Gruene, TX and Travel on Sunday 9-30

Gruene was everything I had hoped for.  Old buildings from the early days of the German settlements in Texas.  Of-course a lot of them were now used for tourist venues, some were preserved as museum pieces.  I thoroughly enjoyed wandering around the area looking for photo shots.  The weather has continued to be grey with occasional peeks of blue sky.  I like taking pictures in this kind of weather if I can omit the sky, but that is not always possible to tell the whole story.  So hopefully these shots give you a good idea of what Gruene is all about.

First off, buildings on main streets.

The old Grist Mill converted into a restaurant.

Of course there is an out-house.

Old buildings - probably used to house supplies for maintaining the area.

An old barn used for a store for pottery and fine arts.

I love to take pictures of wood grain.  It is so beautiful.

An old home, complete with gingerbread, used as a bed and breakfast.

Another restaurant.

Love the pink fading paint - now a bed and breakfast.

The famous Gruene water tower.

The rest of the day we spent driving to Baton Rouge, LA  Lots of traffic on Route 10.  Only one or two accidents, intermittent rain, but still a lot of activity for a Sunday. We are looking forward to a couple of quiet days in our apartment in Baton Rouge.

Texas Hill Country and More!

Saturday - a great day to drive in the country.  After we left Abilene, we headed for 83 South.  We didn't stop until we reached Winter, TX.  This is not in the Hill Country, But we could not ignore all the blue ribbons tied to various posts in the downtown area.  I deleted most of those photos, but if you look close at the first one you can see them.

I have to put a caveat out there - I changed to our brand new lens, the 1.8 Olympus fish eye lens.  I love the effect!

 I love this picture of my husband.  It reminds me of when we first met.  You don't notice his grey hair at all!

Then on to Ballinger, TX, still not in Hill Country.

We stopped in Junction, TX for BBQ at Coopers -really good, but not fantastic.  The, as we were running late, we got onto Hwy 10 until we got to Kerrville.  It was raining, so we were trying to take photos while holding umbrellas.

 After this photo the women actually jumped into the river with something on her back, looked like oxygen.

 A reflection photo.

Bandera and Boerne were busts - Boerne especially was supposed to have a great downtown,  we found it all too touristy.  I had driven through heavy rain, then Mike took over.  Then he was tired and I ended up driving through heavy traffic around San Antonio - not fun!!!!  We decide to leave Gruene until tomorrow morning and headed for our hotel in New Braunfels.  Our hotel, a Hampton Inn had a tiny entrance that was not well marked at all.  We missed it.  As I was trying to figure out what the google maps person was trying to tell us to do I almost hit an auto in the turn lane that was stopped.  Mike yelled at me and we came to a screeching stop just a few feet away from the car.  No time to react to this, have to turn around in a quiet neighborhood with kids playing soccer in the street.  Finally made it back to the road, went through a gas station and wound our way onto the parking lot of the hotel.  After we checked in, we told the check in person about our issue of finding the entrance into the hotel.  He said - just drive into the gas station entrance and wind your way into our parking lot!!!  Just what we had done!..  We were done with driving here!  We ordered in Chinese food -very mediocre - but at least we weren't hungry.