Blog 12 - First weekend of February

Downtown Luckenbach, Texas

I forgot to mention – Verna and Jake returned from Belize and Mexico on Thursday. They drove right out to the building site and we crossed paths as the ladies drove out of Granite Shoals. After getting some groceries, they arrived on our site and pulled out their slides for the night. I invited them for supper and we had a nice visit. Later in the evening most of the other volunteers came over and visited as well. It’s been a long time since we had so many guests…

Friday morning, a bunch of us headed for breakfast at the Blue Bonnet Café, Jake and Verna’s favorite haunt.

John and I then drove to Fredericksburg, about 60 miles away, to see the sights there. We had missed that trip when we went to Newton. We drove through Johnson City and found a place that sold granite just past the city. We stopped and the store owner said we could help ourselves to whatever cutoff pieces we wanted, so we did.

Then we continued on to Fredericksburg, a tourist city with a German flavour. We watched a 9 minute movie at the Tourist Information Centre and then looked for a place to eat. Fancy meeting Gerry and Georgia from our MDS group at the restaurant, and then at the Vereins Kirche Pioneer Museum…

We also found a Goodwill Store and I was able to spend a little while looking around.

Luckenbach, Texas, was our next destination. It was not easy to find. We drove down Highway 1376 and there was no sign of it. Finally, there was a yard with a sign saying “Uptown Luckenbach”. It looked sort of like a garage sale yard with granite knickknacks, and a little store behind with Luckenbach T-shirts and souvenirs. No one was inside the store, but there was a handwritten sign saying “I’ve just had major surgery, so if there’s no one here, if you find something you want to buy, just put the money in the pipe outside”. There was no sign of a music stage or anything. Then we saw another handwritten sign in the back which said “Downtown Luckenbach is one mile down the road and turn right at the bridge”. So that’s what we did. Still, no noticeable turn-off sign, but we drove down the lane and soon saw a Parking Lot sign and people milling about. We drove into the main yard and it was apparent they only allowed their entertainers with instruments, and handicap parking there. So after parking our car in the right parking lot, we walked over to this very unique place called “Luckenbach, Texas”. IT IS as they say in the song, a low-key, down home, “good ole’ boy place. The only buildings located in Luckenbach, Texas, besides two Portable Bathrooms which greet you on the way in are: a Post Office with a very small bar in the back; a little rustic building which sells hats and boots, another small rustic building which is covered on the front wall with license plates, and a very plain fairly large dancehall with a concession stand attached. Oh, I forgot the huge tame longhorn steer which greeted us as we first walked through. A tall lanky, mustached cowboy offered to let us sit in the saddle on the steer (for a small donation), which offer we declined. Some time later, we heard the clop of hooves and before we knew it, the cowboy was galloping past us down the road on this steer. What a sight! I never would have thought the steer could move that smoothly. And lo and behold, who drove into the yard but – Gerry and Georgia. I guess we could have traveled together…

Jake and Verna headed out for Newton at 7:30 a.m. on Saturday.

Pretty well everyone on the site went out touring or shopping on Saturday. John and I went shopping and got propane. Len and Nettie arrived in mid afternoon. We were delighted to see them and thankful they had an excellent trip.

Saturday night, we were invited to go over to Sherman and LaVonne’s R.V. We played a couple of games of STIX and then came home to bed.

We had intended to go to the Cowboy Church on Sunday, but decided to go with the group instead, to Alex’s Anchor of Hope Their congregation was delighted to have 18 additional seats taken, their service was lively and the people very friendly.

After church, we pigged out at the Lucky Chinese Buffet, where, among other things, John had a plate full of the ugliest crawfish I ever saw! Lots of work for a little food!!

Sunday afternoon, Len and Nettie and us got into our truck and went to show them the building site. Then we decided to take them to the Longhorn Cavern area which we had already seen. It was a nice drive and we saw more of the site this time. When we got back to the camp around 5:30, Suzette kindly invited us to their R.V. for soup (nobody was very hungry after the buffet at noon)!! We spent the evening visiting and relaxing before having to go back to work Monday morning.