We spent several days in Fredericksburg, Texas settled by German immigrant families in 1846. The city of 10,000 still retains its German culture and has many homes on the National Register of Historic Places. Our motel, the Fredericksburg Inn, had retained a Sunday House in its building. In my view, Sunday houses were something like the first motels. They originated before the auto and were two rooms with a loft, small homes owned by farmers who needed a town place to stay on week-ends when they came to town for market and church, the round trip being too long for the horse and buggy trip. After the auto changed the need the town homes became efficency homes for elderly farm owners.
Our adventures in the Hill Country took us to Luckenbach, a ten acre town purchased in 1970 by Honda Crouch, Hill Country humorist writer and authentic Texas character. The one general store, once post-office, tavern is also a home for banjo pickers and fiddlers and they were pickin’ when we were in the town made famous in song by Willie Nelson. I wondered if Al Luchenbach, Eastport resident was related to the Texas Lukenbachs. The town is a special place sometimes described as “like Brigadoon” with a slogan that “ in Lukenbach everybody is somebody”.
The route out of the Hill Country took us through Llano, the “deer capital of Texas”, county seat and a National Historic District downtown square. We were chased by geese at the park along the beautiful clear, spring-fed Llano River and left the town after lunch at Coopers Bar B.Q. voted Texas Best.
We have avoided Interstate Highways preferring U.S. or State highways. Often we were the only car on the road in sight and also out of cell phone service. The sun sets early here and by dark we were in Iraan a small town where the air is permeated with the smell of gas and oil. No wonder, in 1926 one of the world’s largest oil strikes was discovered here. The billionth barrel was sold from this still active site 25 years ago.
Iraan is in the Big Bend Region of Texas where we spent the next week. This region is characterized by its vastness. The National Park is 1.2 million acres of the Chihuahuan Desert bounded by the Rio Grande River with canyons framed by massive volcanic twisted and crumpled rock mountains that rise from the desert floor to alpine heights. Words are hard to explain this area. It is a picture of barreness and desolation, geologically complex, a 20 million year old landscape that remains in its original chaotic state. The early Spainish Explorers called it the Despablado “the uninhabited land”.
The Apache winter war trail passed through the Big Bend area. Among all the people that tried to master this land and failed the Apaches were the only ones that learned to live in harmony with the despablado. In an early example of sustainability, the Apaches lived in small groups and moved frequently from water spring to water spring to preserve the fragile flora and fauna.
I found the majestic scenery of this strange and melancholy land truly awesome. I even explored real estate in Lajitas. In the ghost town of Terlingua (pop.250), once a town of thousands in the quick silver mining business, we met a woman from Ocean City, Maryland who said she became captivated by this wild, and harsh desert land and moved here. For awhile it seemed like everyone met in Texas came from somewhere else. However I began to meet elderly people who had moved back to their native western Texas, the silence and the dominance of the landscape exerting its hold on the human spirit.
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