Red Dirt Music State of Mind

    The first part of my summer consisted of non-stop traveling, I came back from WLC on a Sunday and headed out again the next day to Bandera, Texas.
We packed up the truck and trailer and headed out on a ten day vacation to the "Cowboy Capital of the World". The drive to our destination took two days, the first day we drove for eight hours before we stopped for the night in Decatur, Texas. At this point we were about two hours into Texas. The last leg of the trip was about 7 hours, with six people in the truck we were all excited to see the ranch, Twin Elm Guest Ranch, we were staying at.

This is the route we took to get to Bandera, Texas. We stopped for the night in Decatur, Texas. The whole trip took about 15 hours!

    We rode in the Hill Country State Natural Area southwest of Bandera. That was some of the prettiest rides I have ever been on. We rode in the morning to beat the heat, but the heat wasn't too terrible the whole time. Granted it was in the low 90's, but with no humidity and a slight breeze it felt nice. We also rode into town, we tied up to hitching posts and had Subway for lunch. Twin Elm Guest Ranch had some land and trails that we rode on. We found an old wooden horse trailer! It was large enough to hold a small horse and even had glass windows. My dad guessed that the trailer was from the 1940's.

My horse is slow at times, so I am stuck in the back of our line. But it makes for a great photo!

   

    Texas culture is a little different than what it is back home. One night we went into town for a cookout and there was a dance floor. I can't dance at all (I have two left feet!) but they had a live band and everyone who was dancing was line dancing. If I have any hope in dancing my saving grace is line dance. Every Sunday night starting at 8 pm on 106.5 the WOLF in Kansas City plays Texas country music. That is  what we listened to the whole time down there, and it is pretty good. Artists like Aaron Watson, Kevin Fowler, and Kyle Park are really big down there (those three are also my favorite!).

    We also went to San Antonio to visit the Mexican market, the River Walk, and the Alamo. The market was full of people, noises, smells and colors.We had breakfast from the bakery there, I have no idea what I got but it was delicious! There were many artists selling their artwork, one captured beautiful Texas scenes in oil paintings. The missions, cattle, wild horses, dancers, cowboys, etc. all with bright colors. My youngest brother purchased a poncho while I bought a yellow bracelet and a scarf. We then walked to the River Walk and had a boat tour of the city. Finally we reached the Alamo, right in the middle of the city. I expected it to be outside the city or sectioned off, but I guess they built the city around it.The most interesting part about it for me was that the soldiers knew they wouldn't survive the battle, but they would die protecting what they believed in.

    The ten days we were in Texas were fun and I won't forget my trip to the Lone Star  State, but I am glad to be back home in Missouri.

Add caption