Our morning was spent on housekeeping chores. First since we had no coffee, we drove into Geddings to a McDonalds and had our first fast food breakfast of the trip! Our plan to buy groceries yesterday just did not work out and we had used all the coffee soooo…McDonalds it was. Behind McDonalds was a Wal-Mart so we thought we might do our shopping but not possible. This was a very small Wal-Mart and of my list with 20 things on it – they only had 2! So we just got the 2 so we could get some change for the washers and dryers back at the campground.
This campground had a very nice laundry with a recreation room attached…so we read, studied travel books, did some searches on the computer and before we knew it the laundry was done! I am sorry I did not take a photo because this was probably the first and last time our laundry was folded on a pool table.
By 11:30 we headed from Geddings toward San Marcos and New Braunfels. Jane wanted to visit a German Market that was being held in Gruene – an old German settlement near New Braunfels. We stopped at the first large Wal-Mart we came to in San Marcos. We had a picnic lunch in the parking lot, Ben had a nap and Jane completed the shopping. Wal-Mart had almost everything and we were soon on our way south to New Braunfels.
The Art/Craft Market was not really a German Christmas Market as Jane had thought but she did spend time looking in all the neat stores and at about half the Art/Craft booths before Ben arrived back to pick her up. Ben had decided to take a pass on the shopping – we think the chili yesterday had a worse impact on him than Jane. Yesterday Jane did not feel great but today is fine. The shops were very nice with a good mix of food, antiques, clothes, and Texas souvenirs. The crafts were very nice too but the only buying was a very nice leather fanny pack. Jane had been looking for one this entire trip and so far had not been successful in finding one. It will be nice not to lug a purse around.The spot Jane was to meet Ben in Gruene was very near the Guadalupe River – and yes Jo Anne it is still green. Not Kelly green by any means but it has a very greenish cast – I noticed this was also the case of the San Marcos River which is in this same general vicinity.
Cypress Trees at McKinney Falls
Upper McKinney Falls
We headed toward Austin and decided to stop early since Ben was not feeling very well. We headed to McKinney Falls State Park which is on the south side of Austin. We wanted to visit Cabela’s home store as well as the home of Jardine Foods for salsa, barbecue sauce, dips, jalapeno jelly etc. factory. We passed them by and will go back the 10 miles first thing tomorrow. McKinney Falls State Park is a nice wooded park right among the suburban home and urban sprawl area of Austin. It is a very peaceful wooded area and after cooking egg rolls to go with our leftover Pork with Cellophane Noodles and Oyster Beef from the venture to China Town in Houston on Friday. It was very good.
We have realized after talking to the ranger here that we best make arrangements for Wednesday and Thursday of this week. Evidently many people in TX travel over Thanksgiving and we might have problems with campsites. We have not had reservations anywhere and always found space so we had not given it much thought…tonight we will plan a little more than we have on this trip. It has been nice to just pick up the phone about 3:00 and call an hour or so ahead… guess we will have to do a little better than that for this holiday week! So after about an hour with all the travel books we have a general plan for the next few days…
Our entertainment for tonight was to watch “Song of the South”. One of Ben’s friends from college days sent him a bootleg copy of this old Disney classic that supposedly has been withdrawn from circulation for current politically correct reasons. It was certainly a journey down memory lane. The movie was released in 1946 and neither of us remembered seeing it but the music and Uncle Remus character and cartoon characters were certainly familiar so I am sure at some point we saw it.
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