cooled pan in the refrigerator for a bit before cutting up the brownies. The tricks I learned here, about using parchment paper to line the pan and the refrigerator thing, really made this the best experience I've had while making brownies. Raise your hand if yours fall apart when you cut them! The great thing about thick, fudgy brownies like this is that they hold together well.

Already a new favorite in the Samuelson household.

Whatcha doin' this weekend?

2010-01-21T21:05:00.003-06:00

I had the opportunity to attend Governor Perry's Blogger Summit this weekend, but frankly the idea of being cooped up with a computer this weekend didn't appeal, considering the hours spent indoors this week and recently. KVUE says the nice weather will hold, so I'm looking at what else is going on.

Nine wineries up on HWY 290 near Fredericksburg (the "Wine Road") are hosting Port'n'Pairing this Saturday, during regular tasting hours. Each winery will be featuring their ports and offering matching treats. Fees vary. Sounds like a great way to spend Saturday to me! H/T Fredericksburg Texas Info blog.

Austin 360 has a short list of bands worth going to hear this weekend.

Celebrate Mardi Gras early at Nutty Brown Cafe down on 290; they're doing "N'Awlins Night" on Friday, like most Fridays. Free Mardi Gras beads, fresh oysters on the half shell, shrimp boil, Cajun and Creole specials, and all you can eat catfish specials. Go back on Saturday night for karaoke.

Hill's Cafe has Shane Smith on Friday, and Seth Canadan on Saturday. Or, wait for Sunday, and go to Gospel Brunch with Danny Brooks.

Of course, staying in isn't a bad idea either - Austin360 has the recipe for the Roaring Fork's Green Chili Pork. You'll want to work up an appetite; take advantage of the beautiful weather at Bull Creek or someplace similar.

January in Austin. We're a spoiled bunch.

Pictures from West Texas

2010-01-03T18:05:00.009-06:00

Facebook readers, you must go to the blog to see these!

This is the Jeff Davis County Courthouse, with a rainstorm in the background, taken on New Year's Eve 2009. Our hotel was less than a block from here.

This is a view on HWY 67 going towards Shafter, out of Marfa. Gives you a great idea of how vast the land is, how great the view.

The cemetery in Shafter, Texas. Very unique in every way; the ground is hard and sandy, so each grave is covered in stones. Some graves are old, some were very new. This was taken through sunglasses to filter out some of the light; the fog in the background was deceptive.

The Rio Grande, from the American side in Big Bend Ranch State Park, just off El Camino Del Rio (the River Road, FM 170 out of Presidio).

Randy on the Lost Mine Trail in the Chisos Basin in Big Bend National Park.

The view from the Lost Mine Trail.

The javelina, posing for Michele on the side of the road in the Chisos Basin.

Michele at Horsehead Crossing. That's the Pecos right behind me - I think that, if you squint, you can see the ghosts of tens of thousands of Longhorns that Goodnight and Loving and their successors drove over this road. And it's such lonely desert country - if you close your eyes and listen, you might even hear their echo, over 150 years after the fact.

An Anniversary Adventure

2010-01-03T12:44:00.004-06:00

We've been rather remiss in posting since October. There have been a lot of things we wanted to put up here on Texas Traveler, and one day we'll get around to putting it all up here.

A week before Thanksgiving, my mother took ill with her second bout of pneumonia in less than two months, and it put her in the VA hospital in Dallas. There were a few days there before Thanksgiving where we weren't sure whether she'd make it. The Lord answered a great many prayers and she is doing much better, though still in a hospital for at least another month while my dad brings the house up to the standards necessary for total home care. Thank you to everyone who prayed and helped us get through all of this.

December was extremely busy for both Randy and I; we were essentially out of pocket for the full last two weeks of November, and so spent a great deal of time playing "catch-up" at our offices. Add to that an office move for me, several Christmas celebrations with family, friends and colleagues, including another trip to DFW, and we hardly got to enjoy the holidays together!

That was, until last week.

Months ago, we laid out plans for a getaway to coincide with our second anniversary (we celebrated that on December 29!). After our successful and beautiful trip through the Texas Panhandle, we decided to tackle a different part of West Texas. We booked a room at the Veranda Historic Inn in Fort Davis, and made that our base camp for a week of small daytrips through Big Bend National Park and the surrounding countryside.

This B&B is extremely charming, and the price is exactly right for those with tighter vacation budgets. We loved the individuality of each room, and the privacy. Breakfast at the Veranda was a total treat - we had some fantastic, creative food each morning we were there. Kathie, the owner and manager, is a friendly and helpful person who knows the area well, and we found ourselves very glad to take her suggestions and hints about how to spend time in the Davis and Chisos Mountains.

Day one, the trip getting out there, was a great adventure. We drove out to Junction (stopping for lunch at the "original" Cooper's), but instead of hooking up on I-10, we headed south for Del Rio. Once there, we headed west along the border, stopping in Langtry for pictures of Judge Roy Bean's courthouse/saloon. We rambled into Fort Davis just after dusk, too late for most restaurant food but just in time for pizza at Murphy's, near the courthouse.

Day two, we woke up to snow!! This weather took most by surprise, as it was rather unusual and much colder than that part of the state typically is this time of year. We went into Alpine and the Museum of the Big Bend at Sul Ross State University. The museum is a great experience to take up an hour or two, and it doesn't cost anything. The best part is the old Green Cafe sign - this was a restaurant owned by Pete Gallego, Jr. (State Rep. Pete P. Gallego's dad). There's a lot of good info about the history of Alpine in addition to the stories about Big Bend! After that, we headed to lunch at the Reata, meeting some cousins of ours who volunteer at Big Bend in the winter. Delicious food and fairly decent prices - Randy and I made reservations for dinner on New Year's Eve while there.

The snow let up early, but we encountered a lot of fog in the Davis Mountains after lunch. We went out in search of the Blue Mountain Winery on our way to the McDonald Observatory - of course, we did not know until later that Blue Mountain shut down a number of years ago, though we were able to sample what Blue Mountain was once capable of at the Luz de Estrella Winery in Marfa (more on that later).

At McDonald, we bought hopeful tickets for the Star Party and Twilight Program, then headed back to Fort Davis for some lounging around. The sky cleared just in time for our trip back up to McDonald, and though the temperature dropped significantly as it is wont to do in West Texas, we got to enjoy a great Star Party. We viewed several star clusters, and the moons around Jupiter. The moon was a 3/4 waxing gibbous, which meant that the sky was extremely bright and seeing a lot of stars was difficult, but the vast sky is impressive and the moon just adds to the wonder. We also had dinner at the Star Date Cafe, which had some pleasantly surprising food on the menu.

On day three, we woke up to frost and some fog, but the sun was shining enough to encourage us to head down to Big Bend. It's at least an hour and a half drive to the park entrance from Fort Davis, and by now you know that Randy and I turn every hour and a half drive to at least three. We took Kathie's advice and went down Hwy 67 through Shafter and Presidio, and along El Camino Del Rio, the River Road. We stopped for about twenty minutes in Shafter, to get pictures of this tiny town, which is full of historical ruins and stories. Presidio was also interesting - considered to be the oldest continually settled spot in the state, Presidio has been a community of some kind since the Spanish first came to Texas in the 1500s, and the sign in town says it was founded in 1683. We made a very brief stop outside of town for pictures at the fort, and headed down the River Road from there. Randy now says that Hwy. 170 between Presidio and Lajitas is his favorite stretch of road in all of Texas. We went through the mountains and along the Rio Grande - it was an incredibly beautiful drive, full of short stops for pictures, to breathe the mountain air, and to wonder at the scenery in Mexico.

Lajitas and Terlingua - honestly, these are tourist spots more than any others we spent time in, and we were anxious to see Big Bend and get back to Marfa to see the lights at sunset, so we pressed on. I'd like to stay in Lajitas at some future date, and some day it'd be great to make the Terlingua chili festivals, but in winter these places weren't attractive to us. We did stop at the Barton Warnock Center briefly before heading down to the Big Bend National Park entrance.

In Big Bend, we took everyone's advice and headed in to the Chisos Basin. We got out and hiked a bit on the Lost Mine Trail, on Lost Mine Mountain. I got a great picture of a javelina that, I swear, actually posed! But, thank goodness, we saw no bears or mountain lions, both of which reside in the park.

We headed out of the park on Hwy. 385, looking at the controversial Christmas Mountains in the distance and resigning ourselves to the desert stretch of road. The desert is intriguing - so many plants and different kinds of life call the Chihuahuan Desert home, and it's unlike anything you see anywhere else in Texas - but it was a bit bland after all the taller, more imposing grandeur!

Of course, once we were back in Marfa (having made a 370 mile round trip over the day!), we got to stop and see the mystery lights at the Clayton Williams-donated viewing platform. On top of an incredible sunset, we saw about a dozen or so unexplainable lights that have entranced people for generations.

We had dinner at Alpine City Limits - plain fare, but exactly the thing you need to hit the spot after a day in Big Bend.

Day four was New Year's Eve, and we wanted to enjoy the slow pace and peace in Fort Davis. So, we ate an early breakfast and headed out to the Fort Davis National Historic Site. This is the place that gives the town the name. In the process of restoration and truly a marvel to behold, Fort Davis was home to U.S. soldiers prior to the Civil War, as a post to keep travelers safe from Comanche. It was abandoned during the war, though intermittently occupied by the Confederacy and the occasional band of Federals. Two years after the war ended, the fort was called back into service, completely rebuilt, and used as a key location during the Indian Wars. Buffalo Soldiers were the primary force stationed at Fort Davis, and it was home for awhile to West Point's first African-American graduate, Lt. Henry O. Flipper. The fort is worth stopping at for a great many reasons - the friendly, talkative volunteers and staff, and the breathtaking views from the short hikes up in the mountains that border the fort are big ones. I honestly can't wait to go back, for the hiking alone!

After lunch at Cueva de Leon in Ft. Davis (awesome green chicken enchiladas!!), we headed out to Marfa to the Luz de Estrella Winery. What's so unique about having a winery in this region is the climate, which has a great effect on the grapes grown. I was really impressed with each of the wines we tried, which included the 2005 Cabernet Sauvignon Reserve from Blue Mountain Winery, the very last vintage bottled there. For the Luz de Estrella wines, Randy liked the chenin blanc, and I really enjoyed the Big Bend Red, but we both agreed that the overall selection was amazing. Their website says they are growing Gewurztraminer, and I can't wait to see how that comes out!

We rested for a bit and took our time getting ready for our dinner at the Reata in Alpine. We had 8:30 reservations, so we had plenty of time to enjoy the sunset and the sheer beauty of the area. We arrived a little early and went to the bar, and watched some football with the tourists and locals gathered there. The restaurant has a great rustic feel, and the staff is friendly and knowledgeable. The food? To say it was fabulous is an understatement. We had tenderloin tamales and salad to start, and each of us got different steaks for dinner. Mine had an in-house jalapeno butter on it, which gave the steak a great southwestern flair. We wrapped up with a molten chocolate cake for dessert. Thus fed, we headed back to Fort Davis, stopping for while on the road to enjoy the night sky.

We rang in the New Year quietly, and when we woke up on Day 5, it was to 18-degree temperatures and the clearest, most beautiful blue sky of the trip.

The route home was up from Fort Davis to Fort Stockton, and east on I-10 to Junction. We stopped on the way, of course, to head outside of Girvin on a mostly dirt road to find Horsehead Crossing. Only a real western junkie is going to know about Horsehead Crossing, I imagine, but as Randy just finished a book on Charles Goodnight, and I just finished reading James Michener's Centennial, we were primed to geek out over this historically crucial spot on the Pecos River.

But the trip was uneventful from there. We drove back through Fredericksburg, which was the biggest town we'd been in since leaving Austin, and got into Austin just after dusk.

WHEW - that post took forever to write! I will add pictures later. Happy 2010!!

More adventures in home improvement

2009-10-26T18:31:00.005-05:00

This last weekend, I was in Reno, Nevada for a political convention. While I was away, Randy got into major home-improvement mode, and surprised me with renovations in our master bathroom!

I never took a "before" picture, because I honestly hated our bathroom. Everything about it screamed "1984" in an unpleasant way. We had been talking about some changes for awhile, and Randy implemented some of them. Some of the things we want to do are a ways off, but these small changes made such a huge difference that I doubt I'll mind the rest for a long time to come!

So, what changed? First, the color. The whole interior of our house is painted a pale peach color, which I love, but which I figured needed some variation in some parts of the house. So I chose Eddie Bauer "Bluestone" from Valspar, which happens to match the tile around our fireplace in the living room, and is about two shades lighter than the trim outside our house.

Second, the lighting fixture. Previously, it was a cheap brass fixture with four exposed lightbulbs. It was bright, no doubt there, but it was also tacky. All of the original lighting fixtures in the house were brass like that one, and we've replaced most of them (even the front and back porch lights). The new one in the bathroom has star accents and frosted glass, and is part of the same set that our dining room light came from (we got all of this at Lowe's).

Third, the mirror. Like many bathrooms, ours had a huge wall mirror that covered all the space above the vanity. Randy discovered that, worse than most, ours was fixed to the wall with what appeared to be tar. We've noticed that the bathroom walls are very cheap drywall, and putting up heavy things is a bit of a trial (the lighting fixture took two people to put it up), so undoubtedly this was the easy fix during initial construction. Anyway, I didn't really like the mirror, and Randy put this framed one up in its place.

Fourth, light switch plates. Randy picked out brushed nickel plates, for the two light switches and one electrical outlet. Much better than ivory plastic!

You can't see it here, but we also have a dark wood towel rack with brushed nickel hooks on the wall facing the vanity. The bathroom is decorated with Texas-themed items, and bluebonnets.

The next thing to do in here will be to replace the faucet on the sink, which is old and rusting apart at the base. Ideally, we would like to replace the sink and vanity, but it isn't as much of a priority, and the vanity and medicine cabinet could probably just be painted over to more closely match the mirror frame. The tacky pink-flowered linoleum flooring is going to have to stay for awhile (I will never understand why the previous owner, when replacing the flooring in the rest of the house with ceramic tile and wood laminate, didn't also attack this bathroom). But these changes described here have made enough of a difference that I feel a great sense of relief - and it was such a nice surprise to come home to last night!

An Adventure in Art and European Cuisine

2009-10-22T08:20:00.004-05:00

Last weekend, after the UT/OU game (Hook 'Em!), we found ourselves without plans for the first time in at least a month, and decided it was high time for a date that wasn't just a trip to Which Wich and the local Cinemark. Randy had done some digging during the week, and turned up the Georgetown Arts Festival.

This was a real pleasure. Despite living about twenty minutes from Georgetown, we've sadly never spent a lot of time there. An hour or two for Republican events, or last year's New Year's Eve day trip to the square (in the cold - not doing that again), that's it. So this was a big treat, as we had the chance to check out a lot of artists, get some ideas for Randy's photography hobby, and browse the fabulous shops on the square in Georgetown.

Georgetown is the county seat of Williamson County, and despite a lot of recent growth (disgruntled Austinites, or transplants looking for a deal on property and not particularly enthralled with Austin culture), it maintains a great small town atmosphere. The great find of the day was the Georgetown Winery, which we weren't previously aware of. No tastings there, but a $5 glass of any of their wines, live music (we weren't that far from the Live Music Capital of the World, after all), and a warm atmosphere. Just outside, there was a gentleman with what I took to be an eastern European accent sitting with his dog, a friendly shepherd mix who was eager to make friends.

We opted to forgo dinner in Georgetown (every place was packed, and the Down the Alley Bistro was closed for the wine tasting happening that evening), and headed back toward Austin - using the tollways that everyone hates, but which afforded a break from the awful I-35 traffic and beautiful views of rural Williamson and Travis Counties.

We don't live far from Pflugerville, and it was on our way through the town that we decided to see if the European Bistro was open. I feel like the great tragedy of Austin is that there is a great selection of food, but very little European food (for a city surrounded by Czech, German, and Swedish settlements, I find this very sad). Prior to last weekend, the best German food I've found in central Texas is in Fredericksburg (I haven't been to Walburg for food yet!). The European Bistro is even better, really, because they serve chiefly Hungarian, German, and Russian food.

It wasn't crowded, and the food was AMAZING. I had the jaegerschnitzel (breaded veal with a mushroom sauce) with red cabbage. Randy had turkey cordon bleu and sauerkraut, and a Hacker Weisse beer. We were very quickly in love with the European Bistro. The food reminded us a lot of what we found on our honeymoon in Solvang, California (there is a wonderful Danish restaurant there that we visited twice on a four-day trip - too good to pass up!).

We highly recommend both the Georgetown Winery and the European Bistro in Pflugerville. All in all, last Saturday evening was a great example of what Austin's surrounding communities have to offer, and how it doesn't take a lot of money to have a relaxing and creative date night.

Death shall have no dominion

2009-09-26T22:36:00.005-05:00

God's Word is the only possible source of comfort, outside of human interaction.

John 14:1-3 - "Do not let your hearts be troubled. Trust in God; trust also in me. In my Father's house are many rooms; if it were not so, I would have told you. I am going there to prepare a place for you. And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come back and take you to be with me that you also may be where I am."

2 Timothy 4:7-8 - I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith. Now there is in store for me the crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous Judge, will award to me on that day—and not only to me, but also to all who have longed for his appearing.

Love to all our friends, to Tony especially, and to Brianna's family.

Quoth the raven, "Nevermore"

2009-09-22T21:35:00.003-05:00

If the museum thing interested you but you couldn't find something nearby, how about checking out the Edgar Allen Poe exhibit at the Ransom Center at UT? This new cooler, damper weather put me in the mindset for Poe's spooky stories, and I found out about this thanks to a flyer at my local Half Price Books.

From the website:

"From Out That Shadow" features manuscripts, books, art and personal effects, many of them displayed for the first time, documenting Poe's career as a writer, his romantic relationships and mysterious death, the decline and rehabilitation of his literary reputation and his profound influence on mystery and detective fiction and other genres.

I heard that Poe's actual writing desk is on display (!!!).

The Ransom Center Galleries are open Tuesdays through Fridays from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m., with extended Thursday hours until 7 p.m. On Saturdays and Sundays the galleries are open from noon to 5 p.m. The galleries are closed on Mondays.

Sept. 26 is Free Museum Day

2009-09-19T21:38:00.003-05:00

Next Saturday, the Smithsonian is hosting a nationwide Free Museum Day. A list of the museums in Texas participating in this can be found here.

I want to note that the Panhandle Plains Museum in Canyon is on the list - my very favorite museum in the state!

Also, the National Museum of the Pacific War in Fredericksburg is participating, well worth the day trip for central Texans. Hit the museum early in the day, and count on about two to three hours inside. If you have time afterwards, be sure to check out the shops along the main drag in Fredericksburg - lots of kitsch and antiques, so you can get a start on Christmas shopping! Then get a late lunch at the Fredericksburg Brewing Company (or, bring some cheese, grapes, and proscuitto in a cooler, and stop by the Pedernales Cellars for some wine and have a picnic).

There are museums participating all over the state, so no matter where you live, if you have some time next Saturday, there is probably something to suit your needs. I highly recommend taking advantage of this unique opportunity!

Dear Texas Tech:

2009-09-19T19:52:00.001-05:00

An Adventure in Remembrance

2009-09-11T13:34:00.002-05:00

We urge you to check out Project 2996, a memorial project for the victims of 9/11.

This very wet, dark Friday has not in any way resembled the hot, clear Tuesday eight years ago, when 2,996 people were called home to God after terrorists hijacked four planes.

Randy and I did not know each other back then, and our experiences of 9/11 were very different - but we remember some of the same things. Randy was on a work trip and on the road when word came. I was in the student union at the University of North Texas, studying German. We both recall the way the skies emptied over Texas. We both remember the shock, the grief, and the resolve in the days that followed.

Eight years later, we both find it hard to believe that it has been so long since that day. The world changed so irrevocably for our generation, and we have often felt like we're living in a long aftershock.

Despite the wet, our flag is flying, and we wish we had a way to put it at half-staff. Eight years has not done much to soften the blow; we are all too aware of danger now. The "news alert" sound makes my heart jump, my breath catch; our cellphones are always within reach. On our honeymoon, we were detained and patted down at LAX, because of a security rule enacted in the wake of 9/11 and the shoebomber. And no matter what small fears creep into our lives in the wake of that horrific day, they pale in comparison to the fear some people deal with every day, because of men not unlike those who were responsible for 9/11.

Ian astaslem. We will not submit.

Never forget.

Adventures in Home Improvement

2009-09-07T18:20:00.009-05:00

We stayed at home for Labor Day weekend, and the decision was a good one, because we spent a good deal of the time doing projects around the house.

Saturday was a wash - between me having a meeting mid-day, and Randy going to the UT game, we just did not buckle down. Sunday was a different story. We went to church early, went grocery shopping right after, and had an early lunch. Then it was out of our church clothes and into shorts and old t-shirts. Randy headed out to the yard, and I set to work in the house.

Here are some pictures of our progress:

You can see the square of dirt that used to play home to a very tacky tin tool shed, which really amounted to little more than a mouse house. Randy has been itching to trash it for awhile and finally had the time and motivation (you can also see Waylon's hind legs and tail - he was running around while I took pictures):

And this is the pile of tin from the shed. Randy says there is no way this could have been put up by one person - it took most of the day for him to take it apart! But it was worth the effort, because now we can plant new grass and let our yard revive itself (it's a terrible dirt field because of how the previous owner treated it, and we're only now getting around to fixing it.

He also found time to put in new light fixtures downstairs. We've had these AWFUL 80s-style brass-glass combos in the front entry and in the "hall" in front of our bedroom. As some of our friends (the Kirks come to mind) know, battling the 1980s decor in one's home is a full-time job.

Here is the old fixture (this one's in the upstairs "hall" and is still there until we can go and get another fixture at Lowe's):

And here is the new one, complete with Energy Star lightbulb or whatever, so we're all "green":

And what did I do with my home improvement time? I did some major cleaning. The kitchen floor was in need of mopping (easier than it sounds - the advantage of hard tile flooring in the kitchen, and wood laminate in the living room, is that a microfiber mop and spray cleaner are FABULOUS), I cleaned out more of the pantry (an ongoing project), vacuumed/cleaned the blinds, and did some redecoration (see below for the new colors - and please excuse the horrid plastic blinds on the window and on the sliding door. We're saving up for wood blinds, and I'm going to put in a valance on the window. The long-term goal for the door is to replace it with French doors, and to get rid of the vertical blinds altogether (which are already coming apart - several blades are staying up thanks to staples). I then moved into the bathroom, armed with a grout brush to tackle neglected tile staining in the shower. I also cleaned out my dresser completely, and got rid of about two 13-gallon garbage bags of clothes that didn't fit or that I'd had for more than three years, and put all of our old campaign t-shirts (kept for sentimental value) into a storage bin until we can decide what to do with them (probably going to use Campus Quilts to get a neat memento made).

(note the clutter on the wine/china cabinet - this is an ongoing struggle for us, and to be honest the table is never this clean unless we have company. I moved Randy's computer bag, and the piles of loose photos and paperwork that usually clutter at least one end, just for this picture. Unfortunately, the space is very small, and the table is really too big - a circle shape would work better than oval. We inherited this piece from Randy's bachelor pad and I like it a lot, so I'm not interested in spending the money to replace it, but it is bulky and our "dining room" is more of a nook than a room)

I made dinner on Sunday: pork chops in sauce (my mom's recipe - I'll post it some time), corn-on-the-cob, and garlic mashed potatoes. We had all that with glasses of Llano Estacado gewuertztraminer, one of our favorite wines, picked up on our Panhandle Trip.

I also got started on my recipe collection project. This consisted of gathering up all the home living mags I had collected since we moved into the house last year, going through each one for the recipes we had liked or wanted to try, and cutting them out. Tonight I will work on pasting them to recipe cards and putting them in my book. While I went through the mags, I also saved some of the handier tips on food storage and preparation, which are going in the book as well. I trashed a huge pile in the end, which was a great clutter-reduction move for the weekend.

Here's my stack, ready to work on tonight. Note the small stack of paper - compare that to six huge Real Simple issues and one Country Living issue, which were residing either in a bedroom pile (with other mags that got tossed this weekend) or on the bookcase.

Today, we went to the last Round Rock Express game of the season (free tickets, courtesy of my sister!), getting a start on our Christmas shopping, and Randy went to his weekly softball game. I'm spending the evening working on that book, and possibly on my desk in the office (the office is a project that will take us at least a weekend on it's own).

Whew!

From Mobeetie to Plano

2009-08-25T21:50:00.003-05:00

At the beginning of August, we were surrounded by wide open spaces, deep skies, and the vast silence of the plains. This past weekend, we were in a neon-lit, bustling metropolis, surrounded by people and unable to see the stars because of man-made light coming up from the ground.

And at both extremes, we were in Texas.

We were visiting my parents in north Texas this past weekend, and while there we decided to hit the Angelika Theater at the Shops at Legacy in Plano (we saw Paul Giamatti's Cold Souls, great and weird flick). It struck me while we were there how vast Texas is, and how incredibly diverse. My mind wandered back to a point in our panhandle trip, to the ghost town of Mobeetie. That town, before the railroads, had been as bustling a place as one could get in the frontier. How odd it was to think of the wind whistling at Mobeetie while dodging traffic in the narrow and crowded streets of Plano on a Saturday night.

I love my state, every inch of it (even the parts that infuriate me - I'm looking at you, Houston). But I think I love some parts more. I ached for the peace in the panhandle while we were in north Texas, in the Dallas area. I wanted that vastness and space to stretch.

If you're the opposite, though - I can highly recommend the Shops at Legacy.

Panhandle Perambulations: Day 4

2009-08-25T16:15:00.002-05:00

On the fourth day of our Panhandle trip, we stayed put in one city and saw more history and beauty than the entire trip in total. We spent the previous night in a hotel in Canyon, praying that the rain that had been unleashed in this part of the panhandle would abate enough so that we could enjoy the Palo Duro Canyon on Thursday. We woke up to heavy skies and cool temperatures, so we decided to start with the Panhandle Plains Historical Museum on the West Texas A&M campus.

The largest museum in Texas in terms of collection, and a landmark in its own right, the Panhandle Plains Historical Museum is worth a trip north all by itself. It's interactive for kids, studious and deep for the history nuts, and has so much in the way of archives that it takes a good half day or more to see it all. I went to this museum a couple of years ago when I had a speaking engagement at the university, and had wanted to go back with Randy ever since. It was even more effecting this time around, with all we had seen so far on the trip. Artifacts from the Battle of Adobe Walls and other Red River War battles are here. So are examples of agricultural ingenuity. The oil boom is front and center, and the museum's signature piece is a real oil derrick from the panhandle.

We left the museum around 1pm, and went out in search of a place to buy tickets to "Texas!," the stage musical that is performed every summer down in the Palo Duro Canyon. Downtown Canyon is lovely and charming - all the bustling liveliness of a college town, and the charm of a historical treasure. The courthouse is undergoing renovations that will include the restoration of the clock tower. We walked into a building to buy our tickets - and that building was clearly an old bank or some other institution of prestige at one point. The floors creaked and the smell of old wood and paint lingered, and you couldn't forget for a moment that you're in a place where ghosts regularly walked.

A quick lunch back at the hotel, changing our clothes to suit the warmer weather (the sun had finally poked through the clouds), and we were off to the canyon. Now, if you aren't already familiar with it, you should know that the Palo Duro Canyon is the second largest canyon in the United States. It's wide and deep, and home to flora and fauna found nowhere else in the Panhandle, thanks to Charles Goodnight's cattle. It's been home to Native Americans and Texans, shelter for Comancheros and outlaws. And every inch is beautiful, something out of a half-remembered dream.

Hiking, unfortunately, was out. One, we didn't really go prepared to hike, and two, the rains had washed out many of the roads and trails. We were quite limited in what we could see and do while down in the canyon, but it proved a great respite anyway. Like Adobe Walls two days earlier, the canyon is the kind of place where you can close your eyes, listen carefully, and feel the history surround you. Or, you can look up, and in the stillness you might hear God speaking.

A few hours later, we were able to go down to where the "Texas!" musical shows, and line up for the dinner buffet. Provided by The Big Texan, this dinner is well worth the price (and just thinking of the freshly-cooked ribeye, mashed potatoes, and peach cobbler makes me hungry all over again!). You eat outside, among the people who are attending the play with you, and it has the feeling of a family reunion. We were then treated to live music from a group called Young Country - and we Austinites do crave live music!

The play? Spectacular. If you have a chance to see, I highly recommend it.

The sky was cloudy, but it didn't rain, and we got back to the hotel kind of late. Satisfied with what we had experienced that day, we had a bit of trouble deciding upon our next course, but as you'll see, the last couple of days on our trip were just as great as the first four.

Mapping our Panhandle Perambulations

2009-08-12T21:43:00.009-05:00

Facebook readers, make sure to go to http://texas-traveler.blogspot.com to get the full post! Randy created maps of our route on the Panhandle trip, so you can see for yourself where we went. I've put them here mostly to help me as I back-blog the trip! You'll notice there is no map for Day 4 - we spent that entire day in Canyon, and at Palo Duro, so no map is really necessary.

You'll notice a couple of important things here. One, we never use "main" highways or roads on these kinds of trips. As much as we can, we like back roads! Almost no trucks, and very few fellow travelers, and it's the best way to see the scenery! Two, point A to point B usually includes a few detours for us. Notice on the first map, the loop outside of Lubbock. We had dinner in Lubbock and then traveled out of the city to Slaton, and chased a small storm on our way. It was one of the most pleasantly surprising parts of the trip - and just think, we would have missed it completely if we'd stayed on the main drag in Lubbock!

DAY ONE: Austin to Lubbock

DAY TWO: Lubbock to Perryton

DAY THREE: Perryton to Canyon

DAY FIVE: Canyon to Wichita Falls

DAY SIX: Wichita Falls to Austin

Panhandle Perambulations, Day 3

2009-08-11T11:36:00.006-05:00

I know I promised to live-blog the whole trip, but by the evening on Day 3 (Wednesday), we were beat and not up to fighting with motel wireless. Well, that, and the weather took a turn for the worse and kept us kind of busy.

We woke up to a beautifully cool and misty morning in Perryton, which is damn near the top of Texas. We were, no joke, maybe a 45 minute drive from Liberal, Kansas. We were further north than Tulsa, OK! The weather certainly help convince us of all of this. The sky sat heavy on the prairie as we traveled south along the Texas/Oklahoma border. First stop, Lipscomb! There are three towns in Lipscomb County, and the smallest one happens to be the county seat - it doesn't even have a gas station! Usually, when the railroad ended up bypassing a town in the panhandle, the town became a ghost town. Lipscomb managed to survive because the citizens didn't vote to make any other town the county seat. We were definitely charmed - the courthouse was more or less the only place where anything was happening, and we ran across wild turkeys that were ticking off the roosters in someone's yard. The best part of the town:

Of course, it's now a novelty store, and if you want to shop, you have to call the owner and have him come open it up for you.

Next up was Canadian. As we traveled south, the fog lifted and the heavy skies lightened, though the temperature remained low. The wide, flat prairie gave way to rolling hills, as oil country rose up in front of us.

The Canadian river is not named for Canada, but apparently comes from an Indian word meaning "boxed in." The terrain does give that impression, of walls keeping things in. The town is one of the prettiest in the panhandle (for that matter, so is the wilderness surrounding it). We stopped for lunch at the Cattle Exchange, a great steak-and-more place located inside the historic Moody Hotel.

From Canadian, we headed to Shamrock, on old Route 66.

From Shamrock, we went to Wellington, and from there, we hunted down the tiny town of Goodnight, Texas. Three guesses who is buried here, first two don't count.

We took a short drive through the Palo Duro Canyon, with a goal of driving past Happy, where some old friends of ours used to have a ranch. And from there it was a very short shot into Canyon, Texas, home of West Texas A&M University and our base of operations for the next two evenings.

We had dinner with our good friend Cassie and her mom at a restaurant in Canyon - and we finally got caught in one of the torrential downpours that we had been circling around for days!

We crashed late that night, knowing we wouldn't have to be up early to drive in the morning.

We're back home now

2009-08-02T21:08:00.001-05:00

"Get up, go out to the plain, and there I will speak to you." Ezekiel 3:22

Lots to catch up on, including blogging the last four days of our trip! More to come soon.

Panhandle Perambulations, Day 2

2009-07-28T21:35:00.002-05:00

We took our time getting up and out of the hotel this morning in Lubbock, because the Buddy Holly Center didn't open until 10 and we wanted to make that our first stop. Let me warn you ahead of time: if you are ever in Lubbock and decide to go to the Buddy Holly Center, beware that while it's amazing to see so much about this American music icon, it's also very sad. We left feeling a bit down. I've always been a Buddy Holly fan, and it was very affecting to think on his life like that.

To continue our perambulations, we headed north out of Lubbock, popped in a newly purchased copy of a Buddy Holly and the Crickets CD, and made a quick stop in Littlefield. This town is really not much to speak of - there is almost no infrastructure working or open - but it does have the distinction of being the hometown of Waylon Jennings. We snapped a picture of the water tower with that boast, and also of the replica of the XIT Ranch Windmill, which was once the tallest wooden windmill in Texas. The replica is made of steel and is, we think, a bit shorter than the real one was. But it was still really cool.

Back in the Buddy Holly Center, there was a quote on the wall from a Bob Wills album's liner notes, which mused that so many minstrels and musicians had emerged from West Texas because they needed to sing out loud and penetrate the vast silence of the region. As we continued our travels here today, that quote stayed with me, and it became very clear as we went on that there is truth in it. Seeing the places that birthed Waylon Jennings and Buddy Holly, Joe Ely and Jimmie Dale Gilmore (and so many more) kind of sent a shock of realization. When you're up here, you have dueling reactions. To close your eyes and see if you can hear God speaking, or to tip your head back and sing as loud as you can in praise of Him and in awe of His creation. I don't know if all these musicians viewed what they did as worship. It doesn't matter. They were out to break the silence and shake awake the world.

From Littlefield, we went through Amarillo (to be tackled later in the trip) and up to Lake Meredith and the Alabites Flint Quarry National Monument. The weather service predicted storms so we didn't linger, though we had clear blue skies for several more hours. The quarries were beautiful, seemingly untouched by time or man.

Up we went to Borger and Stinnett. It took us awhile, and two trips over the Canadian River, but we found the Hutchinson County Museum, which was a real treasure. Like with the winery yesterday, we stumbled in not long before closing, and we had to savor as much as we could without getting the full effect. There was a quilt show going on, and some amazing pieces were on display in addition to the usual displays. What was so cool about Borger was the story - an oil boomtown that literally sprung up overnight in 1926, and has a violent history not unlike that of older and more well-known places like Dodge City, Deadwood, and Tombstone.

Stinnett is the county seat, and the courthouse is a beautiful one, but the city was just a bump in the road on our way out to Adobe Walls.

Storms had begun to seriously encroach on the area, though they remained distant enough that we could watch and enjoy them for their terrible beauty without getting very wet. This was a real blessing, because Adobe Walls was one of our planned destinations for this trip, and it was quite the haul to get there. About 26.7 miles away from Stinnett, 15.6 miles of that are on little county roads, a good portion of which are gravel inside the Turkey Track Ranch. The gentleman at the Hutchinson County Museum acted as though he was quite surprised we would want to make the trek. Sure enough, while we did pass some Virginia visitors on their way out of the area, we were clearly some of the very few visitors to this historic battlefield site. Randy's a big Elmer Kelton fan, so this was special for him, and for me, visiting places like this always makes me feel somewhat haunted. This is sacred ground, in some ways. The Battle of Adobe Walls in 1874 was a showdown between a band of Quanah Parker's men and U.S. Cavalry, a payback for an earlier battle not far from here in 1864 (Kit Carson's "last battle") and a way of acting out over illegal poaching of buffalo south of the Arkansas River. Some of the soldiers are buried here, and there are monuments dedicated to the Native Americans who fought here.

The storm headed south, and we headed north, ending our evening in Perryton, the northernmost county seat in the state of Texas. The next "big" town on the northern route is Liberal, Kansas, on the other side of the Oklahoma panhandle ("No Man's Land"). But we are probably not venturing in that direction tomorrow, opting instead to see more of this glorious Texas soil.

Funny side note. We were flipping around to find a radio station here, to follow weather updates. We thought we'd found one - until the weather news indicated a storm near "Rolla" outside of "Texas County." While there is a Texas County in Oklahoma, there is not a "Rolla." There is, however, this exact layout in central Missouri. We went through it last summer! Somehow, we were picking up a radio station out of Missouri. Last night, we found one that was broadcasting about 30 miles south of Oakland, California. Wacky - esp. as these were FM stations!

Okay, this post is really really long. Time to crawl into bed!

Panhandle Perambulations, Day 1

2009-07-27T21:53:00.003-05:00

We left Austin this morning at 8:30, stopping for breakfast in Burnet. That was our only Hill Country stop on this trip - rather unusual, since it's become such a haunt for us - but we were anxious to enjoy points beyond!

The trip took us up Hwy. 71 from Llano to Brady, and in Brady we picked up Hwy 87. From that point onward, civilization was almost non-existant until Big Spring - which is exactly what we wanted! In fact, there was a point where the only living things we saw were mesquite trees and grasshoppers the size of small rodents (no, really - one ended up dead and stuck under the windshield wiper).

We stopped and got pictures at four county courthouses: Irion County, Sterling County, Dawson County, and Lynn County. We also got one here in Lubbock County - but as it was the least interesting, we are choosing not to count it ;-) Okay, that, and Randy already had a picture. We hope to get several more on this trip, knocking out most of the Panhandle and leaving just deep south Texas and deep east Texas for courthouse pics we need.

We made it to the Llano Estacado winery at about 4:25. They were getting ready to close, but sped us through a tasting of six wines in fifteen minutes flat. CRAZY. We got a couple bottle of wine to enjoy this week in the evenings.

After checking into a hotel and getting dinner, we went driving around Lubbock and the immediate surrounding area. This led to the discovery of the Texas Windmill Museum, Ransom Canyon, and a chance to enjoy a spectacular rainstorm that came through the county. What I love most about being up here is the sky - and what a sky it was tonight!

We have limited internet service here, so pictures have to wait. But they'll be coming!

Our weekend at Lake LBJ

2009-07-26T19:02:00.003-05:00

We flashed back to the past a little this weekend, joining YCT for their annual retreat, held this year at Log Country Cove at Lake LBJ in Kingsland, Texas. A flashback because, for those who don't know the tale, this is where Randy proposed to me in July 2007 (so, almost two years ago to the day!).

Gone are the days when Randy and I held positions of note in this organization, so we were able to pay our fees and then just enjoy the weekend as we saw fit. Saturday we drove into Llano to get new pics of the courthouse and to get Cooper's for lunch (seriously, if you haven't been to Cooper's, you are really missing out). Then we decided to meander over to Tow for a tour of the Fall Creek Vineyards, and scored a couple of bottles of wine while there. We went back to Kingsland and the cabins for swimming, a good nap out on the porch, and for the traditional hamburgers and beer dinner.

We met friends in Granite Shoals today and from there went to Marble Falls for lunch on Lake Marble Falls (we didn't go somewhere too special - just Chili's, to make it easier to find food that would suit twelve individuals!).

I absolutely love driving up into the Hill Country and spending time, with eyes wide open, enjoying the scenery. It doesn't seem to matter what time of year you go, either. There is always something to do and see.

Gearing up for a Panhandle adventure!

2009-07-24T01:51:00.004-05:00

Next week, Randy and I are headed out to the Texas Panhandle, for a week's worth of plains, big skies, lots of stars, and very little cell phone reception.

We plan on hitting the Llano Estacado Winery in Lubbock, the Panhandle Plains Museum at West Texas A&M University, at least half a dozen courthouses, the site of the Battle of Adobe Walls, Cadillac Ranch, the "Texas" play at Palo Duro Canyon, and just about anything we find along the way. Our lofty goal is to "liveblog" the trip - that is, download our pictures at each day's end and share bits of the story here at Texas Traveler.

In anticipation of the trip, check out this prickly pear! Randy took this picture probably in 2003 or 2004, near Silver, Texas (Facebook readers, you need to go to http://texas-traveler.blogspot.com to see the picture!):

How we celebrated the 4th of July

2009-07-08T23:57:00.003-05:00

Planning this year's 4th of July was kind of difficult for us. We knew in May that there was going to be a special legislative session, and the rumors flew for weeks that it would be before July 4 to pressure legislators into doing quick work so they could enjoy the holiday. And sure enough, that was what happened. There was no way to know what would happen, so we opted not to travel to Missouri for my family's annual reunion, and planned to go to Randy's family's annual bbq out at the farm in Manor. At the very last minute, that got cancelled, and we were left last Friday going "huh. what now?"

While many of our friends headed down to the Capitol for the Tea Party that was being held there, Randy and I decided we needed a break from politics and government. A bit of independence, if you will. We live and breathe this stuff, after all.

Central Texas is full of patriotic attractions this time of year, like any population center blessed with easy distance to small towns. We decided fairly quickly on the Hill Country, and ended up in Stonewall, Texas. I've got a bunch of pictures from this day on our Flickr account, which you can check out here.

We left home around 10:00, stopping first at the Merrilltown Cemetery which is right on 1325 near our house. I have an odd fascination with old cemeteries, and this one has often caught my eye, but it didn't become an absolute must-see until April, when the Confederate flags appeared near some of the headstones. My guess is that someone from the Sons of Confederate Veterans or similar does this, because otherwise the cemetery is neglected and in need of attention in several places. From there we drove out to Dripping Springs just in time for lunch at Riley's BBQ. Great place to stop - Dripping Springs has become an obvious suburban victim, but it retains some Hill Country charm, especially at places like Riley's. The locals were gathered to jaw and grab early lunches, but it was otherwise surprisingly quiet, and the food was really good.

We then headed out to Blanco County, stopping for pictures of the courthouse (of course). Did a little daydreaming about owning a shop on the courthouse square. Wondered about the sign in one window for the "Pecan Street Brewery." Intriguing!

The bulk of the day was spent out in Stonewall, Texas at the LBJ Ranch and Texas White House - so very cool! It totally made up for the lack of awesome that was the LBJ Presidential Library. The ranch is a national park and has a lot of sites in addition to the Texas White House, like the cemetery, the school where LBJ went as a child, that kind of thing. Plus, herefords!! The experience was amazing, a great way to spend the 4th, learning about one of our presidents. The house was the most affecting, of course - the Texas White House was just opened to the public about a year and a half ago, after Lady Bird passed away, and parts of the house are not yet open as they await restoration (and Luci Baines Johnson still uses part of the house when she comes into town). There are good interior shots of the Texas White House here - we were told not to take pictures when we were indoors.

Afterwards, we wandered around the Sauer-Beckmann living history farm and exhibit, and then we hit the Pedernales Cellars Winery and split a bottle of Stonewall Viognier on the porch, stopped at the Vogel Orchards store for some famed Stonewall peaches, got dinner at the Hill Country Cupboard in Johnson City, and headed home.

It was a pretty amazing way to spend the 4th, I have to say. We wrapped up the day with going to see fireworks at our local park, and came home to watch the "Independence" episode of John Adams. I'll wrap this up with a YouTube clip of one of the best scenes from that episode - if you don't get chills, well, sirs and ladies, you have no soul.

Happy Independence Day from the Samuelsons

2009-07-04T10:18:00.002-05:00

Picture taken at our house, July 4, 2009.

A break from travel - Lou Gehrig's disease

2009-07-03T14:08:00.003-05:00

As those who know Randy and I personally have heard, my mother Lillian was diagnosed with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (Lou Gehrig's disease, or ALS) last September. My grandmother Jean died from the same disease in 1979. It's a progressive neuromuscular disease - my mother's form of it is known as bulbar ALS and her first symptoms appeared in her throat and tongue muscles. She lost the ability to speak and swallow really before the disease had even been formally diagnosed. In recent months and weeks, her ability to walk has begun to deteriorate, and she will soon be wheelchair bound.

Ironically, perhaps, my mom is also the biggest New York Yankees fan you'll ever meet. She loves baseball - I grew up in a house where the World Series was a bigger deal than any other event! Her special love for the Yankees came because she's from New York, and her parents were big fans themselves.

On July 4, Major League Baseball is going to recognize the 70th anniversary of Lou Gehrig's famous retirement speech and kick off a campaign to raise awareness about the disease that ended Gehrig's life. The speech will be read during the 7th inning stretch of every major league game happening tomorrow, and all the players will wear patches that read "4 ALS." "4" was Gehrig's number, and 4 ALS is an effort by Major and Minor League Baseball, teaming with four ALS organizations, to raise money for research to help find a cure for ALS. The AlS Association, the group my family has chosen to work with, is also sponsoring a fundraiser called "Covering All the Bases."

You can learn more and sign up to support Covering All the Bases here. Learn more about Gehrig, the "Iron Horse" of baseball, and his all-time stats here. Read Gehrig's farewell speech and listen to audio clips here.

Randy and I, along with my sisters, brother, and extended family, will be participating in the Walk to Defeat ALS in Austin later this year. You can learn more about that here. I will have more information on how you can support us, and this very worthy cause, later in the summer.

2005: Brackettville, Texas

2009-07-01T21:12:00.003-05:00

This picture was taken near Brackettville, Texas, in August 2005. Alamo village, where the John Wayne version of The Alamo was filmed. We visited this incredibly cool slice of Texas history after attending (yes, another) YCT retreat at Concan, and floating the Frio River. I recall vividly the signs warning us about snakes - but what was truly worrisome were the free-roaming longhorn cattle! There was a John Wayne museum in the village, in addition to a Western bar where reenactors gave shows a few times a day. This mock Texas village is now closed to visitors, but we were lucky enough to get to see it before that happened.

Part 2: The 2006 Texas Independence Tour, Austin to Port Aransas

2009-06-27T19:11:00.005-05:00

(Part 1 of this trip can be found blogged here)

Continued: Day Two - Wednesday, July 26 - Austin to Port Lavaca.

I realized yesterday that y'all probably have no idea where in Texas all this is, so here's a map that will give you a clue. This is a county map; at the time of this trip, I lived in the north central part of the state, just two counties south of the Red River and the TX/OK state line (Denton County). Travis County is where Austin is located. The line I drew is really only a vague approximation of our actual route, based on the counties we visited.

By this point in the trip, we had covered Austin through Goliad. We were kind of tired and needed to find someplace to stay for the night. I was under the impression we were going to stay in Victoria, so we'd only have a short hop to Refugio and down to Corpus Christi the next day, but it was only four in the afternoon and hey, neither of us had been down to Port Lavaca. So.....

The Victoria County courthouse, built in 1892. This one's not actually in use today; across the street from it is a much more modern building, built in 1967. What struck me about Victoria was how different it was from the rest of this part of the state. It had a skyline, of sorts, punctuated with a bank building and the like. Victoria has a population of just around 50,000, boasts two university campuses (U of Houston at Victoria, and Victoria College), and is situated as kind of the "big city" between Corpus Christi and Houston (it's about equi-distant from San Antonio and Austin, as well). I live in a suburb of Dallas that boasts a population of around 90,000 people, so I wasn't all that impressed, just thrown off given the small towns nearby.

We hit Victoria just as the business day was ending, so we hit some small traffic in the square and took the extra time to examine the monuments. This part of the state was host to several Indian tribes (the Karankawa were last reported to be seen here in 1840, before they fled to Mexico), and this particular area was notable for being the only primarily Mexican portion of Coahuila y Tejas (the name of the state Texas was a part of under Mexican rule) at the time of the Revolution.

We stayed the night in Port Lavaca, in Calhoun County, on the Texas coast. This was another county seat, but the historical courthouse was a huge mess from renovation, and the county annex building was utterly unremarkable. We checked in at Best Western, then went in search of food. I heard from the desk clerk about a bar and seafood grill in Indianola, so we went out in search of it. Fifteen miles of coastal cattle fields later, we found no such place, but we did find Indianola, a "Gulf Coast ghost town." Utterly unremarkable (just a few RV parks and a gas station), except for it's role in history. Indianola as a working seaport town was wiped out by a hurricane in the latter half of the 19th century, but it was a strategic point for the Confederacy. It was here that underwater mines were first invented and tested for use by the Confederate navy. The Union did occupy Port Lavaca in December 1863, but they would leave in June 1864.

(You should try and find a copy of Charlie Robison's "Indianola", by the way. Great song.)

Indianola was also where La Salle first landed in what would become the United States, and there is a marker and even a statue in Indianola to commemorate that.

Back in Port Lavaca, we ended up at a bar for dinner. Randy and I were the only customers, other than the two regulars who were there to harass the one waitress/bartender. The food was pretty good (shrimp for both of us), but one of the regulars, for whom Randy had a whole list of colorful nicknames, kept trying to get us to go fishing with him and kept putting his arms around my boyfriend. We stayed long enough to finish dinner and catch a little of the Astros game, then went back to the motel for a decent night's sleep.

Day Three - Thursday, July 27 - Refugio to Rockport

First stop on Thursday was in Refugio, for the courthouse. Pictured above is the Texas Revolution monument on the town square (Randy's on the phone). Refugio was cool because it was the first Irish settlement we came across; it was part of a land grant given to Empresario James Power. The name comes from the mission that was located here, Our Lady of Refuge. The town's name, however, is pronounced "reh-FEW-ree-o" (goodness knows why; I think it's a slurred version of the Spanish).

Refugio County courthouse, built in 1911. Hard to get a good picture of it since it's surrounded by trees and the morning was kind of foggy.

The drive southwest into San Patricio County was pretty uneventful and not very pretty. The county seat of San Patricio is Sinton, a town currently known for it's high school baseball team. Their mascot is the Scorpions. Sinton is also home to "Texas' largest squirrel," which I didn't get a picture of, sadly.

The San Patricio County courthouse. It's pretty big compared to most of the ones we saw (it reminded me of a high school), and from what we could tell, it was THE place to be in the county.

The San Patricio doughboy. Remarkable because it was the only strictly WWI monument I found on this trip (I believe it's the only one we've seen so far, actually). It was erected between the world wars, and if the sun had been shining you'd be able to tell that it's a very silvery statue. We weren't able to tell if it was the metal or paint.

From Sinton we headed down into Corpus Christi, in search of what proved to be elusive history.

The Nueces County courthouse. It was built in 1914, has survived countless hurricanes and tropical storms, and was abandoned in the 1970s. This is in Corpus Christi; the new courthouse is not close by, and isn't a particularly "pretty" building (the windows reflect gold, which I thought was tacky-looking), but I love this one. It's fenced off, to keep out vagrants, and it was reacquired by the state in the last six years or so (I last saw it in 2001, and I don't recall there being a fence or any sign of reconstruction). There's a sign that says the Texas Historical Commission is working to restore it, and the Corpus Christi Caller-Times reports that renovation was supposed to be completely by July 2005 (the Texas Historical Commission's latest information says the first phase of restoration was completed in May 2006, just before our visit, which is plain from the picture. No word on whether further phases ever took place - I'd appreciate an update if you have one). This courthouse faces the ocean, which is about two hundred yards away - think of the weather it has survived!

The island on the USS Lexington. The Lex is a WWII-era aircraft carrier, now operated by the US Navy as a museum. She's docked in Corpus Christi bay. Bit of personal trivia - when my mom was in the Navy, this ship was in service as a training ship in Pensacola, Florida. My dad wants to retire and work as a volunteer on this ship. Anyway, being a bit of a Navy brat, the Lex was a big part of this trip for me. You can tour the whole thing, and they operate a program for Boy Scouts called "Live Aboard," where Scout troops can come and spend a weekend on the ship. My brother's troop did this once. It's pretty cool; they live in crew quarters and participate in various exercises designed to teach them how the Navy operates.

The plane in view in that picture is an F-14 Tomcat, the plane featured in Top Gun.

Me on the bridge. I'm a little windblown (okay, I'm a lot windblown).

Ahoy!

Randy complained that I made him look like a convict after getting this picture, the one of him in the Gonzales gallows, and also one I took of him in the Gonzales jail.

Randy's kinda tall, and aircraft carriers aren't really made for guys his size, so there was a lot of head-bumping and whatnot as we toured the ship.

After the Lex, we had lunch at Whataburger (we figured it was fitting, since the chain was founded in Corpus Christi), and headed to Rockport. Randy had an interview on a radio show in Houston and we needed to find our motel so he could use a landline.

Rockport's a pretty cool seashore town. Not really a tourist trap like a lot of other places (Port Lavaca was the exception - it's a shrimping town, so there is absolutely no tourist industry). We got into town early enough to go searching for the courthouse. We found it, but it was built in the 1950s and was a little too "sterile" for my taste. So while Randy got his picture, I found this:

I really like old churches. This is an Episcopal church that was built sometime before 1950. There was a beautiful Catholic church in town, too, but no good angle for pictures.

Randy did the interview (knocked it out of the park, really - it was about the 2006 November election and the effect of independent candidates in the gubernatorial race on the down-ballot....you know what, it's political and he did awesome, that's all the necessary information :-). We watched some baseball and just kicked back for awhile, then decided to head out in search of dinner.

The Fulton Mansion. We found it on the way to dinner. It was completed in 1877, and was the home of Robert Fulton, a Texas Revolution hero who later became a cattle baron. It was closed by the time we got there, but the grounds were beautiful and I really loved the house itself. The view from the porch is amazing (and I'm sure it was even better before the paved roads and tourists' boats came along), but my camera lens kept fogging up because of the humidity around here.

We had dinner at a place called The Boiling Pot in Fulton, where Randy convinced me to try crab legs. I'd never had crab legs (I'm a terrible seafood novice, really, even now), and I have to say, I was not disappointed. This place was really laid back and clearly a local favorite, and we had a blast.

Full of cajun food and sleepy from the day in total (it was very windy all day, because we caught the back end of some storms that hit further up the coast). So it was back to the motel, where Randy read and I watched a baseball game. It was a great ending to the day, and to our time on our own.

Day 4 - Friday, July 28 (Port Aransas!!)

We got up on Friday morning and hit the grocery store for supplies (food and BEvERages for 25 people). Then we drove down to Port Aransas and drop the stuff off at the condos, drove back to Corpus Christi to pick someone up at the airport, and then back to Port A.

I saw dolphins while we were on the ferry from Aransas Pass to Port Aransas!!

Randy made cajun-seasoned tilapia for lunch, and we hit the pool while waiting for everyone to arrive.

We hung out a banner and put groceries away in three different condos.

You can sort of tell how nice the condos were in this shot. They were pretty new; the first had three stories, and two balconies. The top floor was just the master bedroom, with king-size bed, and bathroom, with jacuzzi tub.

More waiting and drinking, still on the first afternoon.

Once more people had arrived and we weren't really waiting on anyone specific, we gathered the troops and headed out to a restaurant called the Crazy Cajun.

Me and Tony, a friend from UT. His first time having crab, and of course I was showing off.

We opted not to head to the beach that first night, but first thing the next morning.

The rest of the weekend was pretty cut-and-dried. Beach, pool, beer, football, more beer, barbeque, grilling, beer, etc. Some YCT work had to get done - stuffing envelopes for a fundraiser. I worked on that with some others while Randy and Jenn (our friend Patrick's wife; she wasn't a YCT-er but thanks to Patrick has become one of us) grilled burgers and shrimp. Randy and I went for a walk on the beach Saturday night and saw some shooting stars. Sunday morning, we got up early to clean and have our state board meeting.

Randy retired as state chairman on Sunday, and David was elected as our new chairman.

Some pics from the rest of the weekend:

Trying to throw David into the pool.

Tony, making "sand angels." I thought he was playing dead.

View of the ocean.

Horrible picture of me as we're packing up to leave.

We had some friends with us in the car on the way home, so we didn't stop in Bee County for the last of the courthouse shots. We made it back to Austin, dropped the girls off, and then worked on unloading the truck. Somehow we ended up with more stuff on the way home than on the way down.

And so ends the tale of our 2006 Texas Independence Tour. Hopefully these posts were as educational for you as the trip itself was for us!

Off the beaten path - a bridge between Austin and Lockhart

2009-06-24T13:38:00.002-05:00

Another picture from 2007. This one was taken in March, between Austin and Lockhart not far off HWY 183. The bridge was probably built in the 1890-1910 era. This is old TX 71.

Ornate modernity

2009-06-23T22:14:00.003-05:00

The Sugar Land City Hall, and the statue of Stephen F. Austin in the fountain in front of it.

Picture taken February 2007, on a trip to Houston.

The 2006 Texas Independence Tour, Austin to Port Aransas

2009-06-23T15:48:00.005-05:00

So YCT (the political group Randy and I were both active in for several years) has an annual retreat in the summer, and in 2006 it was held down on the Texas coast, at Port Aransas. Port A is basically a tourist trap; not as popular with the college crowd as South Padre Island, which makes it much more tolerable, but just to give you an example - the daily population of Port Aransas is about 2000, and on the weekends it jumps as high as 5000. For retreat, we rent out a few condos for two nights sometime in the summer, and round up whoever wants to go (and is willing to drop about $100 for accommodations and a couple of meals). As far as states go, Texas is huge, as you all are probably aware of. It's a fourteen-hour trip from Amarillo to Port Aransas. So we don't get a big turnout to these coastal trips, which happen every couple of years (we also do retreat down somewhere on the Frio or Guadalupe Rivers, and in the Hill Country at Lake LBJ or Lake Buchanan)

In 2006, Randy and I had just started dating, and he was relinquishing his position as YCT state chairman the weekend of the retreat. We decided to make a whole vacation out of it. I met him in Austin on Tuesday night, and Wednesday morning we headed south along the Texas Independence Trail, to see the sights and spend some quality time together. We were dating long-distance and times like this were very important in our courtship.

Day One - Tuesday, July 25, 2006 - Dallas to Austin. I took a train down to Austin, my first train ride ever. The train station is in downtown Dallas, which is about a 25-35 minute drive south from where I live. The trip itself was great; there were relatively few people on the train, and it was quiet. The only snag was the three-hour wait in Fort Worth. The electrical switch just before the Ft. Worth station went down, and it took two hours for it to get fixed. Then we made the stop to pick up people, and then just as we were pulling out of the station, we got held up for an hour by freight traffic. Three hours of seeing I-30 out my window. UGH. So my train got into Austin at 11:30 Tuesday night.

Union Station, in Dallas. The building itself is about 75 years old, I think, which isn't very old, but it's a pretty cool building nonetheless.

The Dallas Morning News building. It's across the street from Union Station; this is a really cool part of Dallas, actually. The Sixth Floor Museum (which was the Dallas School Book Depository), where Kennedy was shot, is about two or three blocks away.

The Hyatt. This was the view from my window on the train, while we were in Dallas. I love this building, and it was just about the last bit of modern architecture I saw for the next six days.

Day Two - Wednesday, July 26 - Austin to Port Lavaca. We left fairly early in the morning, but late enough to avoid the bulk of rush hour traffic. Not that it mattered much; Randy opposes taking major freeways when you can take backroads (if you've got the time, that is). I'm all for it. That's how you get to see the best things, and meet the best people. So we drove down to Gonzales, and there started our Texas Independence tour.

Gonzales is noteworthy because it's where the first battle in the Texas Revolution took place, but it was also home to a great many Confederate soldiers. The first thing I found there was this plaque, donated to the women of the Confederacy. I've seen a lot of monuments and memorials to the Confederacy, but never to Confederate women. The inscription moved me - "Whose hearts bled, whose hands healed, whose pride was crucified, yet who were never conquered by the bitterness of war nor the devastation of Reconstruction."

The actual Confederate monument; behind it is the town's fire station, built in the 1920s, I believe, and still in use.

The Immortal 32 monument. Gonzales was the only town to answer Travis' call for help at the Alamo. Thirty-two Gonzales men marched to San Antonio and met their end there. This monument stands as a memorial to them, and also to the 18 men who died in the Battle of Gonzales a few months prior.

This is Randy reading the historical marker about Andrew Ponton, who was the "Alcalde of Gonzales" in 1835 when the Mexicans came for the cannon the town used for defense. More on that in a bit.

The Gonzales County courthouse. I've mentioned before that Randy's hobby is collecting photographs of the courthouses in Texas. There are 254 counties in the state, and Randy's got pictures of just over 120 courthouses so far. We got a total of ten over the weekend, and could have gotten eleven, but we decided against stopping in Beeville (Bee County) on the way home on Sunday. I got pictures of just a few of the prettier and older courthouses on the trip.

Me in the Gonzales County jail. The whole jail is a museum now. They have never updated it with air conditioning (or, to our knowledge, heating), so it's pretty true to it's original feel. It's a fairly big jail, too, and this portion of it was presumably where solitary prisoners were held, and also those bound for the gallows. The cells are smaller, more closed off. I'm standing at the outside door and behind me are the actual cells. Nearby is an iron plate confirming that these bars were made in Pittsburgh, PA in 1883.

Randy at the gallows in the Gonzales jail. The museum guide told us that this was all a recreation, but that the gallows really were housed in this portion of the jail from about 1915 onwards. Prior to that they had the hangings outside (there are quite a few courthouses in Texas that are built close to huge oak trees, which were specifically used for hanging; I got a picture of one in Goliad County).

The museum in Gonzales. This is the home of the "Come and Take It" cannon, and was built in the 1930s, so it's a bit of a piece of history in and of itself (it was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 2004). There's an amphitheater behind it that is used mainly for sunrise Easter Sunday church services now.

Randy and me with the "Come and Take It" cannon. This cannon was given to the citizens of Gonzales by the Mexican government in the 1820s to defend against Indian attacks. Some years later, there was a lot of unrest and talk of revolution. Antonio Lopez de Santa Anna was a horrible dictator and Texas chafed under his rule. In 1835, revolution began here in Gonzales. The Mexican government demanded the return of the cannon, and Andrew Ponton wrote a letter saying no, they weren't giving it back. The Mexican Army marched towards Gonzales, and the citizens buried the cannon in a peach orchard (there is a mechanic's shop standing in the spot today, and there's a marker showing where the cannon was buried). The Battle of Gonzales took place on October 2, 1835; the Texians (as they were called then) flew a flag the women had made that said "Come and Take It" and had a picture of a cannon on it. The Texians won that battle; the Mexicans didn't get the cannon, and it has been in Gonzales ever since (except for occasional tours around the state).

At this point, we were taken on a driving tour of the town by a man named Leon Netardus. This guy was pretty cool; he's well known to Texas historians because he knows so much about Gonzales, and he's the star of the Gonzales drama about Texas Independence (he plays Empresario Green DeWitt, whose land grant from the Mexican government formed this portion of Texas). Gonzales is an amazing historical gem; there are several historical mansions, most of which were built before 1900 (one or two as early as 1851).

Next stop....Shiner.

The Spoetzl brewery in Shiner, Texas, home of Shiner beers. We stopped to sample some beer (I'm a huge fan of Shiner Bock). Neither of us had ever had the Summer Stock, which is now called Kolsch, so that's what we had. Liked it so much that we bought a twenty-four pack at the town's only grocery store (Shiner is a very small town, about 2070 people). The brewery does offer tours, but only twice a day and we didn't really have time to stop and wait for the next one.

This is the Lavaca County courthouse in Hallettsville. We had lunch at the Novasad BBQ and Meat Market here, which is fairly well-known and has the best beef sausage either of us has ever had.

Then it was on to Goliad, a major place in Texas history.

The Goliad County courthouse. Not a great shot, really, but the courthouse is one of the oldest in Texas, built in 1894.

The hanging tree outside the courthouse in Goliad. There's even a plaque to mark it (I've seen other oak trees this size outside courthouses, but none that were marked). The story has it that this tree was used for both official and unofficial hangings. I want to note here that hanging is still the lawful punishment for horse theft in Texas (not that it's been done in probably a century...).

The plaque outside Mission Nuestra Senora del Espíritu Santo de Zuniga at the Goliad State Park. This mission is a replica of the original; the replica was built by the Civilian Conservation Corps in the 1930s, and the original was located here in 1749. A lot of the artifacts on-site are originals, dug up during excavations of the site during construction of the current building.

The Virgin Mary, above the front door of the church.

The pulpit inside the church. This church isn't used for mass; it's mostly filled with artifacts from the excavation and tools from the rebuilding. The mission was a major project that gave a lot of jobs to the area during the Great Depression, too, so there are a lot of displays dedicated to that.

Our Lady of Loreto Chapel at Presidio La Bahia. This is just up the road from Goliad State Park and is extremely significant to early Texas history. The current church building has been in use since 1779 and is currently operated by the Catholic Diocese of Victoria, Texas (the place was a fort for the Spanish in the 1700s, the Mexicans in the early 1800s, Texas during the Republic, and I believe it was used by the Confederacy as well). I was extremely interested to see this church; it appeals to the Catholic in me, and the historian.

One of the flags flown at the Presidio. This fort is important because it is where Colonel James Fannin and his men were stationed during the Texas Revolution, before they were slaughtered by General Urrea in 1836. Fannin called the place "Fort Defiance."

This bell hung at this mission 26 years before the American Declaration of Independence was signed (1776) (that church building no longer exists).

The altar inside the Presidio church. Mass is held here on Sundays at 5pm, and one day I'd like to go back for it. I've never taken an actual religious pilgrimage, but this was close. The church is amazing and old-fashioned (you can sort of see the prayer candles up front, which visitors are allowed to light), right down to the confessional in the back and a working belfry.

No word if this an original cannon, but this is the view from one of the cannon towers at the front of the Presidio.

View from one of the gun ports on the back wall of the Presidio. There is a road between the field and the wall, but I tried to make sure it wasn't in the shot. This field separates the Presidio from Fannin's grave.

This was as close as I would get for a picture (we did walk up to the monument to read the names and the dedication, though). This monument marks the place where Col. Fannin and his men were taken to and killed by Urrea. After their defeat in March 1836 (after the fall of the Alamo, which Fannin never reached), the wounded and surviving were taken back to Fort Defiance and held there for a week. On Palm Sunday, they were taken out to this field and murdered. Fannin, since he was the commanding officer, asked that he not be shot in the face, that his effects be returned to his family, and that he be given a Christian burial. He was shot in the face, the soldiers divided up his belongings, and he was left for the buzzards with the others. A few Texians did survive, playing dead or what have you, and escaped to the San Antonio River nearby. A few others, too wounded to try that, were rescued by a woman who came to be known as the Angel of Goliad. There is a monument to her nearby.

I don't think I can convey what this place means to me. It was a very solemn portion of our trip. The field near this monument is a quiet, eerie place, though the battle itself took places several miles from here.

The Fannin Monument at the battlefield, seven miles outside of Goliad. The state park is in terrible condition, but it does have a small display room with a historical timeline and plaque dedicated the man who donated this land to the Historical Commission. The monument is basically a miniature scale version of the San Jacinto monument (that one marks the place where Santa Anna was defeated by General Sam Houston, the battle that ended the Revolution and won Texas her independence from Mexico).

The Texas flag is the only one that flies at the Fannin battleground.

We ended the day in Victoria and then drove down to Port Lavaca to spend the night, and I have some pictures from that, but I'll include them in the next post (which will include Refugio, San Patricio, Corpus Christi/Nueces County/the USS Lexington, and Port Aransas).

East Texas Adventure, June 12-14

2009-06-23T10:27:00.002-05:00

We spent the weekend of June 12-14, 2009 in northeast Texas, up in Mount Pleasant and points surrounding. It was for a political gig, but that wrapped up in the late afternoon Saturday and we were free to roam from there. Trust me when I say, leaving that particular event to roam the backwoods of northeast Texas was the most freeing sensation I've had in probably a year or more. Between the general pace of life and the personal things that have happened....yeah.

So the counties up there are, for the most part, dry (meaning, the sale of alcohol is prohibited by law). The immediate four counties we ventured in Saturday were all dry. Except, in Camp County (seat: Pittsburg), there were two wineries right off the highway. So after the beating that was the general business meeting (I HATE parliamentary fights used as substitutes for the personality battles that are actual seething under the surface), we headed to the Los Pinos Ranch Vineyards just outside Pittsburg, Texas.

This place was the BEST getaway possible. It was off several one-lane dirt roads, hidden behind tall trees that shaded us from the 100+ degree day. We were surprised to find the place open - most wineries and tasting rooms we've been to close at 5 or 6pm. But this one, probably in part due to the fact that it's the only "watering hole" of its kind in the area, is open on Friday and Saturdays until 11pm. Unlike a lot of tasting rooms, it was full of character and ambiance, which was the perfect cure. I felt relaxed just sitting down at a table.

I ended up, instead of doing a tasting, ordering a peach concoction, the name of which escapes me, but that was basically peach nectar and the winery's chenin blanc, with cherries and chunks of peach. Absolute heaven. My husband did a sweet wine tasting and ended with a glass of "Rosie the Riveter" (the winery's Rose'). We shared a huge plate of bruschetta and just sat there letting the tension drain and our wits return. (Here's a picture of me outside the winery)

We headed that night into Lone Star (apparently, there are 2 "Lone Star"s in Texas) and Daingerfield, the county seat of Morris County. Lone Star was nothing special, really, though in searching for a sign or something to take a picture of, we found a police station with a sign stating the hours of operation. I found that incredible - police who only work 8am to 6pm! It was pretty incredible.

Daingerfield proved a moderate disappointment. We found the Morris County Courthouse pretty quickly, but it's not very nice looking and it was hard to get a picture since it's actually on the highway. We left our copy of The Courthouses of Texas at home, so we couldn't get further info, but I found out later that the original courthouse still stands and is a museum - we just didn't dig enough in town. What should have been the courthouse square was just a city park (albeit with plenty of historical markers to help explain this conundrum of a town).

Our drive back home today took us into all sorts of neat little east Texas towns (we don't ever take the major highways when we can avoid doing so - today was great for that, hardly a soul on the road and a beautiful view the whole time). Some of the towns were less impressive than others, as happens with small towns. Many of them are very old, have fallen on hard times, seem never to have moved past a certain point in time, etc. But Clarksville, in Red River County, and some others were charming and had the feel of places steeped in history and lore. Clarksville is one of the oldest towns in Texas, founded in 1833 and serving as a major hub during the Civil War.

The high school in Clarksville had a statue of Republic of Texas president David G. Burnet (burn-IT - learn it, durn it!). We couldn't figure out why (this Handbook of Texas article on Burnet sheds some light - but why Clarksville High School was chosen remains a mystery). There is a good Texas Escapes article about Clarksville here, written in 2003. Randy and I are absolute geeks for historical buildings (especially courthouses - the Clarksville one is a beauty) and the sense of history runs extremely deep in Clarksville, which is a gem of a Texas town we really didn't expect.

We ended the trip by skirting south through Athens, down into Corsicana and through Waco from the southeast. We hopped on I-35 for the last stretch home from Waco - which was only necessary because we were trying to get home in time for a Longhorn baseball game!

Lovely trip, full of gentle surprises and reminders that Texas is far more than just the 1-35 Corridor. It was especially nice to get away from the cities and enjoy what Texas' vast rural area has to offer and remind us of.

Weekend Get Away from Austin

2009-06-21T16:30:00.003-05:00

This isn't a long post, because it wasn't a long trip. It was great getting out of Austin for a few hours and going to Marble Falls. Marble Falls is a little community on the lake about 40 miles west of Austin.

We took FM 1431, which winds through some of the prettiest land in Travis County. Between Lago Vista and Marble Falls is the little community of Smithwick. This is a now nothing more than a church, a community center, and a cemetary. The Smithwick Cemetary is full of memories from a time of yesteryear. One can only imagine what these brave pioneers saw when they reached this land and began to carve out homesteads, ranches, farms, and mills.

In Marble Falls, we stopped at the River City Grill for lunch. I had a local menu specialty there called "Paul's Chicken" which is a chicken breast, breaded in potato chips, fried, and smotherd in Hatch green chili sauce and monterry jack cheese. Wow. Only in Central Texas will fried chicken be covered in homemade hot sauce instead of gravy!

Flat Creek winery is also nestled in the hills off of Travis Peak Road near Lago Vista. We were only able to buy a couple of bottles instead of sitting there enjoying the afternoon because the winery was closing for a wedding. Better luck next time.

All in all, a relaxing round trip in the Hill Country. Nothing beats the hustle and bustle of Austin like driving out to a small town, doing some antique shopping, eating a great lunch, and picking up a couple of bottles of wine.

Since we haven't traveled Texas in months.....

2009-06-02T17:56:00.001-05:00

Randy and I have been busy busy busy for the last six months. He works in the legislature and I work in grassroots politics, so I thought it would be appropriate to share this post here. Pictures from the 81st Session of the Texas Legislature (couple of pics courtesy of Cassie Daniel, all others by Randy and myself)

Snakes! Provided by the Sweetwater Chamber of Commerce in honor of the annual Rattlesnake Round-Up.

Two lobbyists having a lightsaber duel.

Citizens lined up to testify on SB 362, the voter identification legislation, before the Committee of the Whole Senate in March.

Passing HCR 16, changing the official state dinosaur. Yeah.

A citizen holding up the Republic of Texas flag at Rep. Creighton's press conference on HCR 50, the sovereignty/10th Amendment legislation, in early April.

Governor Perry addressing the RightOnline blogger conference on May 23.

The first-ever rally for tax increases (the TLOTA) at the State Capitol, held on May 29. In this photo are Senator Wendy Davis (D-Fort Worth), Senator Kirk Watson (D-Austin), Senator John Carona (R-Dallas), Rep. Vicki Truitt (R-Fort Worth) and Rep. Mike Villareal (D-San Antonio). The "Texas Not Taxes" sign is being held up behind Sen. Carona by Americans for Prosperity's Peggy Venable - about 30 grassroots activists showed up to be "anti-protesters" against the taxes proposed by Carona and Truitt.

Dead legislation! This is a stack of dead bills the morning of sine die on June 1. The black spot you see is an eyepatch, put there in honor of Rep. Rene Oliviera (D-Brownsville).

Mourning some dead legislation on sine die.

The Texas State Capitol on sine die, June 1, 2009. Beautiful day in Austin!!

Easter Weekend 2009 - Justin, TX

2009-04-13T17:13:00.002-05:00

Thanks to our jobs, we haven't had a lot of chances for weekend getaways since Christmas. But Easter weekend, we headed north to visit my parents in Lewisville, in Denton County. While we were there, we headed to the other side of the county to Justin.

What's amazing about Denton County, and really everything along I-35W, is the way you can be in the "country" while the thick of a big city or suburb just fifteen miles to the east. Lewisville is a town of around 100,000 residents. Justin, to the west, boasts barely 2000. Lewisville's agricultural roots are hard to see amongst the concrete and brick; Justin is surrounded by farmland even all these years after the Texas Motor Speedway was built.

We decided, while in Justin, that we needed to stop by the Justin Boots Discount stores. We walked out with a pair of black, smooth ostrich skin cowboy boots for Randy, at about half what we'd get them for in a regular boot store elsewhere.

From there, we headed north into Fort Worth to Cabela's - not for camping or hunting gear, but for bison bratwurst and buffalo burgers for lunch.

One last thought about this brief trip. It's certainly a reality check to look at what new homes are going for in Denton County. Looked to us like homes that might go for $200,000 or more here in Austin were going for, at minimum, $140,000 in the Justin/Argyle area.

Nothing like a return to the People's Republic for sticker shock!

Austin's Best Pizza

2008-12-29T19:04:00.003-06:00

I've got to give some mad props to some of Austin, Texas' finest pizza places.

1. Frank and Angie's on 5th Street

Every native Austinite knows about Frank and Angie's. This little slice of heaven is located between 5th and 6th Street on West Avenue in downtown Austin. The first thing you notice is the Italian atmosphere on the walls, tables, and in the decorations. Frank Sinatra, Tony Soprano, the New York Yankees, etc. Of course, the pizza is delivered fresh to your table after you take in the atmosphere. The whole experience, including wine, makes you feel like you are in a different time and place. Great food, great atmosphere. Great place for a special date or anniversary.

2. Mangia's Pizza.

I know, this place is a chain, but it is a local chain! Deep dish Chicago style pizza with some unique Austin toppings like low-fat mozzarella, BBQ chicken, jalepenos, and spicy sauces. Couple that with a fine dark beer on tap, and you have a great meal. This is the only place that I have found that has New Belgium's 1554 beer on tap!

3. New York Style Pizza

If you live in South Austin, Home Slice is the finest. It is on South First street, about a mile south of Riverside Drive. If you live in North Austin, check out the Brooklyn Pie Company in La Frontera shopping center in Round Rock. Both of these places are authentic New York style pizza places and are fantastic for a quick lunch or a dinner with friends.

In a city that is known for barbeque and hamburgers, Austin has some of the best mom-and-pop pizza places in Texas. Go check them out!

Central Texas Spring Getaway

2008-12-28T13:37:00.003-06:00

Bluebonnet season begins in late March and runs through late April in Central Texas. There are a number of great weekend getaways that are cheap and will really give you the ambiance of rural Texas.

The Texas Hill Country, west of Austin, is a beautiful place to see the state flower, the bluebonnet. The area near the Highland Lakes is ideal for great family pictures, unique scenery, and a relaxing drive through the country. From Austin, the ideal route is to go west from Austin to Marble Falls. Marble Falls, incidentally, has a great restaraunt called the "Bluebonnet Cafe" located on US 281 just north of Lake Marble Falls.

From Marble Falls, continue to meander up State Highway 71 to Llano. This highway cuts through some of the most beautiful country in Texas. The landscape changes from rolling hills to granite mesas and mountains. The sandy streams that pass under the highway give you an idea of the dynamic geology of the Texas Hill Country. The closer you get to Llano, the closer you get to Enchanted Rock, a granite dome that towers above the surrounding landscape located between Llano and Fredericksburg.

All the while the countryside is covered with seas of blue and red wildflowers. Pull over and take pictures as often as traffic will allow, which is fairly frequently.

In Llano, stop at Cooper's barbeque. You will not be disappointed.

From Llano, take State Highway 16 south to Fredericksburg. This is an absolutely beautiful highway. You wind around going south through large granite outcropping and have the feeling that you are in the middle of nowhere. Fear not, though. Fredericksburg is worth the drive.

Fredericksburg is a destination in itself. The locals are not real fond of tourists, but they are fond of making money off of tourists. Fredericksburg is a German town and home of the Admiral Nimitz War of the Pacific Museum. This is the only museum in America that is dedicated to preserving and showcasing the history of World War II in the Pacific Theater against Japan. This museum is well worth the time to go through.

Directly across the street from the museum is the home that Admiral Nimitz grew up in and the Fredericksburg Brewing Company microbrewery. Authentic German food and authentic beer is a great combination!

Fredericksburg is also home to many great souveneir shops, antique stores, annual festivals of all kinds, and the is the center of the Texas Hill Country wine country. Many local wineries have tasting rooms on site.

I could go on for hours about what to do in Fredericksburg, but I would rather just go back and enjoy the town again.

As you drive US 290 back to Austin, you will pass by the LBJ Ranch and National Historical Park and go through the town of Johnson City.

The trip concludes with one last photo op in Dripping Springs, as you watch the sun set over the Texas Hill Country on your way home to Austin. Bluebonnets at dusk after a great day in the Texas Hill Country is a priceless, yet cheap getaway for a weekend.

Main Street Bethlehem in Burnet, TX

2008-12-14T21:13:00.003-06:00

A new Christmas tradition in Central Texas has become the Main Street Bethlehem exhibit, put on by the First Baptist Church in Burnet, TX. This little town of about 4,000 people, located an hour northwest of Austin, turns into a thriving metropolis on the weekends leading up to Christmas each year.

The Baptist Church in town owns one square block of property, just off of main street in Burnet. They took the property and built buildings that resumble the little town of Bethlehem from the time that Christ was born. They recreated a synagogue, a market with actual blacksmiths, leathermakers, carpenters and rug makers, a jail, a tax office staffed by Roman Centurions, and an inn, that surprisingly has no rooms free. Bethlehem is full of livestock including camels, sheep, goats, ducks, and cattle and shepherds who quietly gossip among the shopkeepers and patrons in town about a miracle that has taken place near the corner of the recreated town, beneath a bright star.

In that corner, you find a young married couple, in a cave, surrounded by livestock, holding an infant trying to keep warm. The only way to see this live nativity scene is to bow down low and peek into the opening of the cave. The imagery of this scene is spectacular as the the only way to truly see Christ is to humble yourself and bow your head low.

The Main Street Bethlehem exhibit is now closed until December 2009, but if you are in Central Texas next Christmas, I urge you to take a scenic drive to the little town of Burnet to get a quick glimpse into the little town of Bethlehem, the birthplace of Jesus Christ, our Lord and Savior. The experience is truly humbling.

(PS from Michele - We went to the exhibit in December 2008 with our small group from Grace Covenant. It was a great experience to share with friends and we encourage you to think about gathering your friends and going in 2009. Afterward, we had dinner at Jim's in Austin, up on 183 and Balcones Woods - great southern comfort food!!)

Good BBQ and Good Times at Gonzales Winterfest

2008-12-06T21:56:00.006-06:00

Michele and I had the pleasure today of going to the Annual Winterfest in Gonzales, TX today with our friends, Thomas and Brooke. What a great day.

On the way to Gonzalez, we stopped in Lockhart to read the Texas Historical Commission plaque describing the Battle of Plum Creek. This is the battle in which the Comanche Indians invaded Central Texas in 1840 trying to drive the Texians out of the Republic. The Comanches succeded in staving off the western expansion by the Texians, but it also spurred the Republic of Texas to beef up their defenses against the Indians and work to drive them out of Texas. This effort took 40 more years and only became effective after the Civil War when former soldiers killed the buffaloes along the Great Plains, causing wide-spread starvation among the Comanche tribe.

In Luling, we stopped at City Market to have some fantastic BBQ. The brisket, sausage, and ribs at City Market are some of the best I have ever had.

We then traveled down to Winterfest in Gonzales to see the historic home tours. We visited the jailhouse in town, took a few goofy pictures at the gallows and the jail cells, and then began looking at the historic homes in Gonzales. There were five homes on show today. The most impressive of these homes is the J.D. Houston home, near the courthouse. This home was built in the 1890's by the banker J.D. Houston. The home was sold to another family at the turn of the 20th century and then to the current owner's grandparents. The current owners are restoring the house to its original quality, as it was originally designed by the same architect who built the Littlefield House on the UT campus. This is the first opportunity for many people in Gonzales to see the interior of this home in many years.

Other homes on the tour included the College, built in 1851, the J.B. Wells home, built in the 1880's, the W.T. Dawe house, built in 1907, and the J.C. Bright house, built in 1911. These are all very fine homes.

After leaving Gonzales, we came back to Austin to watch the first half of the Big 12 Championship Game. The game is not going well for the University of Texas, but the day went very well for us in seeing historic Texas locations with good friends.

Little House and Rocky Ridge Farm

2008-07-11T11:57:00.002-05:00

I don't know why, but as a kid I was addicted to the Little House on the Prairie books written by Laura Ingalls Wilder. I didn't read Anne of Green Gables until I was an adult. So my imagination was shaped more by the descriptions of prairie grass, Midwestern winters, railroads, etc. than it was by Anne's Prince Edward Island. Wilder's books are aimed at considerably younger audience than Montgomery's, but I recall an annual re-read of the Little House series through my teenage years. And get this - I have never seen an entire episode of the Little House TV series. .

Last Tuesday, we woke up in Bartlesville, Oklahoma, where I spent the first 9 years of my life. It was easy to immediately be reminded of Laura Ingalls Wilder's descriptions of the south Kansas prairie, and of my own fascination with the story. As we drove up Hwy 75 toward Independence, Kansas, I was shocked to see signs for the site of the Little House on the Prairie. My husband, being just that awesome, followed the signs and we stopped at a little grove of trees surrounding a log cabin and some other old buildings.I grew up thirty miles from it, and traveled that same road frequently to visit my grandparents in Kansas City, and never saw this place!!

Back in the '70s, history enthusiasts were able to locate the precise place where Charles Ingalls built a log cabin and dug a well for his family. The cabin was long gone but the foundation remained, as did the well. And that's how this little tourist trap (it can be called little else) was put up. You can read a lot about it here: http://www.littlehouseontheprairie.com We got pictures which I'll post later. I was just so enthralled by this place, you have no idea! The prairie is largely as wide open as it was in Laura's day, and it's very easy to imagine being a little girl there.

Later that week, on Thursday, we drove south from St. Louis down to Neosho, taking a highway out of Jefferson City. I happened to notice on the map that our route took us through Mansfield, which Wilder readers will recall is where the Wilders settled in 1894. We wouldn't make it in time to tour the home and museum, but we did get pictures of Rocky Ridge Farm, and the Wilder graves (which, as you might imagine, was kind of an emotional moment for me).

I was just so excited to be able to visit two of the Ingalls/Wilder homesteads on this trip. We're supposed to have our family reunion in South Dakota in two years - I fully intend to go to De Smet and see the Ingalls homestead there as well!

A Hidden Pearl: Jefferson, TX

2008-07-08T21:12:00.003-05:00

On our way home from Missouri, we took a scenic tour through the Ouchita Mountains in Arkansas and then a leisurely drive through Northeast Texas. Along the way, we came across Jefferson, TX, the county seat of Marion County.

Surprisingly, I had never been to Jefferson, TX. The town is named after Thomas Jefferson and the county is named after Francis Marion, the "Swamp Fox" himself. That is impressive in its own right.

Jefferson experienced its heydays in the 1800's when riverboats came upstream on the Black Bayou and Big Cypress Creek. The town thrived with hotels, restaraunts, mercantilism, and farming. The railroads and later the highways made the riverboats obsolete.

Fortunately, there are some bright historical entreprenuers that recreated downtown Jefferson. The old riverfront district is now a thriving metropolis for visitors who would like to get away for a relaxing weekeing. There are now antique shops in what used to be general stores. The old restaraunts and pharmacies are now BBQ restaraunts, old-fashioned hamburger stands, and Texas roadhouses. The old hotels are now high quality bed-and-breakfasts.

The town also features riverboat rides up the bayou, historical stage coach rides along the cobblestone streats, and a steam train.

This hidden pearl of Texas is a shining jewel to folks like me who enjoy relaxing along the scenic by-ways in our grand state.

An old adventure - Gonzales, TX, December 2, 2006

2008-07-08T15:19:00.000-05:00

We started out around ten, to make it to Lockhart in time for a barbeque lunch at Black's BBQ. Black's is the oldest continuously operating and single-family-owned barbeque place in the state, and is extremely charming. The food was great - I had brisket, my usual - and the dining room is covered in framed photos detailing the history of the town. There's a team photo of every Lockhart High varsity football team dating back as far as 1918, signed pictures from former Texas governors Bob Bullock and Ann Richards, a pic of the owners with George W. Bush (before he became governor here), one of the original founder with Lyndon Johnson. We also happened into Lockhart during their "Dickens Christmas" festival and walked around that for a bit.

Then it was straight down to Gonzales. All told, Gonzales is a little over an hour from where I live in Austin. And in Lockhart, Luling, and Gonzales, you have virtually no sense of being so close to Austin. It's really wonderful. A lot of the counties close to Travis County have really begun to build up, but Caldwell and Gonzales counties have remained quiet. Randy assures me it won't stay like that for long, with the new Texas 130 coming down that way parallel to Hwy 183. C'est la vie, I suppose, but if Gonzales is ever ruined, it'll depress the hell out of me.

Anyway! Gonzales! We went there back over the summer; it was the first stop in our tour of the Texas Independence Trail. It was my favorite part then. We learned at that time about the Winterfest. A member of the Gonzales Historical Committee, Leon Netardus, took us on a driving tour of part of the town then and told us all about what the town does in December. So we got there today and started off at the courthouse for the book fair. I missed meeting the author of my book, but I did get a signed copy thanks to a very kind lady.

We killed an hour walking around the square, getting pictures of the churches we'd missed over the summer, browsing the craft fair, that sort of thing. Then we went back to the courthouse for the "Texas Beginnings" presentation. It's the four members of the historical society, dressed up in period costume and telling the story of Gonzales' founding, the revolution, and the beginning of statehood. It was fantastic. They ended it with coordinating an audience sing-along of "Texas, Our Texas."

Then to the home tour. This was so much fun! Gonzales has over forty historic homes (and many more that are old, but the history's been lost). Each year, different homes are included on the tour. Each house has been restored, some to their original grandeur, others to a more modern sense. A couple of them are still residences, others have become guest cottages and inns. One we saw today had become an antique shop (as a result, it lost a lot of the charm it might have had otherwise, IMHO). My favorite was the John Fauth house. It's operated as a guest cottage now and of the houses we saw, is the most like it was originally. The owners live across the street in another old home, and have very painstakingly restored the original woodwork and design. It was built in 1869 by a German immigrant who published the first German newspaper in south-central Texas (a bunch of the papers were uncovered when the owners stripped the walls out to restore them).

I was amazed all day long. We topped the day off by going to the Pioneer Village in town, where there is an circa-1870 church, a circa-1875 house that was moved from a nearby town and fully restored, a replica 1840 dogrun house, and "villagers" who display 19th-century skills. For Christmas, they decorate the village with Christmas lights and have musicians (one skilled musician was at the old church displaying what he could do and knew about a variety of early American instruments). I have to say, it was great "for all ages" - a lot of older people out enjoying it, and young families (kids LOVED this place, it's very hands-on). And of course, it was romantic. The paths are lit by lanterns and all the buildings had only candlelight, and it was just beautiful.

Getting Ready for Missouri

2008-06-28T23:02:00.002-05:00

On Monday morning, we're leaving Texas for points north, specifically the state of Missouri and my family reunion.

On the itinerery - Palestine, Tyler, and parts of northeast Texas where Randy doesn't have courthouse photos. Oklahoma, specifically Tulsa and hopefully Bartlesville, where I spent a good portion of my childhood. Day two, we'll head into Kansas City, Missouri to see the WWI museum and get dinner with my grandparents. Day three, the Truman Library, and then east to St. Louis to hopefully catch a Cards/Mets game (so we can boo Pedro Martinez, scheduled to pitch Wednesday). Thursday it'll be down through Missouri with a for-sure stop in Houston, county seat of (what else?) Texas County, and onwards to Neosho where my family is gathering. Our trip home may include parts of Arkansas (instead of coming back through Oklahoma).

This is going to be an awesome trip!

Some of the places we've been together

2008-06-28T17:45:00.000-05:00

Starting way back in March 2005, we began traveling together as friends before we knew we had feelings for each other! We started out by going to Happy, Texas to visit friends. The trip was Randy leaving from Austin, picking up some friends of ours in Waco, driving up to Denton to pick me up, and then traveling west through places like Wichita Falls, Chillicothe, Turkey, and finally Happy.

That summer, we both attended a retreat in Concan, TX along the Frio River. While there, we ventured together with another friend to Bracketville and Uvalde. In Bracketville, we visited the old Alamo movie set (where there is also an awesome John Wayne museum and plenty of longhorn cattle!).

Also in 2005, we made it to Waco, where we saw the Gimbles play for the first time. Later we ended up in College Station, and had our first dance at Hurricane Harry's (to George Strait's "Cross My Heart").

In 2006, we began dating casually in March and made it "official" on May 20. Randy came to visit me in Denton and later in Lewisville, and from there we went to places like Greenville, Canton (for First Mondays!), Frisco to see the Rough Riders play, and other places in north Texas. I also went to Austin to visit him, and he got me hooked on the city by taking me places like Mount Bonnell and the Bob Bullock State History Museum.

We went to Crawford once for a rally; we also headed to Washington-on-the-Brazos and College Station again.

That summer, we went together to San Antonio for the state Republican convention, stopping in Fredericksburg for the first time to see the WWII museum. We went back later in the summer with some friends, to see the Pacific War reenactment.

In August, we attended another retreat, this time in Port Aransas. We made this a very interesting trip, leaving several days early from Austin. We drove south through Lockhart, Gonzales, Shiner, Hallettsville, Goliad, Refugio, Victoria, Port Lavaca, to Rockport and Corpus Christi before ending up in Port Aransas. You can see some of the pictures from this trip here.

In October 2006, I moved to Austin, and we took day trips and mini trips around the city and through the Hill Country. Around Christmas we went back to Gonzales, and did the historic home tour there. On Easter weekend, 2007, we went up to Llano and got bbq at Cooper's, and went looking for bluebonnets around the Hill Country. Later that spring we went hiking at Colorado Bend State Park, and took a long, windy way home to see the sights (including Democrat, TX!). We also visited San Marcos and the Natural Bridge Caverns on Randy's birthday in May 2007.

In July 2007, we were at Lake Buchanan in the Hill Country for yet another retreat. We stopped in Marble Falls on the way, and went to Llano while we were in the area. On July 28, Randy proposed!!

The next week, we did the one thing important to Texas history that we hadn't yet done together - we went to the Alamo! We enjoyed everything downtown San Antonio has to offer besides that, too, heading to the Menger Hotel for a beer and to the Riverwalk for dinner.

In the fall, we had the opportunity to visit Washington, D.C. for the Americans for Prosperity National Defending the American Dream Summit. I'd been a few times before, and it was Randy's first visit - we saw a lot of great sights and got to stay at the historic Mayflower Hotel!

We visited the Confederate Air Force Museum in Burnet, went out to Hutto, Pflugerville, and Georgetown a few times, and we fell more in love while visiting all the cool things Austin has to offer.

Around Christmas, we headed to Burnet for the First Baptist Church's "Little Bethlehem" display.

Our wedding was at the New Sweden Lutheran Church near Manor, where Randy's great-grandparents were married in 1896. Our reception was in Round Rock, at Old Settler's Park.

In 2008, we have made it to these places (as of June 28):

Solvang, California (our honeymoon!)
Pedernales State Park, Texas
Flat Creek Winery, Texas
Marble Falls, Texas
Round Top, Texas
Fredericksburg, Texas
Becker Vineyards Winery, Texas

First Things First

2008-06-28T16:32:00.000-05:00

By now, you probably know, we are a newlywed couple from Austin, Texas with our share of quirks and foibles. We're Christians, and are always seeking to know the Lord better, and each other better through Him. We're opinionated, active conservative Republicans. We like the outdoors, mostly hiking and hopefully camping if we can ever get around to it. We both blog (me at Blue Dot Blues, and Randy at Policy Spotlight and the Travis Monitor). We're both baseball fans - I love the Yankees, and Randy's a Reds fan, but we also follow the Texas Rangers and just generally love the game. We're fond of going to see the Texas Longhorns play (baseball and football). Randy's been pretty good at convincing me that professional football is a lot of fun, too. Go Cowboys!

Randy's hobby is photography, and his ongoing project is snapping shots of the many historical courthouses in our great state. Mine is, well, you're looking at it! Writing, all kinds - blogging, fanfiction, original fiction, crappy poetry.

Together, we like to travel, and we decided to start this blog to document some of our adventures.