Steers & Queers - Texas

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Only two things come from Texas - Steers and Queers, and I don't see no horns boy! Fi and I recently returned from a whirl wind trip to Texas and what a great place to visit! The Americans celebrated Memorial Day on Monday 28 May which is the equivalent to our ANZAC day, but done without copious amounts of beer and there was definitely no Two-Up (How un-Australian I hear you say....). It did come with one advantage - a day off for Fiona on Monday - so with the added bonus of taking Friday off we flew out of Jacksonville on Thursday night heading for Austin, Texas.

We arrived in the State's Capitol and wasted no time in getting in our hire car and driving the hour south to San Antonio to begin our travels. We arrived shortly after dark and decided to get a bite to eat. We headed for one of the key attractions in San Antonio - The River Walk. In the early 1940's some genius had the idea to exploit the San Antonia river and decided to pave the sides, plant heaps of trees and build a lot of bars and restaurants. Sixty or so years later the River Walk has become one of the key tourist attractions in the city. Being quite a narrow river (about 8 meters wide through the river walk), it is quite a quaint little area that feels almost European. It's very difficult to describe, so it may be best to look at the photos. After a nice Mexican meal we headed back to the hotel and grabbed a good night sleep.

We got up the next morning to a pretty big storm. Flash Flood warnings had been issued for most of southern Texas and it was absolutely belting down. But we weren't going to let this stop us - even if I had forgotten to pack our rain coats and we only had one really small umbrella between us! It was off to the Alamo!! We timed it beautifully and arrived at the Alamo just before opening - just enough time to stand in the rain and get wet before they opened the gates. Whilst it was pretty wet, it also meant that there were no other tourists and we pretty much had the place to ourselves.

The Alamo - the spiritual centre of Texas' fight for independence and the place where Davy Crockett was killed. It was originally a Spanish Mission which was later used as a fortress during the Texas war of Independence against Mexico. It was here that 190 defenders held out against a Mexican force of around 2,000 men for 13 days. Finally they were overcome and every single defender was killed. Pretty tragic story really, but it has become the embodiment of being Texan and was a great place to visit. Having seen heaps of pictures and movies about the Alamo it was pretty amazing to actually be there. It had a really great museum with loads of cool exhibits such as Davy Crockett's rifle and hunting knifes. After having a look around there for about an hour we decided that we definitely needed to buy a couple of ponchos from the Alamo gift shop as being soaking wet all day just wasn't going to cut it. Typically as soon as we emerged from the shop bearing our newly purchased ponchos the rain stopped as if a tap had been turned off.....apparently God is a pretty funny bloke (think he owes me a beer).

After visiting the Alamo we jumped on a city trolley which takes you to all the key sites and is a narrated tour. During the early settlement of the US, the Spanish built a number of missions through Texas (one of which was the Alamo), but the most lavish of them was San Juan Mission. We jumped off the trolley and explored this Mission which was built some time around the 1720's. It was a pretty impressive building and was in great condition - so good in fact that it is still a practicing Catholic Church.

We left the Mission and jumped back on the Trolley and visited the Mexican markets for lunch. We found a great place to eat and ordered a meal and a couple of beers. On the menu you could have normal or Jumbo beers - quite deceivingly they had written 'Schooner' in brackets next to Jumbo - so being Australian and a male I orderd two Jumbo beers. They weren't kidding......they came out in glasses bigger than my head, but not quite as big as Jamo's (If there is enough glass in the world to make a stein that big). There was a singing quartet of guitar playing mexicans providing entertainment during lunch and the food was fantastic - nearly as good as the beers were big! Needless to say we were pretty happy for the rest of our tour!!

After the visit to San Antonio we jumped in the car and headed to Bandera - the self proclaimed Cowboy Capitol of the World. Whoever came up with this name wasn't kidding either. Although it was only about an hour out of San Antonio it was like stepping into another country. We arrived about four o'clock to find the road to the Ranch we were staying at was flooded!! Well, there was nothing else for it - straight to the pub for a beer. We went to a local hang out called 'Wild Horse Saloon' and had some authentic Texan beer, 'Lone Star', which Cowboys later told us was 'Man Beer', not like that other poofter stuff (which I think was a reference to every other American beer). After about 8pm the water had subsided a bit and our All Terrain 4WD Ford Focus Hire Car successfully completed the river crossing and we arrived at Twin Elm Ranch. We decided to stay here for a true Texas experience - and we had an absolute blast. The Ranch was set up for tourists and was run by Cowboys who were a few years beyond working ranches - these blokes were looking for a more relaxed lifestyle and something a bit less stressful on the body. We were met at the office by our host Karen whose Texas accent was so thick she was hard to understand, but between her Texan and our Australian we somehow managed to sort things out. It just so happened that the National Rodeo Championships were in town, and the Twin Elm was a sponsor of the Rodeo so Karen gave us two free tickets. We headed straight there and found our seats hoping the rain would hold off.

Well the Rodeo was one very unique experience - we saw Calf Lassoing, Bucking Bronco Riding, Bull Riding, and probably the funniest part of the night was the 'Calf Scurry'. The Rodeo got all the children in the crowd down into the stadium and released 3 calves with ribbon tied around their tail. The kids who chased them and got the ribbons off the calves won $5. It was hilarious to see about 50 kids of all ages running through a muddy arena chasing 3 shit scared calves....very funny indeed. Anyway, after the rodeo we successfully completed the river crossing for a third time and headed back to the Ranch.

We got up the next morning and ate a hearty Texan style breakfast before our first horse riding trip. Fi was on a horse called 'Freckle' (for obvious reasons - see photo), and I was on Baron. We rode three times during our stay there and were given the same horses each time which was pretty cool. Well, these horses had some character. Fiona's horse obviously didn't like her and decided to drag her through every tree he could possibly find - it didn't matter how much Fi tried to steer the horse he would just strut through tree branches, bushes and shrubs - anything he could find. This left me nearly falling off my horse in laughter as Fiona squawked and carried on - the Cowboys just laughed too, calling her a 'bloody women driver'. My horse wasn't much better - he seemed to like Freckle...a lot. No matter what I did I just couldn't stop him from nuzzling into Freckle's bum as we walked along - Baron must've thought that Freckle had a nice Freckle. We had a great time riding around the Ranch - saw some wild deer and just enjoyed the views...it was really quite relaxing.

After our ride we laid by the pool for a couple of hours (sounds very Texas Ranch doesn't it), and then decided to head into town. If you remember before when I said it was like arriving in another country, well we couldn't believe this place. We drove past one of the pubs and there were about four horses tied out the front next to the parked cars. Cowboys rode their horses into town and took them to the pub, the bank......one bloke told us he even took his horse through the drive through ATM's and fast food drive thru's!!! It was pretty amazing. We had a beer at one of the pubs people watching for a while before heading back to the Ranch for dinner - all you could eat home cooked ribs!! I was in heaven.

After dinner they fired up the camp fire and we sat around having a couple of beers. One of the guys pulled out his guitar and sang songs while they told us what it was like living there. The two things we took away was that it was 'Hotteran'ell' most of the time, and that when it came to romance in Bandera, 'you didn't loose your Girlfriend, you just lost your turn'. These guys were a real crack up - very funny blokes and we sat around drinking beer and talking to them well into the night.

The next morning we got up and had out last horse ride and headed off back to Austin. On the way we stopped in a quaint little town called Gruene to do some 'River Toobin'. This involved hiring a tire inner tube and floating down the Guadeloupe River which was quite picturesque and scenic. They really had this Toobin' sorted - you could hire a tube for your esky, as long as you took your empties with you. This made it pretty funny as the further you got down the river the drunker people were. Unfortunately the river is spring fed and was really cold. The bad weather hadn't moved on so we managed to freeze our bits off and get rained on for about 2 hours as we floated down the river - and we paid $50 for the privilege. It was actually a pretty nice experience and great fun.

After the Toobin' we arrived in Austin just in time to see the number one tourist attraction - the sunset flight of thousands of bats. There are absolutely thousand of them living under a bridge in Austin and they take off to feed just after sunset. It was like watching a seething black cloud move its way across the sky - it was just incredible - there were thousands upon thousands of them. Fi was really concerned she was going to get pooed on, but unfortunately that didn't happen or there would be a photo of it posted on the blog. Other than Bats, Austin is well known for its night life and music scene, however other than that there really isn't too much too see which was a little disappointing. However good can always come from bad. Just down the road from Austin is a small town called San Marco which is apparently world famous for it's shopping outlets, so Fiona dragged me down there for a day of outlet shopping - which is exactly what you want to do when you're on a holiday. I've got to admit that this place was pretty impressive - it was absolutely huge, we have never seen anything like it. We were there for about 6 hours and we got through about one quarter of the first outlet plaza....and there were at least two other big outlets plazas we could have gone to. Absolutely unbelievable - Fiona was in heaven. Fortunately for me, all good things must come to an end and we soon had to leave and head back to the airport to fly home.

Texas was a great place to visit - very unique part of the country and it really gave us that truly 'American' experience. Texan's are fiercely proud of their heritage and they always refer to themselves as Texans before being American. It was definitely one of the best places we have visited.

In the words of Davy Crockett: 'You can all go to hell, and I am going to Texas'.

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Photos

Dude Ranchin' in Texas
Here's Fi on 'Freckle' and me on 'Baron'.

The Alamo
This is Fi and I out the front of the Church at the Alamo. This was the last place to be overrun in the battle.

The River Walk
The water was a bit dirty because of the heavy rains. We took a cruise along the River Walk - tour boats run about every two mins and provide a guided tour of the area which was a really nice way to see the city.

The San Juan Misson
This Mission was the 'Queenn' of the four missions in the San Antonio area. It had a walled enclosure of about 5 acres and was manned by armed soldiers with rifles and cannons in its day.

Mmmm....Nachos and Beers
Is there are better combination??? Lunch at the Mexican Markets...

Flooded Road at Bandera
This was the flooded road in Bandera - the water normally flows about 5 feets under the bridge (which is about 2 feet under the water in this picture).

Twin Elm Guest Ranch
Posing for a photo with my Davy Crockett hat on....

Fiona and Freckle
Here's Fi mounted up for our last ride - Freckle managed to walk her through just about every tree we passed.

11th Street Bar
It was not uncommon to see horses tied up out the front of bars - and drunk Cowboys riding their horses home!

Twin Elm Ranch
Here's a photo from around the Ranch. Wild Cactus grew all over the place.

Guadaloupe River
Fiona and I had lunch at Bubba's Beers overlooking the river before we went Toobin'. We should have been able to tell how cold it was!