A Gruene Wednesday

On Wednesday last week, Peg drove us north into the “Hill Country” of Texas, where the wild flowers were in bloom and displaying their full colors across every field and roadside we passed.  It made me realize why so many flock to Skagit County to see the tulips in bloom, except the only “farmer” in Texas is God.  What a show.

Our first stop was the Natural Bridge Caverns.  Kory and Kaleb took a little tour “down under” to see all the stalactites and stalagmites under the ground we walked on.  Both Peg and I felt a bit claustrophobic for such a trip so we wandered around, taking photos of the pretty flowers that sprouted up on top of the caverns.  We also did a little souvenir shopping while we waited.  Kaleb loved the caves and felt badly I didn’t join them so he took no less than 200 photos to show them to me when he returned.  I thought taking 25 pictures of the exact same scene was a bit much but he thought it was so breath-taking he needed to be sure he got a good one.  I’ve been in several caverns already and based on the photos he took, it looked a lot like other ones I’ve seen.  I was happy to save a few bucks and not go along.  I was also thankful we had a digital camera and all those photos he took didn’t cost me anything to develop.  Delete, delete, delete.

Peg intended to show us several of the cute little tourist cities that dot the Hill Country, but we spent so much time in the first town we visited, that we didn’t make it much farther than that.  The town of Gruene (pronounced “green”), reminds her of LaConner.  I can understand why.  It was very photogenic, quaint and full of specialty stores. We could have stayed all day.  Oh wait, we almost did.  As it was, we had lunch there at a famous restaurant alongside the river down below.  As we ate outside, we watched a red cardinal flit about in the tree next to us.  Then along came a green gecko up the tree but he changed his color to brown to match the bark on his way back down.  It was magical.

Poor Kory, all he could order on the menu was a salad with no dressing and some steamed vegetables.   I also just had a salad but at least I got to steal a few of Kaleb’s French fries.  Eating out is impossible on this fat-free vegan diet.  If it weren’t for Peg letting us have full control of her kitchen, Kory would have starved to death by the end of the week.  I guess that’s one way to keep from dying of a heart attack.

After we’d visited all the stores in Gruere, walked around town and let Kaleb climb every tree in sight, we drove on down by the riverside and dipped our toes in the cool water.  It felt so good in the heat of the day.  We were treated to seeing many local inhabitants while we were there.  There must have been about 25 turtles out sunning themselves on various logs and rocks, along with some local birds and squirrels.  Little minnows darted around our feet and a bright green gecko even showed up at the river’s edge.

Kaleb had been bugging me just the day before about getting a pet lizard.  I told him NO, but he kept pestering me.  He knows that a dog is out of the question because of how much we travel, so he was looking for a pet that might travel well.  He really wants a lizard and wouldn’t you know, a wild one that usually would scurry away from humans, just cozied right up to him and climbed up on his hand when he extended it.  He was thrilled.  He walked all over carrying it around like they were the best of friends.  He was impressed by how “smart” it was.  I told him how great God is to give him the desires of his heart, even if it’s just temporarily.  And besides, it wouldn’t be fair to the lizard to pack it up and take it home and keep it in a cage when it’s been used to such freedom.  He still wants one.

We all loved seeing the nature of Texas because it’s so different from what we have in Washington.  Even the trees were cool with Spanish Moss hanging from some, air plants attached to others and leaves unlike anything we have at home. 

To further satisfy our hunger to know more about the region, we drove out a long country road to see the local dam.  The road runs all along the river, which was dotted with camping grounds and river rafting rental places.  I guess it’s quite the place during the summer with high school and college kids floating in an endless drunken sea downstream.  Glad we missed that.  There was no one around when we were there so the road wasn’t jammed with other cars and the empty river provided even more photographic opportunities.  There was no shortage of wildflowers there, either. 

At the end of the road was the dam, and a lake on the other side of it.  About 10 years ago 36 inches of rain fell in a week so the water exceeded the dam’s height and cascaded over the spillway, which caused historic flooding downstream.  It was catastrophic but the only evidence of it we saw now were all the new buildings that had built since that time.  All others just washed away.  It was quite the deal when it happened.

Peg was a gracious and energetic hostess and spoiled us with lots of local trivia and history.  After her embarrassment from the day before, telling us all kinds of (untrue) facts about the Alamo, she prefaced one of her lectures with “most of what I’m about to tell you is true.”  We got a good laugh out of that line and we used it repeatedly the rest of the week.  She’s a hoot.