On Sunday, May 9, our friends/neighbors from Retama Village down in Mission, TX, Doug & Laura Mayer, arrived to spend a couple of days at Buckhorn Lake RV Resort and to play some golf with other Retama neighbors, Ken & Sue Gambrell (who’d also arrived Sunday and will stay for the summer). Great to see them all!
We’d been looking forward to a visit with the Mayer’s. Life in Retama gets full and busy; this was a great opportunity to just hang out. The four of us decided to take a drive up the Guadalupe River; locals had said it would be a beautiful drive. It became an extraordinary tour of the Texas Hill Country. The Guadalupe is a very important watershed and water source for this central part of Texas. There’s also a lot of history to the communities which sprang up along its banks dating back to the early settlers and to the days of the huge cattle drives.
We headed west-southwest along the river from Kerrville. It developed into a fascinating loop tour! The countryside along our route was stunning. It was indeed the Hill Country – limestone hills (almost mountains!) and cliffs, sweeping vistas no camera could capture, cool green along the river, ranches, and a significant number of “game farms” where exotic deer, for example, are provided for “canned” hunts.
Each game farm has very high specialized fencing to keep the exotic wildlife IN; and white-tail deer are so common in this area, cattle ranchers sometimes use this fencing around their fields to keep deer OUT!
There were also many goat farms, so many as to pique our curiosity – were they grown for their milk (therefore artisan cheese-making)? Hmmm. Granted, they’re hardy creatures so can survive in this rocky country with its thin soil.
We did see a lovely herd of longhorn cattle. If they don’t typify the Great State of Texas, what does???
And wildflowers, such beautiful wildflowers, just covering the roadsides! Drifts of yellow, with bits of orange, and balanced by clumps of white, lavender and even burgundy. Fresh spring greens in many shades. A visual feast!
We kept seeing a striking burnt orange flower with yellow tips. (There are some in the picture above.) There were huge spreads of these here and we later saw them all the way up through the Texas Panhandle; I found them intriguing! They are called “Indian Blankets” or Fire Wheels”. Here are a couple of close-ups:
During our tour, we kept crossing the extremely curvy Guadalupe (known by many locals as the “Guadaloop”). Each crossing has a specific name as you’ll see by just these two examples:
(So who were the Smith’s?!?) The number of river crossings was amazing! Each one is named and helps to identify where you are or where you live.
Just past River Inn Crossing, south of Hunt, TX, on Highway 39 southwest of Kerrville, is the “Boot Hill Ranch”. We HAD to stop for pictures! How refreshing to see such whimsy! There was about an eighth or quarter of a mile of fence posts topped with boots, every possible kind of boot in every possible color!
Continuing on, the banks of the Guadalupe are lined with cabins, church camps, and weekend homes. This area is within an hour-and-a-half or two hours of San Antonio. It would be feasible time-wise to escape to a riverfront place here or one of the large homes up on a nearby hilltop or ridge spine.
Texas has a remarkable collection of state parks, expressing the diversity of this huge state. We toured Lost Maples State Park and it is no exception…a great place for hiking, wildlife viewing, and has a small campground with many long, level sites. It was lunch-time; conveniently a volunteer in the park’s Visitor’s Center was able to recommend a small Mexican restaurant, Mama Chole’s, in Leakey (“Lakey”), just down the road. It was very, very good! I would definitely recommend it if you’re touring in the area.
We saw country today that many visitors might not see while touring the Hill Country. What a special day it was! Great friends, spectacular scenery!
No comments:
Post a Comment