Tag Archives: Hill Country

local news

Clearing another barrier toward full-time retirement

This is the latest in an occasional series of blog posts commenting on upcoming retirement.

LAREDO, Texas — My wife and I have crossed another barrier that once stood between us and this new life called “full-time retirement.”

While vacationing in South Texas, we began plotting our next RV adventure.

Yep. We weren’t finished enjoying our most recent journey — this time to Laredo — and we began thinking about how we are going to map out our next trip.

It will occur soon. We intend to end up in Ruidoso, N.M., by way of the Texas Hill Country.

But we have a really, really big trip already lined out for a period after the Ruidoso jaunt.

My point here is that we are enjoying the fifth wheel and seeing these new places so much that we cannot stop thinking about when we’re going to do so again.

I am going to presume this is a normal transition. It does feel right, although I am mindful of the need to live in the moment.

My late mother used to remind me of the dangers of “wishing your life away,” which I used to do when I was a boy. “Gee, Mom, I wish the weekend would hurry up and get here,” I would say, only to get that pearl of wisdom from my mother.

I might be reverting to those boyhood ways. I don’t care. We’ll keep planning our next adventure before we finish the current one.

State news

Hoping to hear more from Jack

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Have you ever met someone who loves to tell stories about the old days?

And have you ever heard that someone tell those stories in an way that enthralls the listener?

I’ve met such a man. His name is Jack. I don’t know his last name. He’s 82 years of age. He lives in the town where he was born, raised and where he came of age.

It’s in Dripping Springs, Texas.

We met with Jack this morning at a popular diner on Dripping Springs’ main drag: U.S. Highway 290; there’s a sign on the wall next to the kitchen that says, “Dripping Springs: Just west of weird,” meaning, I presume, Austin.

We had breakfast, but Jack just strolled in on one of his several regular coffee stops before going to church. He’d already been to the Whataburger and was headed to Subway after downing his coffee at the diner.

We had met Jack once before. He’s a friend of my wife’s brother. My wife and I were camped at an RV park in Johnson City, just a bit west of Dripping Springs. Jack and my brother-in-law came over that day.

What’s so appealing about Jack?

Frankly, I can’t quite describe it.

Dripping Springs ain’t exactly Austin or San Antonio. The sign entering the town lists its population at 1,788 individuals. My guess is that it’s larger than that now. Construction crews are leveling property all over town, laying utility lines down in preparation for more home and business construction.

One of these days — probably quite soon — Dripping Springs is going to be much larger than it is today.

Jack’s head must be spinning.

He told us this morning about a bison that got loose and was roaming through the town in the old days; he talked about how cattle walked and grazed through the town. “No one cared,” Jack said.

He talked about how his parents were able to provide for young Jack with so very little in the way of what we could call “modern conveniences.”

There is just something remarkably unassuming and so durn “down home” about ol’ Jack. He speaks with that classic Texas twang.

He’s a delightful gentleman who just seems to love regaling “young folks” like my wife, brother-in-law and me with tales of how it used to be in a place that to my eyes doesn’t look too terribly removed from how it was.

I am certain Jack sees it through an entirely different prism.

I’m hoping to get back to the Hill Country soon and perhaps listen to more tales of days gone by from Jack. He has me spellbound.

 

State news

Journey coming to an end

at the beach

COLORADO CITY, Texas — It hasn’t been the Trip of a Lifetime.

My wife and I have experienced a couple of those already in our 44 years together.

We did, however, answer a key question: Are we able to spend more than, say, a long weekend on the road in our fifth wheel travel vehicle?

Our answer? Yes … absolutely.

It’s our final night on the road. We’ll get up in the morning, unplug the water and the electricity and head to Lubbock for lunch with two of our best friends in the world. Then it’s home to Amarillo.

We’ve had a wonderful time catching up with some old friends along the way. We saw family members … including our precious granddaughter Emma.

We have nearly completed the big circle that covered roughly have of our huge state. We’ve taken in a good portion of Texas’s amazingly diverse landscape: from the Caprock, to rolling hills and the lakes, the Piney Woods, the Gulf Coast, the Hill Country — and tonight we camped out at Lake Colorado City State Park, which feature the cactus and scrub brush common in West Texas.

Our pets — our dog and cat — proved to us that they’re both excellent travelers. We took a gamble with our 13-year-old kitty, Mittens; she didn’t let us down. Toby the puppy? You know about him. He’s the coolest customer … ever!

Our latest journey is about to end. My wife and I are convinced more than ever that, yes, by golly — we can do this when the time comes to quit working for a living.

 

State news

A whole other country … indeed

gulf of mexico

ROCKPORT, Texas — We’re learning first-hand what the Texas travel industry has been saying since, oh, seemingly forever.

The state is like “a whole other country.”

That’s how it goes. The idea is to tell visitors about the physical diversity of this huge state. Politically diverse? Not really, but that’s a subject for another time.

My wife — and our dog and cat — and I are halfway through a two-week journey through much of the eastern half of our huge state.

Texas comprises more than 260,000 square miles. We’re going to see most of its physical diversity by the time we arrive back home on the High Plains, which I refer to affectionately as the Texas Tundra.

We’ve traipsed across the treeless Caprock, camped out among the thick forests that surround Lake Texoma, motored through the Piney Woods of East Texas, endured the stifling humidity of the Golden Triangle and again just west of Houston.

Tonight we’re camped out along the bay that comes off the Gulf of Mexico. We’re about 30 miles northeast of Corpus Christi. Rockport’s a nice town, but we intend to enjoy the gulf water as much as is humanly possible.

The nice part about this latest stop on our intrastate journey is that it’s cool enough during the day that we can go without turning on the air conditioner in the fifth wheel we’ve hauled from Amarillo.

Does it get any better than that?

In a few days we’ll head toward the Hill Country, where we’ll see even more lovely countryside.

I doubt we’ll be able to go without the A/C but, what the heck, you can’t have everything.

We’ll be back home on the Tundra soon enough.

The journey across this vast state, however, has given us a treat we’ll carry with us for a very long time.

 

local news, State news

Texas can use federal assistance

TX-flooding-2015

Hey, no kidding. Texas actually can use some help from the federal government.

As I understand it, Gov. Greg Abbott has to ask for a federal emergency declaration. The pictures I’m seeing from around the state, particularly in Houston and in the Hill Country, suggests the governor needs to get on the stick and ask for it.

President Obama talked to the governor by phone the other day and offered federal help. I’m guessing Gov. Abbott said, “Thank you, Mr. President. I’ll get back to you on that.”

Has he done so? I haven’t heard that he has.

Abbott calls the floods the worst in Texas history. As I’m writing this short blog, another storm is blasting overhead along the Texas Panhandle. It’s dumping more rain on our saturated ground — which isn’t nearly as soaked as the ground is in Houston, the Golden Triangle, the Coastal Bend and the Hill Country.

But it’s wet enough here.

My son, who’s visiting us from Allen — just north of Dallas — informed us of playas that appeared where there’s “never any water.” Well, he can’t say “never” now.

Ask for the feds’ help, governor.

And whatever you do, don’t let your political differences with the White House stand in the way.

 

State news

Abbott challenged by forces beyond control

This is why we pay the governor the big bucks.

He or she must deal with forces they cannot control. Political will? Forget about it. Returning favors? Not a chance. Paying someone back for doing you wrong? Not even close.

Texas Gov. Greg Abbott is dealing with forces no one can control.

http://www.texastribune.org/2015/05/27/deadly-flood-provides-abbott-his-first-no-manual-t/

As the Texas Tribune reports, Abbott’s immediate predecessor in the governor’s office, Rick Perry, quips to audiences to this day, that “Nobody gave me the manual” that explains how he copes with disaster.

Perry had his share during his 14 years as governor: hurricanes, tornadoes, wildfires, that big fertilizer plant blast in West. He had to buck up and just plain lead.

Abbott is now facing his own challenge barely five months into his first term.

Our weather has turned on us. Yes, it’s good to have the moisture — a term that seems quaint, given the volume of water that has fallen all across the state. The floods it has produced, though, is spreading heartache, grief and misery throughout much of the Hill Country and the Gulf Coast.

Abbott says the flooding is the worst in Texas history. He spoke by phone with President Obama, who pledged the federal government’s full support in helping Texas deal with this tragedy. Indeed, this is precisely the occasion to put all political differences aside — and there exist plenty of them between the governor and the president — while all parties work on behalf of stricken victims.

Has the governor done all he can do? I’m not prepared to make that judgment. The Texas Tribune reports: “To be sure, Abbott’s handling of the crisis has not been without some questions, including whether the state was fully prepared for the unrelenting run of inclement weather that began weeks ago. At news conferences throughout the state this week, he has assured reporters Texas was ready and everything worked that was supposed to.”

Actually, it seems almost impossible for any governor — or any elected official at almost any level — to be fully ready when events spring forth the way the flooding has done throughout the state.

This is Gov. Abbott’s crisis now. No one schooled him precisely on how to deal with it.

Let’s just call it a hyper-serious on-the-job training class.

We’ll see how it all grades out when the water recedes and Texans start reassembling their shattered lives.