Pedernales Falls State Park

The water is down from the recent rains and flood. In the picture below, John is checking out a log that is 20-30 feet up in the tree. There was a LOT of water here recently.

These beetles were coming out of the sand. They are sort of pretty, but very scary. All I could think of was that scene in “The Mummy” with the flesh eating Egyptian scarabs. I can’t exactly identify them, but I believe they actually are a type of scarab.

I noticed the red and green of this cactus and couldn’t remember the name. Turns out it is Christmas Cholla. Makes sense.

The park has several falls to see, but the one called Pedernales Falls is quite fun. The section of the river has multiple small falls but you can walk and climb up and down the river bed to see the water eroded rocks. It was a fun afternoon. 

National Museum of the Pacific War (and beer)

The biggest place to visit in Fredericksburg is the National Museum of the Pacific War. When you get tickets, it’s for 48 hours. This allows you to spread the visit over 2 days. That extra time is needed. For one, the topic is so complicated you can only take in a few hours before you can’t accept any more information. For another, the museum is full of short movies, voices of soldiers, pictures, displays to read, and objects from the war. The movies are the best because they can explain certain battles better. They show ships arriving, ships sinking, soldiers moving in a front, and soldiers disappearing from the screen as they die. The pictures can be pretty graphic. It’s an intense experience.

The items they display are almost all authentic pieces from the times. Some are as small as a soldier’s personal items or as big as a Japanese submarine that was at Pearl Harbor during the bombing. 

After a day of this, we needed to relax. Nearby is Pedernales Brewing Company. For $10 a person, you get a tour, four beers to sample, and a glass to take home. We enjoyed the beers along with the conversations with two other couples that were visiting. The tour was short, but we still learned more about brewing.

Outside Fredericksburg

We enjoyed our visits last time to Enchanted Rock and Lukenbach Texas, so we had to go again. 

Enchanted Rock is a big reddish/pink granite monolith. The hike up isn’t long at 0.6 miles, but the slope makes it difficult for some. We saw one group discussing whether they would finish the hike. Going to the top is definitely worth it. Great views of the area along seeing the plants that live in the cracks and low spots of this big rock. Plus this lizard!

On the way down we went a different way and lost the trail for a bit. A young couple also got lost with us. We decided to climb down this rubble. Much more fun than a boring trail!

We also visited Fort Martin Scott and the Texas Rangers Heritage Center. The fort was built to protect wagon trains traveling the area. One thing we learned was that soldiers slept in this big bed fully dressed. If they were needed, they slid off the end of the bed and were ready. The bed is tilted to help with this. Oh, and I love the brass cannon.

The cells at the fort were small! I wouldn’t want to spend time here.

The Texas Rangers center is still in process. This tower was built and a museum is planned.

Luckenbach is just a relaxing place that is well worth the drive. We grabbed a sandwich and a beer and enjoyed listening to the seven musicians that showed up while we were there to sing and play. As far as I know, they don’t get paid but just play for tips. It wasn’t a special day or event. If you want to perform, just show up.

 

Fredericksburg

Fredericksburg is a great place to stay for a week or two. There are a lot of things to do in the area. Last time we visited we spent most of our time outside the town. This time we did part of a walking tour of the downtown buildings. Much of the town is built with local limestone. Many of the German immigrants were (or became) stone masons.

One of the reasons we only did part of the tour is that the tour takes you past a winery with free tastings (“that one tasted really good”) and a brewery/restaurant (“well, it is lunchtime”). Plus, there’s a candy store with fresh fudge of all types (“it’s been a couple of years since we bought fudge, so maybe a little”). Someday we’ll walk the last part of the trail.

The town isn’t very big (10,530), but the cemeteries are large. Plus there are two of them on either ends of the town. The Catholic Cemetery is the newer one, though still from the 1800’s.

The biggest (over 5,000 interments) and most interesting cemetery is called “Der Stadt Freidhof” (the city cemetery), a pioneer cemetery started in 1846. The area has both limestone and red granite. Both are used profusely for gravestones. I love the ironwork along with the red stones. There were many plots with these fences around them.

While wandering around, I took a picture of this cherub. After doing some research online, it turns out to be one of the last pieces of a sculptor named Elisabet Ney. She did busts of Kings and major composers when she lived in Europe. When she moved to Texas, she did work that is in the state capital and in several art museums.

While many cemeteries have family plots with fences around the family plot, this cemetery was laid out over time. So families weren’t necessarily buried together. The part that really surprised me was a section for children. Many children died when crossing the country and Fredericksburg was along a major route. Diseases also killed many children or they died as young babies. Children under the age of 10 (that’s the oldest I saw) were buried in a separate area. Some sites have smaller ironwork fences around them that look like cribs. Some have toys laid on the site. Unique and sad.

Cascade Caverns

It’s been more difficult to find a campsite to stay on weekends. The state parks are all booked up weeks (or months?) in advance. RV parks tend to be better, but this weekend all types of things occurred. One town had a lot of RV parks, but they had a festival going on (Wurst Fest) and no spots. Plus, the recent rains had flooded many of the parks so they were either closed or still cleaning out debris. Another town had an Airstream event going on.

Instead, we found Cascade Caverns. The caverns itself is flooded but the campground is open. The part that I love is the wild deer that wander the area. Just for fun we tried to count the deer as we drove into our campsite. We saw 10 deer in several groups just that one time! I don’t have any pictures of the deer. They aren’t as tame as other deer we’ve seen in state parks. However, here are the bones of a deer I found while on a hike.

Everyone needs a dinosaur. This one apparently was built when “Father Hood” with Patrick Swayze and Halle Berry filmed in the area.

The geology is fun here. Everything is limestone with holes in some of the rocks. They look like bones to me.

Pains of a New RV

One of the big reasons we bought a new RV is that we were tired of the repairs required with a ten year-old RV. Since we bought our new RV (Thor Freedom Elite) we’ve had all sorts of problems. Some are just customizing it.

·       --- We’ve added hooks all over for things like keys, towels, and hats.

          --- The RV has an accordion style door for the bedroom. Using it at night is noisy and can only be opened and closed by holding it near the ceiling. At 4’ 10”, that’s not easy for me. So we bought a curtain and rod to close the area.

·     ---   The curtain that is provided for the front cab wastes a lot of space. You can’t use the area for storage or to sit in when you’re camping with this curtain. Instead, we used insulated foil that fits into the windows. It keeps the heat and light out better too.

·     -- -  The RV is not dark when you’re at an RV park with outdoor lights. The last RV had 2 types of shades that kept things darker while the new RV has just one. We’ve bought skylight cushions and extra curtains and more foil to block light.

These were somewhat expected (though it would have been nice if RV manufacturers understood the needs of RV’ers over the last 10 years). The bad part was the defects and sloppy construction. So far we’ve been to two different Camping Worlds to get things fixed and have to go back again.

·     -- -  We’ve had to clean several times with sawdust and construction debris in storage areas and in the ductwork. Several bumpers used on the shades have fallen off.

·      - -- We’ve had leaks in several places. The one around the antenna got fixed the 2^nd day while the one in the outdoor refrigerator area we didn’t find for a week so it damaged some of the fiberboard. We’ve been told it will be a month before they can fix the fiberboard though the leak should be fixed now. The leaks on the roof corners we think are fixed, but we won’t know for sure until the next big rain.

·      ---  The piping was kinked to the gasoline tank so that you could only pump a few seconds before the gas shut off at the pump. It took 15-30 minutes to pump a full tank (not that we ever did). We haven’t checked this, but we hope it’s fixed now. Probably the most frustrating defect.

·     -- -  One of the drawer slides was defective (no stop). Haven’t been able to get parts but, again, they hope they can fix this in a month or so. Several other drawers were installed incorrectly so they didn’t lock in so they won’t open during travel. John just went ahead and fixed these.

·     -- -  The table couldn’t drop down to be used as a bed because the benches were installed incorrectly. This has been fixed, but they damaged some of the veneer while fixing it.

·     ---   The air conditioner was missing screws and sloppily installed so only half of the RV received cold air. We hope this is fixed now.

·      --- The water heater was leaking. This was fixed.

I’m being fairly specific here because I wonder how many other Thor Freedom Elites had such poor quality. Very frustrating!!!

Lockhart State Park

The rains have been crazy. Here’s a picnic table in a tree.

This park has a golf course. We tried to remember the last time John golfed and think it might be 4 years ago.  John and our camping neighbor enjoyed 18 holes on the course while I hiked some of the trails. I also sat down to talk with the neighbor lady while the guys were golfing. She was about my age and also retired but they weren’t full-timers (yet). Good day.

The campground had deer along with a flock of turkey. There were ten nice size turkey in time for Thanksgiving (no, we don’t hunt).