The Hill Country

Monday, March 5 - Got to Pipe Springs and visited Don’s friend from his Navy days, Rodney and his wife, Cindy. We got a tour of the ranch where they raise Peruvian Paso horses. I really do like them. They are not as tall or as long as Thoroughbred or Quarter horses. We had lunch with them at Brick’s in Bandera.

This was our third ranch stop. First my cousin’s in Louisiana, then at Victoria and this one in the Hill Country.

We then moved on a few miles headed to Fredericksburg, but saw a city park in Kerrville that looked very good with the river running through it. We stopped and signed up for two nights thinking that we would paddle the next day. It is a very large and a former COE campground.

Tuesday, March 6 - What an awful day. I started coughing during the night and when I got up I continued to go downhill. I am sure I had a fever as I had chills for about two hours. I stayed in bed and in my PJ’s all day. Don made spaghetti but I felt too bad to eat until 8:30.

The wind was gusting to 25 and was forecast to continue the next day, so no paddling.

Wednesday, March 7 - I feel much better but still very short on energy. We are now in Fredericksburg, driving about 40 minutes to get here. We are parked at the Fredericksburg Fairgrounds. It’s okay, we have water and electric for $15. The highlight of the day was grocery shopping and going to Opas’ Smoked Meats. We got all kinds of smoked sausage.

Thursday, March 8 - A very busy fun day. We went to the National Museum of the Pacific. We have been there before, but they have enlarged the George H. W. Bush gallery in the past couple of years. I really wish I could seen it with my father, that served in the Pacific during WWII. We stood for 2 1/2 hours and then drove the 30 miles to Cooper’s Barbeque. We got ribs and a small slice of prime rib. It was heaven. And we brought home enough food for two more meals.

There is BBQ and then there is Cooper’s. It’s the best. There is so much meat on the ribs, three is a meal. The bean soup is divine.

We returned to the Museum for another two hours. We did not have the energy to stay and read everything. The temperature had started to drop when we left the museum.

Ross & Beverly Taylor came to the campground to pick us up and take us to their house for cocktails. We met them at a South Central Lazy Daze Roundup. Then we went to the Fredericksburg Brewery for dinner. I really do like Fredericksburg. Food was good and Don got a red ale that he liked. We very much enjoyed the visit and hope to run into them on the road sometime.

Friday, March 9 - It started raining around 4:00 am and continued until around 7:30. After breakfast we hooked up to make the two hour drive to Garner State Park in the big hills of the Texas Hill Country. This is a very large (600+ sites) park and is on the Rio Frio River. It is also very pretty.

We had misty rain part for part of the drive This was the first test for the mud flaps. The rear window still got road crud, but the Jeep only had crud on the hood, none on the wind shield.

Today’s high is 46. The weather is forecast to improve Monday and so we may stay a day or two next week. This is Spring Break and this place is very popular. We will just wait and see how it goes. Holidays are the bane of RV travelers.

We are in our first signal hole - no cell phone or TV. The park does have wi-fi at the VC. We can get on the web, but we can not get or send mail. I guess they have those ports closed.