Canyon Lake

From Galveston, we headed west about 250 miles to the town of Canyon Lake, to stay at Lake Pointe Resort, where we stayed for six days.  By using our Coast to Coast membership, we were able to stay there for only $5/night rather than the regular $45/night, plus a fee of $.12 a kw hour.  The park had lots of amenities that we like, like a pool, and trails to hike. Although it was too cold to use the pool at that point, it was quite a large pool for a resort that size, which from what I could tell, was less than 100 RV spaces.  When we got there, we didn't realize just how big our rig is.  But it barely fit under a branch of one of the trees in the first campsite we went to.  After we moved to another campsite that didn't have anything over our roof, we felt a lot better.  The big pull for this area, if not this resort, is the number of deer that freely roam the area.  When I'd take the dogs out at night and in the morning, I could always count several deer not more than 30' away from us.  One morning, I counted 21 deer lurking around other rigs and in the trees.  

Deer herd at Lake Pointe Resort in the morning.  Sorry the picture is so dark.  I count 10 deer, how many do you count?

We stayed at Lake Pointe because it was in the between Austin and San Antonio as we thought we might be going to San Antonio, but it didn't happen as we kept doing things in Austin.  One of the goals we had while we're traveling was to go to the capitol buildings of all the states we go to.  We haven't always done that in a few states, but we were able to do so in Texas.  It was kinda drizzly the Saturday that we went.  When we go there, we saw signs pointing to the capitol visitors center, and since it was kinda on the way to the capitol building, we went there first.  Turns out that the visitor center was in the old General Land Office building, and it was remarkable as William Sidney Porter, better known by his pen name of O. Henry, worked there from 1887 - 1891.  One of the many rooms there was devoted to him, telling his life story.

Old Texas General Land Office building, located on the grounds of the Texas capitol building in Austin, Tx.

There are free tours through the capitol building given every 15 minutes, if I recall correctly.  For a reason I don't remember, the tour didn't include a lot of the building, only going to the rotunda, the House of Representatives chamber, and the Senate Chamber.  However, the tour guide still told us a bunch of stuff about the history of Texas.  

"Surrender of Santa Anna" by William Henry Huddle in the Texas State capitol building foyer.  General Sam Houston, commander in chief of the Texas Army, is lying on the ground injured extending his hand to General Santa Anna of the Mexican Army.  The surrender took place on April 21, 1836.

Star of the Republic of Texas on the floor of the capitol building.  This was featured at the end of  the movie "The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas" where Dom Deluise (or a dummy that looked like him) went sliding across the floor to rest in the middle of the star.  The capitol building started to be built in 1885, and was opened to the public on April 21, 1888.

After visiting the capitol building, we did some lunch thing, and then headed to the Lyndon Baines Johnson library on the grounds of the University of Texas at Austin.  It's interesting to visit places like that to learn more about the person, as well as the history that was made while that person was alive. The folks that worked there thought very much of LBJ, and probably knew more than lots of other folks by a long shot.  I don't remember that much about him, except that he was president during the Viet Nam War, and declined being nominated for a 2nd full term of being President.  The folks at the library said that he was one of the busiest presidents the US has ever had, and accomplished a lot.  So much so that he only live four years after he left office.  I didn't take a lot of pictures at the library, but here's a couple of them.

LBJ howling with his dog, Yuki, while his grandson looks on.   Not sure if the grandson was amazed by the harmony of the duet, or who looked better: LBJ or the dog.  Apparently LBJ did this a bit as you can see here, along with a bunch of other photos of him.

LBJ's 1965 stretch Lincoln Continental limo.  This limo is plain compared to "The Beast", the current Presidential State Car (...limo).

We did go back to Austin another day to have lunch with a fellow gas sniffer, Debbie, as she was in the area near Austin, and we wouldn't be seeing her again for some time, if ever.  Debbie came to Houston from Salt Lake City also, but after we got there.  So we were able to show her a few things about Houston, and she was able to show us a few more things about gas sniffing and the company we work for since she's been doing the job for a few years now.

Debbie recommended to us, as did Katie's sister, Karen, that we go to Fredericksburg while we were that close to it, as it's a quaint small town that we'd enjoy going to.  It's about 65 miles northwest of Canyon Lake, so we were able to make it there in just a little over an hour.  There are several things that we were told about to see while we were there, including art galleries, the National Museum of the Pacific War, Admiral Nimitz Museum, and just taking a stroll up Main Street.  So we did that the next day.

Naturally, the first thing that ya go to in any town is the visitor center where ya can see all kinds of things, especially the little cards and flyers telling of places that ya might like to go see after ya leave the visitor center.  Fredericksburg visitor center was very nice with lots of information to share to visitors there.  It was cold that day, but Katie was happy to be in the visitor center where they hadn't taken down their Christmas tree yet, as it wasn't January 1st yet.  Take a look!

What a happy wifey!

There's many more cards and flyers of places to go and see that can't be seen here.  So why is Katie looking at her phone?  I don't know either...

The National Museum of the Pacific War is located right across the street from the visitor center, so it wasn't hard to find at all.  In case you were wondering, this is merely another way of saying that it's a museum about World War II in the Pacific Ocean.

I couldn't get a wide enough shot, but there are several WWII artifacts from the war in the front.  You can see a little more if you click here.

The National Museum of the Pacific War turned out to be very extensive and sobering.  In it, we found information not only on every battle of the war in the Pacific, but the history of the nations involved in WWII in the pacific, including the US, leading up to it.  The exhibits are done well, and the price of admission is well worth the education ya get while you're in the museum.  But remember that this museum is about war and the horrors of it.  It's not really for the faint of heart, and it could easily take six hours or more to go through everything there.  At the time we went, there was also an exhibit on Norman Rockwell, the artist who's paintings were on the covers of The Saturday Evening Post for many years.  His life history was given, along with copies of at least 15 of his paintings during the WWII years.

Willie Gillis: USO  Willie Gillis is a fictional character created by Normal Rockwell during WWII on the cover of the Saturday Evening Post.

Willie Gillis in Church

The Admiril Nimitz Museum was part of the National Museum of the Pacific War (NMPW), in that you could include admission to it by getting a ticket at the NMPW.  Being a former US Navy man, I found it interesting to go to this museum, which is much smaller than the NMPW, that tells about the life of Chester Nimitz.  It only took about 1/2 an hour - 45 minutes to go through it all, and it wasn't quite as visually stimulating as the NMPW, but it was very informative telling about his life starting in 1885 when he was born, his life in Fredericksburg, joining the Navy, rise in the rank to become fleet admiral in 1944, being instrumental in the victories in the Pacific,  postwar retirement in 1947, and death in early 1966, as well as a few other items along the way.

This is the plaque across the street from the Nimitz Hotel.  I thought I had a picture of the Nimitz Hotel because it's a unique looking structure, but I didn't.  Here's a link to a picture of it still the same.

Following are other pictures of Fredericksburg.

After walking 1/2 way up Main Street, we were both getting pooped, so we went to the other side of the street and headed back to the car for our trip home.  On the way there, we stopped in the hamlet of Luckenbach, which I only know of because I heard the song "Luckenbach, Tx", or "Back to the Basics of Love" .  From what I was able to tell, there really wasn't a lot to the hamlet, only two buildings, and the population is only three.  But if you go to the website of Luckenbach, Texas, you can see there's lots of things happening for a town of only three people!  Wow!

Lastly, I wanna mention about our time in Canyon Lake, Texas, was the church we went to while we were there.  While we try to attend worship services everywhere we go, this church, Cowboys for Jesus Church, will stick with me for a long time.  Really friendly people, good message, and even though there is a praise band that was made up of a man and two women, the good old hymns were sung.  And on the last verse, they dropped out so it was sung acapella with folks harmonizing.  Really sounded great!  They have a lot going on there, including archery instruction, which Katie and I made use of.  Overall, I'd say that attending there was the frosting on the cake for out time at Canyon Lake, Tx.

So if you have the chance to go to Canyon Lake, Lake Pointe Resort isn't a bad place to stay.  The town of Canyon Lake isn't very big, but it has a large grocery store, several gas stations, and assorted shops and restaurants.  In addition to condos or motels for lodging, there's several RV parks or resorts available for RVers.  We enjoyed our time there, and I'm thinking you would also.