Fredricksburg, Texas

February 23 thruough 26, 2000 – Fredricksburg, Texas

Leaving Carlsbad, NM on Wednesday morning (2/23) we headed for central Texas. One of my goals for this trip was to never spend a day just driving hard. That goal has now been violated since there was nothing that we wanted to stop and see in the interval between Carlsbad and Fredricksburg, TX. In addition to having driven too far, we also had a day with no photos taken. There was just nothing to see that could be captured in a small frame.

We left Carlsbad and headed southeast for about 150 miles until we intersected Interstate 10 at Ft. Stockton, TX. That stretch of road covers the flattest, most desolate part of the desert that we have seen so far. It must be how a very small creature feels when they are on a very large, brown billiards table. There was a cushion on the west – the Guadalupe Mts. (it must be pocket billiards, with the Carlsbad Caverns as one of the pockets). On the east there must have been a cushion somewhere, but it couldn’t be seen from the road. The surface of the table consisted of a few tufts of brown grass, some shrubs that we presume were either brittle brush or creosote plants, and some small scrubby type sage brush.

After we got to Ft. Stockton, the scenery improved some, as there were some table mesas. Slowly, as we traveled east, the landscape changed to mesas, then rolling hills. The fauna also grew greener, with small junipers getting larger, and then actual broad leaf trees. In addition, as we got closer to Fredricksburg, we encountered rivers and creeks that had water in them. With a few exceptions, these were the first that we had seen since leaving Los Angeles. Finally, Wednesday evening, we pulled into a KOA campground. After shopping to replenish our food supplies and testing some of the local German cuisine, we called it a night.

Fredricksburg is an historic town, settled by German immigrants in the 1840’s. The Volkswalk that we took on Thursday passed through some of the older areas with some interesting old buildings – both in construction and purpose. There is a lot of native limestone in the area, and that becomes a primary building material. The three major ways that we saw it used was – as a solitary building material, as chinking in log cabin style buildings, and as the fill in a half-timbered building. For both of the latter two styles, the wood is primarily the local oak. Of note is the fact that it isn’t straight and the builder has to adjust for that.

In addition, there were historically a number of “Sunday Houses.” When the original settlers got grants in the area, they got both a city lot and some farm land outside the city. Many of these settlers built a small, one-room house in town. In some cases this was used when they came into town to shop on Saturday, and then stayed for church on Sunday. In some other cases, these weren’t even slept in. The owners would come to town Sunday morning to church, then have their Sunday dinner at the Sunday House.

Thursday night we stayed in the same KOA, and encountered some heavy winds. Although it was pretty breezy, after we went to bed it got worse – or at least it seemed so in our camper. After the wind kept us awake for a couple of hours, we finally just collapsed the top. After that we slept pretty well.

Friday morning we went to visit the LBJ Ranch on the Pedernales. (As an aside, some of the locals tend to pronounce the name of the river as it is spelled, but around the LBJ area, they pronounce it the way LBJ did – “Perdenales”.) The ranch isn’t open for public except by tour bus since Lady Bird still has residency rights in the “Texas White House”. We took the tour, and enjoyed it. The replica of the home in which he was born was reconstructed in 1964 by LBJ as a guest house. Although not precisely as it was in 1908, it is close – especially in the “Dog Trot” style. This is the style in which there is a breeze-way between the bedroom (on the right – or east – side in this house) and the remaining living space. Apparently, this provided some relief from summer heat, and also provided a place for hanging and drying meat.

Finally, after having a typical lunch of fruit, cheese, crackers, and hard sausage, we headed off to Austin.

It appears that the battery problems were just that the battery had been completely discharged, and the automotive generator wasn’t able to get it kicked back on. I had (inadvertently) left the refrigerator in the 12 volt mode for a couple of days, including overnight in El Paso. In addition, I have let the water level in several of the cells get too low. Plugging the car into a 110 volt system over night on Tuesday seems to have given the battery some charge, and we got some clean water and refilled the cells. I hope that I haven’t done any permanent harm to the battery, but at least it is good to know that we don’t have a serious problem. Last night I put some bleach in the sink drain to try to clear it up a little. It may have done some good, but it still drains slowly. When I get a chance, I will have to figure out how to get into the p-trap and clean it out.