The Rest of Texas II--Fredericksburg

Pie for breakfast one day and ice cream for breakfast the next.  Dave and I spent Saturday, April 22, 2017, wandering around Fredericksburg, one of the most charming of the hill towns.

Fredericksburg is a tourist town, like Park City.  Its restored buildings from frontier times are filled with quaint shops and restaurants.  This ice cream parlor was filled with antiques.

Fredericksburg is in peach-growing country, and the waitress fixed me a first-rate peach smoothie from frozen peaches, peach sherbet, and orange juice.

An old-timer lounged at a table, surrounded by vintage signs.

We wished we had more time to explore shops like this "Lone Star Candy Bar" store.

The streets were lined with old-time limestone buildings with wrought iron balconies--the Pedernales meets New Orleans.

This is Bible Belt country.

It is also country settled by Germans, as well as the Wild Ram, Lyman Wight, and his polygamists.

Fredericksburg also has a first class museum, the National Museum of the Pacific War.  It focuses on the battles against the Japanese during WWII. Admiral Nimitz, who commanded the US Navy of the Pacific, was born in Fredericksburg.

 I bought "Helmet for My Pillow" in the museum gift shop and finished it before we flew home.  It tells the war experiences of Robert Leckie, whose story was included in the recent HBO series, "War in the Pacific."

 The real Robert Leckie, who became an Associated Press reporter and then wrote 30 books.

 David's hero is Jimmy Doolittle, who led the bombing of Tokyo in 1942, a daring mission to lift American morale and frazzle the Japanese.

Next stop was Ft. Martin, outside of Fredericksburg.  It was supplied with lumber from the 1840s sawmills of the Mormon polygamists living in the Hill Country.  A museum nearby honors the Texas Rangers, the pioneer sheriffs who dispatched frontier justice.

The fort was nearly deserted when we visited.  It evoked the early 1840s, when it defended against the Comanches. During the late 1840s and early 1850s, it was a stop-over on the road to the California Goldrush for the many Southerners who headed West.

We spent an hour at Wildseed Farms, the largest research center on wildflowers and heritage vegetables in the country.

A singer entertained the many visitors who bought plants at the Center, or who just came to stroll among the wildflowers.

Dave and I ate lunch at Der Lindenbaum Restaurant, a homey place that honored the heritage of Fredericksburg's German pioneers.  Notice the Texas limestone.

My jagerschnitzel (pork cutlet with mushroom sauce) was delicious.  It was served with stewed red cabbage and rye bread.

We spent the evening at Luckenbach, a Hill Country center for music and drinking.

We listened to a concert of country music and even danced.

This fellow, sitting in front of us, was as entertaining as the singers.  He asked at least six women around him to dance, and gave each of them good squeezes.

The Rest of Texas I--Bluebonnets and LBJ

While waiting for Daniel Moreland's wedding on late Friday afternoon, April 21, we explored the Texas Hill Country.  We started our day at the Blue Bonnet Cafe in Marble Falls, named for the Texas state flower and renowned for its pies.

For breakfast, Dave had peanut butter pie and I had pecan pie.

The good ole boys pulled up to the cafe bar and the waitresses drawling "honey" reminded us that rural Texas is both Middle America and country music/rodeo/barbecue South.

The pie safe was enormous and well-stocked.

Right outside the Blue Bonnet cafe, the blue bonnets were in bloom.

Wildflowers covered the roadside.

We mentioned, at the Visitors Center in Marble Falls, that we were from Utah.  "This country was settled by the Mormons," the clerk reminded us.  "You can learn all about those Mormon polygamists at our museum."  We stopped by the museum, made of the Texas limestone we saw all over the hill towns.

We learned about Lyman Wight, "Wild Ram of the Mountains," who was an apostle to Joseph Smith. He had a falling out with Brigham Young and took 150 followers to settle the Texas Hill Country.  I bought a book, "Polygamists of the Pedernales" and learned all about that Church offshoot.  After Wight died in 1848, many of his followers joined the RLDS in Missouri.

My favorite photos are portraits of the people "along the way."  This lady was committed to preserving the history of Marble Falls and its county.

Symbols of Texas were everywhere, including this wreath of  "lone stars" in the museum lady's room.

The flag of Texas was painted onto the wall of one of the homes in Marble Falls.

Next stop was LBJ State Park, containing LBJ's "White House on the Pedernales" and acres of ranch land.

LBJ held work sessions for his Cabinet at the ranch, planning the flood of legislation that marked his presidency.  He also entertained national and world leaders, driving them around himself, at high speed, in his Lincoln Continental convertible.

We visited the home, made of Texas limestone, in which Lady Bird lived until her death in 2009.  LBJ died within a couple of years of leaving office in 1968.

Daniel's Wedding

Daniel Moreland married Chelsea Gomez on Friday, April 21, 2017, in the Texas Hill Country.  We joined Daniel's mother, Janice, who is Dave's sister, in attending the wedding.

 Janice pinned on Daniel's boutonniere.

 Vince, Daniel's father, greeted us warmly.

Daniel's brother, Ben, brought his girlfriend, Brittany, who is finishing up her MBA at the U of U, and Daniel's sister, Charlotte, came with her pilot husband, Tony, and her two little boys, Jett and Dax.  Daniel's brother, Joshua, was home in SLC with his toddler, Flynn, sick with pneumonia.

I never knew, until Daniel's wedding, how lush and beautiful the Texas Hill Country is.  It feels like Italy.

 What would a Moreland wedding be without harp music?

 The bridesmaids and bride were all beautiful.

 Chelsea reached for Daniel's hand...

and they joined the pastor between two artistically bleached oak trees.

Easter at Camille's

Rejoice!  April 15, 2017 was a happy Sunday at Camille's house, celebrating Easter.  We were thankful for so many things--that we will see our Calder and Spendlove (and Ebert and Milne and Bastian) grandparents again, that we can be forgiven our sins, and that we can enjoy the blooming beauty of the earth.

This is one of my favorite poems from the religious poet, Gerard Manley Hopkins.  It speaks of Easter and spring:

The world is charged with the grandeur of God.
It will flame out, like shining from shook foil;
It gathers to a greatness, like the ooze of oil
Crushed. Why do men then now not reck his rod?
Generations have trod, have trod, have trod;
And all is seared with trade; bleared, smeared with toil;
And wears man’s smudge and shares man’s smell: the soil
Is bare now, nor can foot feel, being shod.

And for all this, nature is never spent;
There lives the dearest freshness deep down things;
And though the last lights off the black West went
Oh, morning, at the brown brink eastward, springs –
Because the Holy Ghost over the bent
World broods with warm breast and with ah! bright wings.

Annelise set the table with Camille's new blue china an armloads of tulips.

Emilie was home for the weekend from the University of Utah, enjoying her sister Mia and the other children.

Ezra tried Camille's homemade rolls, along with other treats--strawberry smoothie, pork tenderloin, roasted butternut squash, asparagus, and three flavors of pie.

 At twelve, Sophia is now a sixth grader and in Young Women.

 Dave loves good salad--in this case, ours!

Heidi has a cute collection of hats and "fascinators", the half-hats that Princess Kate of England wears.  We enjoy having Alan Dale with us more often on Sundays.

And every party needs both a host and clean-up guy.  Steve is excellent in both roles!