Day Five: to Texas Hill Country

Before we got very far this morning, we stopped and had four days of road dirt washed off of the car.  Gas stations in Texas don't have car washes.  They say it is a water thing ... as in they don't have very much water.  So stand alone car washes are a big deal.  The one that we went to had easily fifty cars sitting around in various stages of wash.  The waiting room was almost as big as my house.  We got the cheapo bare bones outside only wash after first driving through the entrance in the wrong direction and making a U-turn in their driveway.  They are not impressed by Minnesota driving.  Maybe it is because I don't have a gun rack in my back window.

With a clean car we start off across the north Texas countryside on sometimes curvy two-lane roads with, generally, 75 mph speed limits.  I don't even feel like taking my "extra 5 mph" that the police allow.  At one point while watching flat Texas scrub country roll by Beverly is heard to say, "Why did we fight to get this state?"

Gradually, the scenery begins to improve as shown by the roadside bluebonnets.

 

 We took a mid-day break at the Two or More coffee shop in De Leon

followed by a picnic at a town park in Comanche.

 

For our outdoor adventure today, we hiked up the Enchanted Rock just north of Fredericksburg (our desired destination today).

 Going up (yes, those tiny dots at the top are people and that is where we are headed):

Resting:

 Relaxing at the top:

Dinner tonight was at a Siri recommended BBQ near Kerrville.  We never would have stopped at this place just driving by but, as you would expect from Siri, it was very good.  It has a walk up counter where you order your BBQ meats by the ounce.  You can have as much or as little as you want.

We have tried to keep to the "don't make reservations in advance" theme this trip (with the exception of the conference hotel in San Antonio where we needed the conference rate and location).  It has always worked ... until now.  We wanted to stay tonight in Fredericksburg, the central focus of "hill country."  Alas, EVERYTHING is sold out.  When we tired of trying the interesting B&Bs and small, local inns, we resorted to the chains.  No luck.  EVERYTHING is sold out.  So we ended up stuck at a not-so-nice Hampton Inn in a not-so-quaint interstate exchange town 22 miles from where we wanted to be ... at a rate about twice what would be reasonable.  Lesson: while no reservation works in some of the places some of the time, it does not work in all of the places all of the time.  We got burned on this one.

Nevertheless, we are excited about exploring Texas hill country tomorrow and Sunday.