Mexia, Tx @ Fort Parker State Park

 Nice easy drive for the most part.  Went way around Austin then up through  Temple & Waco before heading east to Mexia.  Ft. Parker SP is an older park that has not been “remodeled”, so the roads are old pavement, lots of trees beside the road and hindering easy maneuvers at the sites.  Sites are sloped to the front so I needed almost all of the cribbing I brought.  Our reserved site was supposedly a 40’ site but it was going to be the dickens to get into and then park the truck on the grass.  So we got them to switch us to another longer site.  Now everything fits.  Nice view of the lake, Skye will love getting in it tomorrow.  It was too late today fort her to get soaked.  We aren’t in that dry SW climate anymore.  She dried incredibly fast in AZ and NM.  It’s 61% humidity here, it was 8% where we were a few days ago.  I am not looking forward to VT humidity this summer.

After supper we went for a walk down the road toward the primitive camp an and spooked a deer which then crossed the road into bigger woods.  Back in camp after sunset a deer was behind us snorting at us.  It might be interesting here.  We are here for 2 nights before resuming the moseying eastward.

Last night I forgot to mention one interesting  shingle during the show.  One of the guys, Jake McLain, the scheduled performer, asked if there were any pickers in the audience who would like to come up and play.  Two other guys immediately offered their guitars for this one fellow from Chicago to come play.  Tim came up and played two songs that he had written.  He said he is in a band but has only been playing for 1.5 years.  He was pretty good for so little experience.  He said he was nervous but the others told him that was normal, and they had at least 20 years, or up to 50 for one guy.  We are missing the music tonight!

On the road today

Entering the park, trees!

Park office, with a bed of bluebonnet out front

It could use a bit more lift to get really level

False Garlic

Lyreleaf Sage

Callirhoe Involucrata

Daisy

Luckenbach and other towns

We wanted to look around the area a bit, so we went up to Mason, a town about 40 miles north of Fredericksburg.  Nice town, we walked around the center of the city; that was pretty easy since the downtown block is arranged around the Central Park, which has the court house in the middle of that.  We had lunch on a bench.  We didn’t see anything that we had to look any farther into, so we just went to the DQ and headed back.

On the way back we took  a slightly different route through Doss.  There we made a couple stops along the road to see some wildflowers.

Once back here the music had started so we went over to listen.  Then supper followed by the evening music.  There is almost constant live music on that little stage every day from 1-9 PM.  We have had a great time here and will be back again.

Tomorrow we head to Fort Parker State Park near Mexia TX for a couple nights.

Found this flowering Kingcup Cactus in Mason, in a pot on the street

Packers Multilobata

Texas Bluebonnet

Rough Stink Bug

This poet is Walt Perryman & his dog Daisy.

Fredericksburg and Luckenbach Texas

Last night was a lot of fun. Also, overnight was much cooler than the previous night but still did not need any heat.  Woke up to about 55° outside and 64° inside.  We have lots of propane at this rate.  

Mid morning we left to check out downtown Fredericksburg downtown old town area.  Lots of interesting stores in some old buildings.  Many 1880 era structures.  Among them was Chester Nimitz’s birthplace.  He also has a museum of the Pacific War which we wanted to visit but there just wasn’t enough time for everything.  So that’ll wait for another trip, it’s not open tomorrow.  If you’ve forgotten the name Nimitz, he became Commander of the US Pacific Fleet, following Pearl Harbor.  

This afternoon’s show was two guys playing with amplified sound.  One was scheduled and the other came to join in.  As we sat there with Skye we got acquainted with Di, the wife of Cowboy Jim, who had joined in because he wanted to pick with the lead guy, John Bardy.

This evening’s show was four musicians, two scheduled, T-Roy and Candace Miller, plus Cowboy Jim who had stayed to play some more and another guy.  That was a fine show too.  Jim and Di come down from Manitoba for up to 6 months in the winter enjoy the warmer climate and for Jim to play lots of music venues.

This guy looked out on the audience (all 6 of us) looked at me and said “doesn’t he look like Rollie Fingers?”   “Did you ever play baseball?”

Rollie Fingers, pitcher, Oakland A’s 

He grew that mustache around 1972 as part of a team promo, and kept it.

It became his trademark look.

During the evening show one of the local cats came out and surprised Skye.  

Skye really wanted to “meet” the cat.

Luckenbach, TX

Luckenbach, Texas, not really a town but a very famous place for live music.  Long ago it started out to be a town but never became an organized municipality .  So it’s a place, sort of like Jonesville.

It is a Harvest Host site featuring live music, a couple small stores with tourist merchandise and a few days/week a burger stand.  We just missed the food by 10 minutes.  Our info said it was open today but did not say how long.  OK, back to the camper for supper.  Then on to the evening show.

The afternoon show was running while we browsed the stores.  That had two performers.  This evening ran for about 3 hours with 8-10 performers sitting on stage and taking turns singing.  They tell the others what they would sing and in what key.  Any others who wished would join in with music.  Almost everyone had a guitar, one mandolin, one banjo and later one bass fiddle.  All acoustic.  All excellent musicians!  They appear to be local and regional musicians who come here to play.  Some have written their own material and some have some published music and commercial recordings.  

We’ll see if I have enough cell signal to load up some video.  (The Starlink is packed and so is the generator to run it)

Tomorrow we’ll hit the town of Fredericksburg and see what’s happening there.  We know we need some groceries and pick up Rx.

On the road today it was a fine sunny day and a bit less hot than yesterday, topping out at 91º.  It was cool watching the changing landscape as we drove.  Starting in the vast barren desert of West Texas and moving into the Hill Country, increasing diversity of plants out on the open ground.  More trees, at first just more Mesquite and then more variety of trees.  More creeks that actually had some water in them.  More water means some actual grass on the open landscape without irrigation.  Farms with sheep, goats, pigs, not just cattle. That’s the fascination with driving cross country.  And towns are now 30 miles apart instead of 100.

This looks interesting!

Luckenbach:

License plates everywhere.