"Feeling No Pain" in Luckenbach, Texas

DRIPPING SPRINGS, TEXAS – We have to thank our friends and hosts in the Austin area, Russ and Jacqui, not only for their warm and generous hospitality but also for pulling us away from the Austin scene and out to Dripping Springs. They said the Texas Hill Country was not to be slighted, and that was good advice indeed.

So on a beautiful Monday morning we headed out from Dripping Springs, itself a delightful community with a cute historic district, to explore the countryside west of Austin. The Hill Country is famous for its wildflowers, and we lucked out again. They are right now at their best and the profusion along both sides of the road was breathtaking. The region is actually quite hilly with escarpments and rocky outcroppings, and, this time of year, quite green. When the roads dip down to the bottoms, the signs warn repeatedly to beware of flash floods, and there’s always a measuring rod that tells you how many feet of water you will have to drive through if you dare.

Hill Country Wildflowers: awesome but hard to photograph.

Hill Country has a Mediterranean/Californian look.

We started with a hike along the Pedernales River at the falls. Quite a beautiful spot!

Cece and dogs at Pedernales Falls.

Some readers will remember the Pedernales as the beloved river of LBJ. The Texas White House sits on its banks. So our next stop was Johnson City and the Lyndon B. Johnson National Historical Park, well worth a visit for many reasons, one of which is to read the list of his legislative accomplishments in civil rights, anti-poverty, consumer protection, environment, health, and on and on, hundreds of pieces of major legislation, and thus to appreciate the utter poverty of our current politics.

LBJ's boyhood home in Johnson City.

Johnson City is also the home of Ronnie’s Barbeque, and since 1976 Ronnie Weiershausen has been cooking some of the best anywhere. We will let the photos tell the story.

Ronnie admiring some of his product.

The real deal!

And then Gus spotted falling off the bottom of our map the town of Luckenbach, and off we went to the spot immortalized by Willie and Waylon in 1977. Many country greats have performed there, and it is a sight to behold. Again, we will let the photos do the talking.

Old guy fits right in.

Luckenbach Dance Hall awaits another big night.

And Austin? Well, contrary to all expectations, we have very mixed feelings. Austin seems no longer the moderately liberal university town, at least not mainly. Mainly, it is a place of high, gleaming buildings that make the city look like it was built over the past decade. There’s a push-back movement in the city, “Keep Austin Weird,” but clearly that’s another Lost Cause. (But see South Congress Avenue and Scholz’s barbeque for some of the old.) Austin also does not appear to be taking care of its own. The scene at the homeless shelter was as depressing as anything we’ve seen lately, and Monday’s New York Times reported that Travis County had one of the worst records in the country for social and economic advancement of the poor. We were only in Austin a very short time, so apologies if we got this wrong.