Road Trip: Luling & Rockne

July 10 & 11

Hubby and I put the girls (our 2 dogs) in the truck and pulled the Casita camper to our property just outside of Mustang Ridge (better known as 'the creek') and set up for a two day mini vacation to see some of the sights in the little towns close at hand on July 10 & 11.

We started out by driving over to Luling. We got there too late to visit their little museum, so made our way over to Zedler Mills. http://www.zedlermill.com/History.htm This is a site on the San Marcos river where a Mr. Zedler ended up owning a complex of mills; grist mill, saw mill,

cotton gin, corn crib, mule barn...... you get the idea. The Zedler Mills Foundation and the city of Luling are working at restoring the complex as an exhibit/educational site with a meeting/reception area. The setting is beautiful and while work has begun, it seems they have a long way to go. http://www.zedlermill.com/Zedler%20Mill%20Philosophy.htm

The dam on the San Marcos river used for power at Zedler Mills.

It was a very enjoyable outing and we spent about an hour and half on the site, but in 103 degree weather on a Texas July afternoon, the heat finally won and we moved on to the next curiousity.

We then drove a few main streets of Luling and saw the artwork on 4 or 5 of the small oil/gas pumpers scattered throughout town inside the city limits. It seems the city contracted a local artist to "dress up" the little buggers. It really was cute, especially the ones where the eyes on the face moved back and forth or the football players legs moved.

We drove back to Lockhart to meet our youngest son, Pete, for THE thing Lockhart is known for....BBQ, the decision made to return to Luling to visit their museum another day. Since then I have found there are a couple of other museums in the Luling / Lockhart area, so we have another full week-end trip in our future for the area. In Lockhart we met Pete at Kreuz Market and spent a leisurely 2 hours enjoying good BBQ, Bluebell Ice Cream and great conversation.

Finished for the day we went back to 'the creek' to let the girls have some outside time.

Sunday, July 11, 2009

Back in the truck, we drove to Rockne located on Hwy. 20. Most of the information about the smaller towns in the area I found online. Rockne is a small Catholic parish named after Knute Rockne and has a small museum and pioneer cabins. I honestly wasn't expecting much, but, then again, we weren't out to see the big city sites. I was in for a very pleasant surprise.

The little town had a couple of previous names, but in 1931, Fr. Francis Strobel proposed that Sacred Heart Parish community have an official name. School children were given the choice to vote on the names Knute Rockne or Joyce Kilmer. The boys voted for the football coach and the girls voted for the poet resulting in a tie. The next day one of the girls changed her vote due to a conversation with her father who was a great fan of the coach, thus giving the community its name, "Rockne".

Three wonderful ladies swarmed on us (and I mean that in a gentle, likable way) and gave us their complete and total attention. Unfortunately, I do not remember the name of two of the ladies, but Minnie (center of photo) is the museum's Director. She and her volunteers have done an outstanding job with the museum and displays. They gave us a thorough tour of the one room museum and it was obvious that not only they, but the entire community, has a deep sense of pride in their community and it's residents. History and information was not just gained through the displays, but through the three of them reminiscing about growing up in the community, the weddings, funerals, and family gatherings they attended.
We then went outside to Hilbig Park where the community, as volunteers, relocated two of the early pioneer cabins and reconstructed them as part of their display of history. A very large undertaking for such a small community. We toured the two cabins and said goodbye to the ladies of Rockne. It was an absolutely delightful visit!

for more info about Rockne: http://www.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~txrha/b-histry.htm

From Rockne we traveled west on Hwy. 20 and drove through Red Rock and on to Dale. Since our property has a Dale address we wanted to see the town. It has a post office and 2 - 3 older store fronts. One seemed to house a metal artist, but was not open. There are 2-3 churches, a volunteer fire dept. and a handful of houses with a railroad track running through the middle of it all. At the time it didn't seem like much, but with further investigation later, apparently we were visiting at the wrong time of the day. It seems Dale is known for it's ghosts. http://www.ghostsofamerica.com/7/Texas_Dale_ghost_sightings.html

We've decided we will not be returning to Dale during evening hours to check out their particular history.

All in all it was a very pleasant and delightful week-end. The fact that it was an inexpensive week-end made it even better. I recommend it to anyone wanting to "see Texas". So with one such trip under our belt, we have decided to do it again and again. Looking up the history and then visiting the little towns and hidden places within 40 miles of 'the creek'.

All photos of trip

http://picasaweb.google.com/ljvest/LulingLockhartRockne#

One of the more pleasant and enjoyable things we can do while using 'the creek' as home base is visiting with our oldest son and daughter-in-law who live in Elgin. As we completed this trip, we drove to Elgin and visited with them for a couple of hours. A very nice conclusion for the trip.

I'll let you know what we find!