Becoming Texan

The Hill Country is called the Heart of the Lone Star State. The State Capital Austin is in this region which was also the home of President Johnson and his wife, Lady –Bird. I couldn’t miss the Cowboy Capital of the World, the town of Bandera, population 957. The Old Spanish Trail and the Bandera Trail along which walked more cattle to Kansas than all other trails ran through Bandera which today is Dude Ranch country. The Dixie Dude Ranch has been owned by the same family for over 100 years and catered to the dudes since the 1920’s. I spent 4 days here and rode horses over the narrow and rocky trails until the arctic blast came and sent me to the fireplace with a good book.
On the way out of Bandera we found The Mansion, a home built in the 1800,s now an inn and small restaurant. We stopped and found a nifty renovated carriage house with good eats owned by an Englishman from Yorkshire with a wife from Baltimore, Md. Irony; while we were eating lunch a building inspector came by and asked that the sign advertising lunch (which after all attracted us to The Mansion) be taken down. A permit was required. Signage is a big issue in Annapolis and tent signs are banned. While I unsuccessfully advocated allowing signs to let visitors know where and what businesses had to offer, I was surprised that a town with a drop-out population not much interested in regulation would be concerned about signs. In this case, I think this was a permit issue and not an illegal one; the city wanted the permit dollars.