The Road to Eola (#44)

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In my mind there is no more glorious time in the Texas Hill Country than spring wildflower season. The peak months are typically Mid March to Mid April. The intensity of the show is dependent on cold wet winters and spring showers. 2017 has been a pretty good year. Last weekend I asked a friend to join me for a mini adventure to a tiny brewpub I had been wanting to visit since another fellow beer drinker told me about it a couple of years ago.

SH 71-Near Llano

We left Spicewood late morning heading northwest on 71 to Llano, the county seat where we stopped at the local park to view the rehabilitated Roy Inks bridge before heading north on 16 toward San Saba. The park by the bridge is a nice place to picnic and in the last couple of years they have been dropping chunks of native rock for anyone making a creative effort to build rock art features.

Roy Inks Bridge-Llano

We discovered an unusual style house for rural Texas on 16 just south of Cherokee, Texas. I was convinced the original owner had come from the east coast. When we got to San Saba we turned west on 190 and immediately stopped at the Wedding Oak Winery sampling room and tried some very tasty wines. I was surprised when my favorite happened to be Viognier, a white wine.

Wedding Oak Winery-San Saba

CR 204 near Harkeyville

We headed west looking for CR 406, a road that would take us to an old historic truss. We missed our turn, but made our way back using CR 218. The bridge is a beautifully restored Pratt through truss over the San Saba River. We spent quite a bit of time walking across the bridge and back, admiring the beautiful portal bracing and never seeing another car. We still had another bridge to find before we made our way to the brewery. I had no cell service and no gps to assist us. We had the paper map above, but it didn't give us all the road names or numbers. Luckily we missed our turn to keep going due west at Rochelle, which landed us in Brady, the county seat of McCulloch County. Had we not missed our turn earilier, we would have missed a beautiful Mission Revival train station on the north side of the town.

US 190

McCulloch County Courthouse-Brady

Just outside of Brady we headed north on 283 and turned left at 765 toward Fife. We were looking for Waldred Road to no avail. At the first decent dirt road heading north approximated 2 miles we  we turned right (CR 220 north of the Colorado River). I had heard the bridge was a gigantic five part through truss and we wondered if such a bridge could be on this dirt backroad.  After approximately five miles we were thrilled to find we had indeed picked the correct road!

Waldrip Truss

On to the Eola School and Bright Brewing for our reward. But there was one last discovery near Millersville when I saw a unique building in the distance. It turned out to be the old Hartgrove Gymnasium, built in 1938-39 by the Works Progress Administration.  We had some good beers at the old schoolhouse, talked with a local and two Texas Poet Laureates before making our way home.  It was a lovely day for a ride and discovery. Where to next time?

Eola Schoolhouse Restaurant and Bright Brewing

The Final Frontier (AK #50)

When I originally established this blog my goal was to take you along on my visits all 50 states (plus DC) by the time I turned 50.  My adventure required some rethinking because on my 50th birthday I was in Hawaii, my 49th state. I wasn't too awfully upset, I was with my love in paradise and I had been to 49 states! I could have raced to get them all done by the time I turned 51, but once I had missed the goal, I just wasn't in a hurry anymore.

In September 2015 I made a bittersweet trip to my "final frontier" after I asked  Phil if there was anything left he wanted to do and he said "I want us to go to Alaska!" After a call to a friend who lives on Kodiak Island and Phil's cousin who lives in Anchorage we booked our Alaskan Adventure and left two weeks later.

It took 11 hours and 15 minutes with stops in Los Angeles and Seattle to get to Alaska. Phil had not seen his cousin Barb in 40 years, but the two of them clicked just like when they were kids. She asked if we were tired...NOPE we were ready for an adventure, so she whisked us off to her cabin on Saddleback Island in Big Lake. It was truly paradise and I think it was Phil's perfect place.

We only got to spend a couple of days before we took a train to Talkeetna where we hoped to get a glimpse of Denali. We were treated to spectacular fall colors on our train trip. Talkeetna is the town that inspired the 1990 series Northern Exposure and the town Mayor was a cat. The town consists of several blocks where climbers and air excursions for Denali are staged. We grabbed lunch and a very good beer sampler at Denali Brewing Company before the bus took us to Denali Mountain Lodge.

The lodge was only open for four more days, so it was pretty quiet. We hiked, went for a hot tub and hoped to see the elusive Denali. While we didn't get to see the great mountain, the highlight of the trip was taking the shuttle bus around the complex to see a mamma moose and her baby.

Our next destination was Kodiak Island to visit one of my craziest and sweetest letterboxing friends and her husband. Knowing my 50/50 desire, Denise had made several offers for me to come for a visit. Around Labor Day I called her and she insisted we come as soon as possible. Two weeks later we were on her porch overlooking the harbor. I am so grateful we got to go while Phil was still able to be active. We hiked, went out looking for wildlife on their boat to watch seals, scoured every road on the island looking for the Kodiak Island bear. Phil went fishing with the guys, Denise and I went to garage sales and thrift shopping. The people of this state are different than any other place I have been, they are awesome and our visit was filled with a lot of laughter.

Unfortunately the only bears we saw were stuffed, but Denise made sure I saw every one of them including the one in the local Walmart. We also enjoyed the "Touch Tank" at the Alaska Fisheries Research Center. But it was spending time with Denise and Robert exploring, meeting other people that topped our Kodiak lsland list. Phil and Denise found a letterbox at low tide, we had a $10 burger and craft brew at the Best Western and drank beer at Kodiak Island Brewing Company with a guy from The Deadliest Catch, a government official and the local director of the Baranov Museum, located in the oldest building in Alaska, a circa 1805 Russian magazine.

I remember the people they were hearty and hardworking yet laid back and welcoming. They are truly special. It wan't until we returned from Alaska that I realized Phil had gifted me with this extraordinary experience of visiting my final frontier with him.

A Delicious Bite From "The Big Apple" (#17)

How and why does an architectural historian with a big city heart avoid going to NYC until she is 52 years old? Me either. It's everything they say and more-this city eclectic, eccentric and electric. It's an architecture and art lovers mecca.

I had been all around the city from Long Island, along the NJ Palisades, across the entire length of upstate NY, but never, not even once, did I venture to the core of the Big Apple...until a baby shower took me to the Upper East Side, just a few blocks from the Jacqueline Onassis Reservoir in Central Park. And then by sheer luck, I was blessed with not one, but two six-day visits within one year, first in April 2012 and then again the following January.

Enjoyable mornings started with brisk walks around the Reservoir and often drew me further into the arms of this Frederick Law Olmstead masterpiece.  Central Park embraces its history and retains many of the original cast iron and stone bridges from the late 1850s and 60s guiding park goers from one meticulously manicured area to another like Belvedere Castle, The Ramble and Strawberry Fields.

This is truly architecture heaven, street after street excellent examples of every architectural style from every decade dating back to the late 1700s. Even post modern buildings are stunning.

Like every good tourist, I visited the top of Empire State Building, sat in the first pew at St. Patrick's Cathedral, rode the Staten Island Ferry, walked the Brooklyn Bridge and went into the Chrysler Building to view the lobby. But that is really the tip of the iceberg, because there is so much more like the new Beekman Tower, old Greenwich Village, the Roosevelt Island Tramway and the emotionally moving 911 Memorial. All this with the aid of a superb mass transportation system and a 7-day Metro Pass, this apple was mine!

Beekman Tower-Frank Gehry

And no visit to this city would be complete without a trip to one of their then their great museums-both history and art. I discovered some treasures in the Met and at the American Museum of Natural History I followed the popular self paced Night in the Museum tour. Both of these museums are pay what you can. The Guggenheim and The Frick have special times to pay-as-you-wish, but prepare to line up around the building, so these times tend to be very crowded.

My second trip in January was dubbed the NYC Drinking Tour with visits to Heartland  Brewing before riding to the top of  Empire State building and drank beer at McSorley's Ale House, the oldest continuous pub on Manhattan. I splurged $20 for Bloody Mary at the St. Regis, where the French Red Snapper made its American debut, but the real highlight here is the opportunity to admire the recently restored Maxfield Parrish murals in the Old King Cole Bar with a history lesson for the friendly and attentive bar staff. And my last evening was spent in Greenwich Village sitting at the bar of the White Horse Tavern at the opposite end of the bar where Dylan Thomas drank himself to death-but I stopped at two-I want to make sure I get to come back.

Photo courtesy of the ultra cool bartender

America's Heartland, Part 1- Iowa (#26)

Holliwell Bridge

I have traversed Iowa both east to west and back several times. Each time I said I was going to stop and take a closer look. So on a road trip from Austin, Texas to Minneapolis, Minnesota, I finally did it.

John Wayne's Boyhood Home

I got off I-35 at mile marker 52 for a bucolic mini Bridges of Madison County tour. First was the almost immediate Imes Bridge just east of St. Charles, followed by a picturesque barn, the Holliwell Bridge and the Cutler-Donahue Bridge in Winterset, Iowa-hometown of John Wayne. Winterset is the county seat and is well worth a stop to stroll around the historic courthouse square to shop & get a bite to eat in one of the well preserved Italianate buildings from the late 1800s.

My next stop was Des Moines, Iowa's centrally located state capital. As I headed east on Grand Avenue toward the downtown I caught sight of a mansard roof topped tower and just had to turn back to investigate. Terrace Hill is the stately Governor's Mansion built in 1869 by Benjamin Allen-Iowa's first millionaire. I was fortunate to catch the day's last docent led tour before heading to experience Des Moines great selection of public outdoor art.

First stop was the 4.4 acre Pappajohn's Sculpture Park just before reaching the heart of downtown. Located just a few more blocks in Nollen Plaza is Crusoe's Umbrella, one of Claes Oldenburg's large-scale pieces.

After a very full day in America's Heartland it was time to relax and grab a pint and burger at the el Bait Shop with more than 100 craft beer taps.  I was thrilled to see several Bell's selections and after a nice conversation with my bartender decided to try the Des Moines IPA by Confluence Brewing Company.

This evenings destination was camping at Ledges State Park, recommended by the tourist information attendant just inside the Iowa border on I-35. As its name suggested, this was not the flat farmland I had driven to get there. After securing a nice non-electric site it was time to drive down into the canyon where I forded my car (Rosemary) across several little streams.

One of several stream fords

The next day I traveled several miles of the historic Lincoln Highway before findind myself back on I-35 heading north to Minnesota and looking forward to the continuation of my Iowa visit next week.