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.
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