Our day began early again, as we had a long day ahead of us. We knew it would be at least 8 hours, and we would lose an hour heading into Central Time from Mountain Time. Once on the road, however, we realized that with an 80 mph speed limit, it might not take as long as we thought. We skirted the border with Mexico outside of El Paso, and several miles later, the Border Patrol had set up an inspection station and diverted all traffic off of the road and through the station. It was interesting, as we were only asked if we were US citizens and then waved through. We wondered how easy it would have been if we had a different skin tone. They were using dogs to inspect the tractor-trailer trucks, too, so who knows what they were looking for.
The rest of the trip was filled with sights. Peter called it "animal day." We saw two big horn sheep standing on top of a hill near the road; it was quite impressive. As we got closer to Austin, we also saw farms with all kinds of animals. There were angora goats, buffalo, reindeer, a lot of cattle and horses too. We saw roosters and chickens walking alongside the road at one point, and also saw donkeys. It was a good day just for looking out the windows. There were interesting hills and rocks, peach orchards and many other sites.
Our route took us by the Lyndon B. Johnson State Park & Historic Site, but couldn't stop. We passed MANY wineries along the way too. They must have figured out a way to grow grapes in this dry land. We traveled through some small towns, notably Fredericksburg, which had a very quaint downtown area that we would have loved to stop and stroll through. Many of the shops and restaurants had German names to them so we did some research and found that Germans founded it and named the town after Prince Frederick of Prussia. The town is also known as the home of Texas German, a dialect spoken by the first generations of German settlers who initially refused to learn English. It reminded us a little of the Amish in Pennsylvania. Many people were out walking through the town, so it is a popular area.
We arrived at our friend Jan's house and went to eat at a BBQ place that had a long line, so we knew it would be good! It had a casual atmosphere and all of us enjoyed it. Then Jan took us on a driving tour of Austin. The sun was setting as we entered the city, and the last of the bats were coming out from under the Congress Ave. Bridge, so we will need to come back for that another night. We drove by the Capitol and the University of Texas campus and will return another day to explore the city more.
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