A trip to the "Hill Country", LBJ's Ranch and San Antonio at night

We had heard so much about the wild flowers in the Hill Country of Texas we decided to take a long ride north of us, with a visit to the LBJ Ranch, Fredricksburg, and a night time visit to San Antonio for one more look at the River Walk (and Mall). We started early (8:30am) and returned home at early this morning (12:30am) traveling 356 miles. It was a fun filled day that included a variety of events. Today we a resting before heading for New Orleans tomorrow morning.

As we began our trip through the Hill Country we are treated to the spring wild flowers that have been abundant this year as the weather in the winter provided the rain and coolness that makes the flowers bloom all over the country side. The open fields, highway shoulders and medians were covered with an array of colorful flowers amongst the grass. We headed north towards our first stop, Johnson City, the homestead of President Johnson's family. We walked around the the grounds of the homes where his father was born and family lived which has been set aside as a part of the National Parks system.

Fourteen miles down the road we stopped at the LBJ Ranch and Texas White House. The ranch originally was several thousand acres. The Johnsons donated 269 acres to the National Park System and the later additional property was bought resulting in the approximately 700 acres. It is still a working ranch with land being leased to cattle ranchers on the 2,000 acres of property manage by descendants of the Johnson's. The 6000 foot paved airstrip is still maintained although not used. It was built for the president to land Airforce 1 at the Texas White House, but it was not long enough so he would land in Austin and then take the smaller Gulf Stream Jet to finish the trip. He dubbed the smaller jet "Airforce 1/2". The self guided tour with it's complementary CD was informative and well worth the trip.

We continued on to Fredricksburg Texas. It is a small German settlement west of Johnson City. The city was founded in the 1840's and still maintains it's culture though many of the older buildings have been transformed into touristy shops. Next to Texan, English, and Spanish, German is the fourth most spoken language in Texas.

We finish our last leg of the trip in downtown San Antonio with the express purpose of taking the River Boat tour at night. Of course, the boat departs from a huge mall. I do not need to say anything more.

We parked in a garage on a main street and walked down to the river walk. It was a lot easier to find the way to the mall than the way back to the parking garage (one of a million garages in town). The police officers on the street knew exactly where it was. We headed down the road and successfully arrived home early this morning with another great adventure completed.

We decided to stay an extra day here in Columbus and get some rest and chores done before we head out. Not counting the miles on the car, we have completed 2,200 miles. Everyone of them has been a great adventure.