On the Road Again! (to Willie's Place?)

Luckenbach's business district!

Okay, we didn't find Willie, but we came damn close most probably, setting up the “gypsy wagon” (5^th Wheel Trailer) Saturday, afternoon, June 11^th in the Fredericksburg, Texas KOA on Ranch Road 1376 just three miles up that same road from Luckenbach.  I can just hear the two of them now ;   “Let’s go to Luckenbach, Texas with Willie and Waylon and the boys!...”  

To get there from Tempe, AZ, our Holiday season “Home”, we had set off the day before headed  through Tucson and truckin on toward Las Cruces, New Mexico, our intended stopover point for the first night.  It was 380 miles away from Tempe; but we made really good time on the I10 freeway the whole way; and we pulled into one of the most scenic rest areas we’d ever seen, a 360 degree panoramic overlook of Las Cruces and the surrounding country, at NOON, with lots of good hauling time left on the day.  So, true to recent form, we blew off our reservation at the KOA in Las Cruces, called another KOA in the lonely little outpost of Van Horn, Texas further down I10 to make sure they had a space for us, then continued hauling.  By the time we pulled into Van Horn late in the afternoon, we’d covered 560 miles on the day, our longest single day haul since leaving Eugene back in late June.  We'd averaged around 65 mph, including diesel and meal stops; for us, hauling a 10,000 pound "gorilla" behind the Chevy, it was unprecedented speed on the open road! 

 It was just an overnight stay; good thing since there ain’t much in Van Horn, which is somewhere out in the middle of West Texas between El Paso (another forgettable place) and Fort Stockton (another... never mind!).  The KOA might have been the prettiest place in Van Horn; it was a nice, clean park, though nothing special.  But it was “home” for the night, and we headed off in the dark of early morning for Fredericksburg.

Two surprises awaited us on arrival in Texas Hill Country, one a pleasant one, the other not so much a pleasant thing.  First the good (pleasant) stuff; our KOA was right next door to a winery tasting room for Rancho Ponte vineyards.  We knew nothing about the winery; you know, what kind of wines they had… all that good stuff regular wine snobs should know ahead of time… but, not being wine snobs, we soon headed to the wine tasting; surprised to learn that they had pretty darn good, bold tasting Reds, our favorite kind.   An hour later, we stag… I mean walked crisply, if carefully... out of the room with a half case of Reds, and weaved our way back to our very convenient “home” for the next couple of days. 

Now, to the unpleasant surprise, which we’d actually dealt with for the most part before partaking of the good Vinho Tinto.  In Van Horn the previous evening I’d noticed one of the four tires on our 5^th Wheel had tread worn down on both edges, a clear sign of running on an under-inflated tire (I learned that tire fact via a Google Search, of course).  The other 3 tires looked fine; the worn one looked just slightly less inflated than the others.  I considered our options just briefly:  1) stay over longer in lonely Van Horn and try to swap out the worn tire for the spare; or 2) keep on truckin’, and deal with it later.   I chose the latter, and we headed off that morning after stopping at a service station and adding air to the under-inflated tire.  

 Things went well, the tire held up, that is it didn’t blow out at 75 mph on the freeway, and we made it safely to the Fredericksburg KOA, only to discover, after checking in, that our previously slightly under-inflated tire was suddenly deflating in a hurry; I could now hear precious air seeping out, rapidly!.  We had a flat!  We'd made it to our stopover point for the day just in time! We’ll deal with it tomorrow (Monday) morning before we head out of town.  Right now, our “Gypsy Wagon” is a 3-legged animal (see below).

Not going anywhere far with this "Flat" baby!

Now back to Luckenbach.  We headed there today, Sunday (Jan 12^th).  We’d been there before; it hasn’t grown any since our last visit a few years ago; still the quaint, very tiny little place Willie and Waylon sang into history.  They have live music  in Luckenbach every day of the week.  We were going to listen to some local pickers and singers this afternoon; but a whole lot of “bikers” were already there by the time we arrived and space was limited; so we decided to just buy a few T-shirts and a couple CD’s of Texas Honky Tonk music (skipping the live music), and head back to camp. 

The lineup in front of Luckenbach Dance Hall

 Besides, neither Willie nor Waylon were anywhere in sight;  Waylon’s been parked underground in a Mesa, Arizona cemetery for some ten years... we visited him last year during a trip to Arizona;  Willie may have been up in Colorado trying to buy some LEGAL Pakalolo… or maybe not! That's just idle, unsubstantiated, speculation... mine!  Little matter, it was a fun visit even without the famous duo.

And then it was on to downtown Fredericksburg for some good German food.  The town was founded by German immigrants way back when, and retains still a very distinct German flavor.  At our restaurant, “der Lindenbaum”, we were served by a waitress with a quite heavy German accent; and, of course, we ordered traditional German fare, mine Sauerbraten washed down with a Bitburger German Pilsener.  All things German, it seems, and quite good!

Sauerbraten mit noodles und red cabbage - "bitte ein Bit", to wash it all down.

 Pardon the fractured German, bitte!

Tomorrow, once we have four good, properly inflated, tires under the GypsyWagon, we’re off to South Padre Island on the southern Texas Gulf.