Real Texas; The Hill Country

[LSyd]

awesome Americana.

i still have some Texas threads to do, which will be a nice compliment to this thread (Georgetown, Belton, Cameron, and some small town outside of Houston, maybe Hemptsead?)

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[AusHou]

I know this is mainly a small town thread (a great one at that) but you started off with a few pics taken near downtown Houston. Maybe you can confirm for me, but are those couple of shots from that area where the old ghetto is being cleared out and replaced with condo/townhouse infill? Based on the angle of the skyline, I'm pretty sure that's where I'm thinking it is.

Fredericksburg has to be the coolest small town I've ever visited. It seemed a lot bigger than what you'd expect for 10K or so population. Maybe because of it being so packed with tourists. The German influence is what I like. You can even find window boxes with flowers, like you see in Germany. The Admiral Nimitz Museum is worth seeing, too.

[AusHou]

Originally Posted by LSyd

awesome Americana.

i still have some Texas threads to do, which will be a nice compliment to this thread (Georgetown, Belton, Cameron, and some small town outside of Houston, maybe Hemptsead?)

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I discovered the little town of Burton a while back. Just off 290 between Hempstead and Brenham (another great town). You can't see the downtown area of Burton from the highway. I didn't have my camera, otherwise I would have gotten some great pics. I was really fascinated with Burton.

[photoLith]

Newtex, in that Houston photo I think most of those old houses that are left in that small part of town are being fenced off to be restored at a later date. Just down the street from this picture they were restoring an old 1870s house that was in much much worse condition than the houses in the picture. But the vacant land that is just sitting there is being turned into very ugly and suburban styled town homes for the most part. It's pretty much a travesty what is going on there. So much potential but its being turned into a shitty suburban looking area.

[giovanni sasso]

man, you really know how to find it out there. i'd love to see this side of texas some time. good work bringing luckenbach and la grange into the mix, too.

are there many wind turbines and/or natural gas drilling rigs in this area?

[KevinFromTexas]

Originally Posted by giovanni sasso

are there many wind turbines and/or natural gas drilling rigs in this area?

Not really, at least not any grand scale. There are no wind turbines in the Hill Country that I know of. The Hill Country isn't really a windy place, so they don't do very well there. Really the only places in Texas where you find them are along the coast. There's a large wind farm near Corpus Christi. I've seen a few lone ones west of Houston, but they may have been on private property for private use. You can also find them in places in West Texas. There's supposedly a big wind farm near Abilene, and they even manufacture them there.

As for oil & gas drilling. I know there's a gas rig in La Grange, but La Grange isn't in the Hill Country, it's about half way between Austin and Houston. Most of what you'll see in the Hill Country are maybe a few oil rigs (pumpers) here and there on private property. I've seen some along the highway on the way to Boerne, Texas. You'll also see them along the coast. The most visible natural gas rigs you'll find are in the panhandle. The Texas panhandle north of Lubbock past Amarillo and beyond contains huge helium reserves. It's supposedly the largest helium reserve in the US. I remember going through there at night and seeing all these flashing lights off in the distance. Each one was a rig about the size of a car. There's supposed to be over a billion cubic feet of it there.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Helium_Reserve

[Lipani]

Nice tour! I went through the Hill Country about 7 years ago and loved it. Hopefully another opportunity will come up when I visit Texas in two or three months.

[John R]

I haven't seen any wind turbines in the Hill Country, either. I think the uplift in elevation, the hills, and the trees all tend to slow the velocity of the wind. I have never noticed the Hill Country to be a particularly windy place. Most of the wind farms that I have seen have been in far West Texas along US 67, I-10 and I-20. There is a good sized one near the Red River, just north of Muenster in North Texas. If you don't know where Muenster is, it is located west of Gainesville, and about 60 miles due north of Fort Worth.

As for oil drilling, you see more of that going up US 287 northwest of Fort Worth. Just to the west of the city, you do see a smattering of wells. Gas drilling is big in the Barnett Shale and there are several rigs going up right now in the City of Fort Worth. Some of these are in very urban areas.

[Robert Pence]

Striking photos!

I had a mammaw, too. Mine was a short, stout German lady who always worried that my brother and I were too skinny. Whenever we were around her she'd shove fresh apple dumplings with cream at us, and other goodies like pecan rolls and coffee cakes and pies and cookies. She was a wonder in the kitchen, and the only one of a half-dozen siblings who was born in America. The only other one in her family that I knew was her sister, a huge, scary, loud woman who didn't speak English, and my mom said it was a good thing she didn't, because she had a really foul mouth. My mammaw was all sweetness, though, and spoiled us rotten.

[oldmanshirt]

Kevin is right, "Oma" is German for grandmother.

I should really quit looking at threads like these, it just makes me miss home that much more! btw, I'm guessing you were being sarcastic when you said Fredericksburg wasn't very touristy, as I'm pretty sure its one of the biggest tourist traps in the state. In fact, it might be second only to that home of a certain notable Spanish mission that lies 70 miles to the southeast down US 87.

[photoLith]

^
It may be a tourist trap but its a beautiful one. It for sure is not just a Branson or some crap like that. It feels like a real city, a big one at that for being so small. Once you get off main street, theres tons of beautiful houses in the surrounding neighborhoods and theres not usually a tourist to be found walking those streets. It being touristy saved the towns history, if it werent for the tourists, it would be just another dead town whose brightest days were behind it.

[jrw21]

wonderful tour, thanks! I've driven through Hill Country 2 or 3 times, but I had no idea it was hiding such little gems within its confines. Fredricksburg looks really neat, as do some of the other small towns you showed.

[John R]

I also like Fredericksburg. On the way down to our twice yearly bicycle tours in the Hill Country, we try to eat at Altdorf's Restaurant at least once on every trip. Altdorf's has a great biergarten under the trees and it is right behind one of the churches featured in the photos on this thread. All of the Hill Country is great for bicycling because you have the challenging hills, scenery, trees, rivers, and good roads.

[BG918]

Originally Posted by John R

I haven't seen any wind turbines in the Hill Country, either. I think the uplift in elevation, the hills, and the trees all tend to slow the velocity of the wind. I have never noticed the Hill Country to be a particularly windy place. Most of the wind farms that I have seen have been in far West Texas along US 67, I-10 and I-20. There is a good sized one near the Red River, just north of Muenster in North Texas. If you don't know where Muenster is, it is located west of Gainesville, and about 60 miles due north of Fort Worth.

As for oil drilling, you see more of that going up US 287 northwest of Fort Worth. Just to the west of the city, you do see a smattering of wells. Gas drilling is big in the Barnett Shale and there are several rigs going up right now in the City of Fort Worth. Some of these are in very urban areas.

There are massive wind farms as you head west toward Fort Stockton on I-10. That whole area is full of wind turbines with more getting built every year. Same for the High Plains around Lubbock and Amarillo into west/southwest Oklahoma and up into western Kansas. Like John said most oil/gas activity is further west (Permian Basin), south/southeast (Eagle Ford) and north (Barnett) of the Hill Country. That is one of the reasons Austin was never much of an oil town while Texas cities like Dallas, Ft Worth, Midland and Houston were..

One of my favorite things about the Hill Country are the spring-fed rivers. There are some beautiful rivers and streams in that area that run clear thanks to the limestone bottoms.

[Expat]

I wondered why the rivers are so beautiful there. It must be the limestone bottoms.

[photoLith]

The water is so clear because of the Edwards Aquifer, the water travels underground into the honeycombed limestone bedrock. I believe that it takes years for the water to resurface into the springs and creeks in the Edwards Aquifer recharge zone. And yeah, the water is so clear when it resurfaces because The Hill Country is fairly dry most of the year so sediment levels within the creek beds are low so the water remains clear.

Heres the Edwards formation, it spans quite some distance.


from wikipedia

[Thundertubs]

Great tour of some rural TX.

[ChiTownCity]

I'll never understand what'll drive someone to live in the middle of no where regardless of age....

You really do know how to make pretty much any place look interesting!! Nice set!...

[-AX-]

Great tour!

[KevinFromTexas]

Originally Posted by ChiTownCity

I'll never understand what'll drive someone to live in the middle of no where regardless of age....

You really do know how to make pretty much any place look interesting!! Nice set!...

Me either, really. There's not much west of there. The next largest city to the west is Midland, and it's still a good 300 miles away from there, and then another 300 to El Paso. But Austin and San Antonio are only about 75 to 85 miles to the east of Fredericksburg. The Hill Country has remained largely undeveloped mostly because of the environmental sensitivity of the area. San Antonio for example gets its water from the Edwards Aquifer. Also most of the land is owned by ranchers. Some of the property there has been in family hands for well over 100 years.