Monday Meanderings - 4.4.2016

Bob and Barb's excellent wildflower adventure. Rains have summoned forth the wildflowers in abundance in the Central Texas area, so Barb and I set out mid-week to take in the vistas of fields of Bluebonnets, Indian Paint Brush and assorted Spring blooms.

In years gone by, we had often found these fields in the Johnson City area, near the LBJ State and National Parks. Fitting, since Lady Bird Johnson had done so much to promote the sowing of wildflowers along the state's highways. In prior years, this was an annual trek, visiting the public areas of the park, then proceeding on to Fredricksburg and Kerrville on our way to Leakey and a church-wide retreat.

It has been more than 15 years since we have visited that area in the Springtime, so Tuesday we packed a picnic lunch and headed south out 290 to see some wildflowers. We were amazed at how that corridor had filled with businesses and commerce. As it has done along the I-35 ASA corridor, Austin has spread out toward the Hill Country until there is almost no distinction between Austin and Dripping Springs.

Businesses, yes - but wildflowers, no. Oh, there were patches all along the way, but we were expecting the LBJ Ranch area to be flooded with color. To our disappointment that area simply did not have the showing this year that it is famous for.

We nevertheless ate our picnic in the pretty little TXDOT rest area, and a friendly attendant told us we should take the Willow City Loop tour if we wanted to see wildflowers this year, and gave us directions on getting there on the back roads from the rest area.

Okay. Either they were not complete directions, or I missed part of them, or we simply missed a turn (or two) and after a lengthy spell of driving down roads we had no idea existed, we reached... Fredricksburg - a few miles further down 290 from where we had started. Another bit of amazement followed: It is normal to see the downtown sidewalks of Fredricksburg crowded with visitors in the summertime, and autos with out-of-state licenses looking for a place to park, but this was Tuesday, in late March, for goodness sake, and the town was crawling with tourists. Like us.

But our goal was the Willow City Loop. Google Maps pointed out the loop, but wasn't much help in showing us how to get started, though the app did point us to Willow City, a few miles north, just off highway 16 on the way to Llano. and after a bit of casting about, we found the starting point. Or the ending point perhaps, since it is a loop.

The Willow City Loop is essentially a 13-mile long private road that services ranches in the area and is festooned prolifically with "NO TRESPASSING" and "NO PARKING" and "POSTED" signs. It starts, appro-priately, in Willow City and ultimately leads back to Highway 16 a couple of miles north of its start. And, like Fredericksburg, it was crowded with tourists. Like us.

 The Loop is a narrow winding path that meanders through classical, rugged Hill Country terrain. It follows one or more creeks in several areas, winds around to overlook scenic vistas, hugs towering bluffs, crosses several low-water culverts and countless cattle guards. Along the POSTED sign-laden fence rows, the bluebonnets and the paint brush and the thistles and small yellow and purple flowers whose names I don't know filled in the spaces between road and rock. There were a few areas of fields full of wildflowers - mostly off in the inaccessible distance, but for the most part its appeal was the flowering right-of-way.

Signs not withstanding, cars were parked every half-mile or so at any place wide enough to get somewhat out of the way of the other cars, and all of us were out snapping away on our phones and cameras. Traffic was fairly heavy, but no one was in a hurry, and we all patiently waited for each other to cross back over the road, or back up a few feet to get a good view, or simply to stop in the road to shoot pictures from out one's window.

It was raining by the time we got back to Austin - and just in time to join non-rush hour traffic through downtown Austin, but that just made us appreciate the wide-open spaces of the Hill Country all the more.