Exploring-Trip 1

One of the things I promised myself when I retired was that I would make the time to explore the towns and cities around Austin.  Day trips, so to speak.  My plan has been to take a day each week and go exploring.

Saturday, I volunteered to do a couple quick things at Lauren's school for her, since she is in Nebraska for the season opener.  I also needed to stop by the San Marcos outlets and visit the Vera Bradley store.  Since I was already out and about, I decide it would be my first day of exploring. This trip took me from Austin to the outlet mall to Luling and on to Flatonia, Praha, Schulenburg, Hoyston, High Hill, LaGrange, Smithville, Bastrop and home. Below you will see pictures of places I visited and sights I saw.

I started with Luling.

My first stop was going to be the visitor center but I took a glance at the Watermelon seed spitway on my walk there.  Supposedly this is a one of a kind indoor spitway and is home to the World Championship Watermelon Seed Spitting contest.  It is held in late June.  What I thought was interesting was that it said with advance notice you could arrange a  demonstration of spitting and pro techniques.  Maybe another time.

Next stop was the visitor center and the Central Texas Oil Patch Museum.  

The visitor center is small but has several things for sale, such as Watermelon Thump tshirts.  It is connected to the Oil Museum.  The lady there was very friendly.  If you like them on Facebook, you get a discount on the merchandise.  The museum asks for a dollar donation per person.  It has on display many of the tools, hard hats, caps, etc related to the oil business.  It is housed in a historic building which used to be the Walker Brothers Mercantile. There is an example of a drill site set up.  It was small but very interesting to someone with no knowledge about oil drilling.

The lady in the visitor center told me about the  decorated pumpjacks around town and gave me a map to find them.  The brochure lists the locations of 16 pumpjacks around Luling.  I found all 16 but 4 no longer have their decorations.  Most of them had easy access to stopping and taking pictures.  Here they are:

My plan had been to eat lunch at City Market BBQ but the line was weaving in and out of all the tables and appeared to be at least an hour wait.  I'll try them again another time when in Luling.

Before heading out, I stopped in at the Watermelon Shop.  I'd been trying to get there every time I'd been in Luling but hadn't had any luck.  Today was the day.  If you need anything "watermelon" this is the place to go.

Now it was time to hit the road.  I headed out on Highway 90E towards Flatonia.  My first stop was at Buc-EE's just outside the Luling city limits. If you haven't been to a Buc-EE's, you need to stop  It is an experience in itself.

I had read that Flatonia and surrounding towns were the homes of the Painted Churches.  I found all of them but unfortunately by the time I got to most of them, they were in the middle of Saturday evening services so I didn't get to see the insides.  Oh well, a reason to come back. 

In Praha (the Czech spelling for "Prague") I found the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary Church.  It was built in 1895.

Upon arriving in Schulenburg, I drove past Sengelman Hall, the Czech Bakery and The Polka Music Museum.  None were open. The Carnation Milk Company's first plant was built in Schulenburg in 1929.  St. Paul's Presbyterian Church is not one of the Painted Churches but I thought it was interesting with red doors.

Dubina holds the title of the first Czech settlement in Texas.  Here is Saints Cyril and Methodius Catholic Church.  On the edge of the property were these outhouses.  I wonder if they actually still use them...

Ammannsville was  settled by both German  and Czech immigrants.  Here I found St. John the Baptist Catholic Church.

Hostyn over looks the Colorado River and was first called Bluff.  It also was settled by both German and Czech settlers.  Here was a beautiful grotto.  It is a replica of France's Grotto of Lourdes and built in 1925 in thanks for the end of the 1924-1925 drought.  It is located on the grounds of the Holy Rosary Catholic Church.  The sun was at a strange angle and my pictures do not do it justice as far as it's beauty.

High Hill used to be on the stagecoach line but got bypassed when the railroad came along in 1874.  Here I found the Nativity of the Blessed Virgin Mary Church.

By this time, it is time to be heading back to Austin and most places have closed for the day so below I will just give you a few highlights of places I want to come back to in the future.

LaGrange-

Monument Hill-Kreische Brewery State Historic Site, Luka's Bakery and Weikel's Bakery.  Although I did purchase a few items from Weikel's Bakery, most of the good stuff was gone for the day.

Cedar Creek-

Berdoll Pecan Candy and Gift Company, McKinney Roughs Nature Park, Central Texas Museum of Automotive History

Bastrop-

Bastrop Opera House, Lock's Drug, Riverwalk,  Maxine's on Main

So you can see I already have my next adventure planned out.  

Happy travels!