Rouladen, Music, and Enchanted Rocks

The first thing we did when we had parked Jet, our 5^th wheel, at the Fredericksburg RV campground, was to walk into town and find a restaurant that served German beer, bratwurst and rouladen. 

Richard is fond of wurst, I prefer schnitzel.  But when I saw rouladen on the menu of the Auslander Restaurant and Beergarten, I had to have them.  Rouladen remind me of my mother.  They are the German equivalent to Scottish beef olives, but 100 times better.

Both Richard and I have German connections and love the food.  Fredericksburg is as German as the States is going to get, and we had been looking forward to visiting.  It's about an hour's drive from Dripping Springs where we have been living since our arrival in the U.S.  I figured it is about time you had a map!

Yes, it might be a little kitsch seeing waitresses in dirndl dresses, and it is definitely a tourist destination with overpriced shops along the main street, but many locals still speak German and are trying to keep their history alive. The architecture is a peculiar mix of German and American, and the layout of the city with its Vereinskirche and bandstand, pioneer museum, and its cultural, musical and choral passion make it unique.

This Texas city of currently more than 10,000 inhabitants was founded by Baron von Meusebach in 1846.  He was a member of a group of German nobility, the Adelsverein, who hoped for great riches by establishing a colony in the New World. Of the hundreds of families who signed up and sailed to Indianola, to make the overland trip to Fredericksburg, only 120 survived the journey. Von Meusebach brokered the 1847 Treaty between the Comanche and the German Immigration Company. The treaty was unique in that it did not take away the rights of the local Penateka Comanche, but was an agreement that the Comanche and settlers would mutually share the land, co-existing in peace and friendship. It is one of the very few treaties with Native American tribes that was never broken.

By 1847 the town had 600 settlers, by 1904 this had risen to 1630.  During the first half of the 20th century, despite railway links to San Antonio, Fredericksburg remained much like other Texas Hill County farm and ranch communities of German heritage, isolated from the commercialization of their culture. The population and its growth remained anchored to its roots until the 1960’s when Lyndon B. Johnson (born in nearby Johnson City) became Vice President of the United States and the political arena shifted to his “Texas White House” in Stonewall, some 15 miles from Fredericksburg.  Lady Bird Johnson's passion for Texas wildflowers led to a demand for wildflower seeds, and peaches, herb farms, grape culture, and lavender production have become burgeoning businesses in Fredericksburg. Combinations of winery tours with day spas, wedding facilities, or bed and breakfast accommodation is prevalent. There is even a Texas Hill Country Lavender Trail.

The one other institution that draws large numbers of visitors (including us) is Admiral Chester Nimitz’s State Historic Site.  Nimitz, a German Texan who rose to the rank of Fleet Admiral of the US Navy during WWII, was born in 1885 in his grandfather's hotel which is now part of the larger National Museum of the Pacific War.  You can read more about that visit and his story in my other blog: http://survivingbrigittessecrets.blogspot.com/2015/03/the-other-war.html

History lesson over, let me tell you more about our trip.  I’ve already mentioned the rouladen.  Now here’s the music. 

After we had eaten our fill we wandered through the shops and ended up at the other end of town at Hondo’s Bar and Grill, drawn in because it advertised live music.  The weather was a balmy 70F so we found ourselves a seat on one the wooden benches in the beer-garden at the side of the bar, and waited for the band to come on.  

We were soon joined by 10 mostly inebriated mature ladies (teachers we found out - it was Spring Break school holiday) who had partaken of a wine tasting tour in the locality and were suffering hunger pangs and an urge to party.  One of the ladies who had been in line for her beer and food order for nearly 15 minutes longer than anyone else came back and told everyone excitedly that she had been chatted up by a guy in the queue.  He apparently owned a jewellery shop in town and was pretty damn cute.  They all congratulated her on still having the magic touch.  Several beer buckets and margarita’s later, a man came over and introduced himself to the table.  I could tell by the look on her face it was him.  Brave man, I thought.  He turned to Richard and said “Buddy, I want to shake your hand and congratulate you.  And I want to know your secret – how do you it?  How come you’re the only guy sitting with all these cute women?” 

Needless to say they made room for him and, as though his compliment wasn’t enough to ingratiate himself, later on he handed out earrings to everyone (apart from me and Richard).  We did have good fun with everyone, chatting and dancing; one lady even took time to try to improve Richard’s Texas two-step proficiency!  

That evening’s performer, Stephanie Urbina Jones is, as described in her website, “a fiery Latina poised to be the first female Hispanic American artist to break through Country Americana music with her county rock south of the border sound and style all her own”, and I guess that might be true.  Her influences are Carole King/ Santana/ Willie Nelson/Johnny Cash/ Linda Ronstadt/ Marco Antonio Solis/ Bette Midler/ Oprah Winfrey / Mariachi Azteca; I’m guessing Oprah was in that list not for her musical ability, but for her inspiring role model as the biggest earning African American woman in the USA.  Stephanie told us about all her musical accomplishments, including a # 1 single that she wrote for the US’s “The Voice” winner, along with other songs written for and recorded by Nashville artists.  I found this a bit annoying after a while, Scots are not generally comfortable listening to others blowing their own trumpets.  But the songs she sang in between her self-aggrandizement were a nice mix of latino and country, and good to listen and dance to.

A few nights later we went back again to Hondo’s which has regular performances by Texas based musicians.  The place is owned by Cris Hondo, the daughter of John Russell (Hondo) Crouch, a writer, humorist, and the owner/self-proclaimed Mayor of Luckenbach, Texas. He was an All-American swimmer at the University of Texas. From 1963 to 1975, Hondo wrote under the pen name Peter Cedarstacker for a local newspaper, satirizing politics, government, ecology, deer hunters, social life, and everyday country problems and celebrations. In 1971 he bought Luckenbach, Texas, a small community established as an Indian trading post. As Mayor, he brought to life the town’s motto “Everybody is Somebody in Luckenbach.” He held celebrations such as the Luckenbach World’s Fair, the first Texas Women Only Chili Cook-Off, Return of the Mud Daubers Celebration, and many No-Talent Contests. No mean feat for a town that claims a population of three.

We had been told Luckenbach was a place worth visiting. We didn’t manage to go to the Mud Daubers Chili Cook-off that was held on the Saturday because it was raining, but we went the following day.  The place basically consists of a group of wooden buildings shaded by trees 

beside a creek and a cemetery, and an enormous area for motorbike and car parking.  This is a popular place for families, kids,

 roosters, 

and biker-rallies, 

as well as country music lovers.

Luckenbach's association with country music seemingly began in 1973, when Jerry Jeff Walker, recorded a live album at the Luckenbach Dancehall

called Viva Terlingua. That album became an outlaw country classic.  Four years later Waylon Jennings and Willie Nelson memorialized Luckenbach with the song "Luckenbach, Texas (Back to the Basics of Love)." Notable concert appearances include Waylon Jennings, Willie Nelson, and Lyle Lovett and a whole list of others I have never heard of. 



Sunday afternoons are supposed to be for adhoc jamming, and I’m not sure if the three artists on stage that day were “jamming” or not.

They took turns singing cover songs and some originals.  We didn’t catch their names, but the middle guy was from Canada, and always chose to play in towns besides rivers, so he could do some fishing on his way around the US.  He gave a really nice rendition of his compatriot Neil Young’s “Harvest Moon” – one of my all-time favourites.

It seems that souvenir vultures stole the old signs and antique fire truck, the blacksmith shop was washed down the creek, and in 2002 floods took the cotton gin. The remaining buildings consist of a wooden dance hall, a couple of bars, a former post office, a few impromptu stages and seating areas, a hat shop

(no - Richard didn't buy the hat!)

and a general store which has been in existence since 1849 and was first opened as a trading post with the Comanche Indians. In the 1902 German-language Fredericksburg newspaper there was an advert for the Luckenbach store that read “First Class Country Store,” which claimed to sell everything from the cradle to the grave, including coffins & cowbells. 

Our last outing on this particular five day trip was to Enchanted Rock, an enormous pink granite pluton batholith, situated about 15 miles north of Fredericksburg.  No I didn’t know what that was either! http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enchanted_Rock

Folklore of local Tonkawa, Apache and Comanche tribes ascribes magical and spiritual powers to the rock (hence the name 'Enchanted Rock'). The Tonkawa, who inhabited the area in the 16th century, believed that ghost fires flickered at the top of the dome. In particular they heard unexplained creaking and groaning, which geologists attribute to the rock's night-time contraction after being heated by the blazing sun during the day. 

 It certainly blazed on the back of my neck as we climbed the rock and walked one of the many trails around the base. 

 It was lovely to sit in the cool shade along the creek that ran in Echo valley.

 and look up at what we had climbed.

We discovered at the information board of the entrance to the trails, that weathering caused by water flowing from the top cracks the granite and causes boulders and sheets of rock to slide loose and downwards.

The top of the dome has little dips that look like monstrous footprints,

and water collected in the larger ones of these (called vernal pools) provide an ecosystem that supports more than 500 species of plants, as well as fragile invertebrate fairy shrimp and other wildlife such as bats, ringtails, squirrels, fox, and a wide variety of lizards, and birds.

On clear nights the rock is supposed to be a perfect place for star gazing.  From a distance it glows and sparkles, but of course that can be explained away by the moon reflecting on all that pink granite and the water in those vernal pools. 

Personally I prefer the more enchanting claim of the indigenous tribes that it was ghost fires flickering at the top of the dome.

PS  Richard and I are getting on the road proper on Monday, 6^th April, heading to Arkasas to visit his brother Don, various other relatives and friends in Oklahoma, and then over to Colorado to visit his cousin and his other brother Jim, as well as stopping off at various points of interest along the way.  That should take us until summer.  I might be publishing blogs less regularly, but probably several installments at once, as access to the internet will most probably be a bit sporadic.  Here's a map to put the distance into perspective