Day 4 – Burnet and Krause Springs
Nancy & Mark and Kimberly & Rod all left this morning. We and Stew & Mary had been planning to move to an RV park near Fredericksberg for the next 2 nights. But since we went to Fredericksberg yesterday, we decided to stay here at the Buchanan RV park at Buchanan Lake (pronounced B’canon according to the locals we met). Mary & Stew were allowed to stay in their spot but we had to move. This of course seems ridiculous to us because why couldn’t the other people take the empty spot and us stay where we were? The new spot was nicer, shadier and had an empty spot next to it. Whatever.
First stop this morning was the Hill Country Vintage Motorcycle Museum in Burnet. The town is pronounced BURN-it but apparently everyone mispronounces it Bur-NET, so they have a little saying to help you remember: It’s Burn-it, durn it. Learn it! Anyway Janelle at the museum was happy to see us. Bruce paid for the part and entrance for us all to go in to the museum. Gotta say, I’m not really a motorcycle person but Bruce and Stew enjoyed reminiscing about motorcycles they had owned or known about in the past. Mary and I were more interested in the posters and colorful stories that went along with some of the bikes.
Next stop was “downtown” Burnet to watch a gunfight. The show was donation only and a little (ok, a lot) hokey. I guess you get what you pay for. But the actors do it for free and donate all donations received to charities. They said they have all been performing it every Saturday for 24 years.
Next we headed back towards Marble Falls to a Brewery called Save the World Brewery to get a six pack of Cave Bandit, a local IPA that Bruce had tried yesterday. While he was inside getting his beer Mary & I played a rousing game of tetherball. I loved tetherball as a kid. My parents even bought me my own tetherball. It was light blue and awesome. Except I don’t remember it ever getting cemented into the ground. I won the first game and then Mary won the next two. I blame it on her height. I can only imagine what the families sitting around outside thought of the two old ladies playing tetherball.
By this time we were getting a little hungry. Someone we had talked to recommended Bay View Restaurant & Bar. As we drove up we thought it looked a little more ritzy than we had in mind. We decided to give it a shot anyway. We all got the sandwich/salad combo plate. Mary got a margarita so I felt obligated to get one as well. She shouldn’t be the only one getting a brain freeze. We had a decent view of the water. Since it was “Bay” view I kept forgetting and calling it the ocean. I didn’t even know that lakes could have bays. It was super windy out, which you can tell by the picture we took.
After lunch we hung out for a bit in the outdoor lounge area and then decided to drive around and look at the expensive houses nearby. We turned into a neighborhood and immediately saw a house under construction. Stew and Bruce wanted to go in. Mary and I were a little hesitant but Stew assured us that the contractors there wouldn’t care and sure enough they didn’t. We wandered all over the house. In one of the bedrooms they had two queen built in bunkbeds with a mini stair case in between them. To me that shouted “grandkids”. As we came outside to leave, we saw that Stew was talking over the fence to the kids/young adults in the yard next door. Apparently one of the guys, Dakota, had a medical staffing company with his mom that was doing quite well. She bought several houses on Lake LBJ, including that house complete with pool. It was empty most of the time but Dakota and his friends came down from San Antonio to stay there on the weekends. One kid had a hat on that said ROAR. When he asked Bruce what his name was, Bruce said “just call me Roar.” Bruce immediately became a superstar. The kid with the hat was like, “oh my gosh! I have a hat that says roar. Here, you should have it!” Kind offer but Bruce declined. Some of them thought we owned the house where we were snooping, so of course we had to play along. It’s funny how gullible 20-ish year old guys can be when they’ve been drinking all day at the pool.
By this time it was in the upper 80s and Bruce was feeling the need for some water. We had packed our swimsuits this morning but didn’t have a definite idea of where we would go. Someone had suggested Krause Springs (pronounced Krou-si) yesterday. Since we were already kinda in that direction we decided to go there. What a hidden gem! We walked up to a beautiful family owned, shaded park like property that we could enjoy for only $10/person. The entrance was through a huge garden of perennials and potted plants with huge trees filled with giant wind chimes. There was beautiful stonework everywhere – the patios, table & benches, walkways & even the stairs. There were areas for camping and picnicking and even an RV park (which is not advertised on the internet – you have to call to reserve a spot). At the top was a pool filled with spring water or you could go down to the next level and climb over some rocks down to the actual spring, complete with a small waterfall. We decided to go all the way down to the spring at the bottom. Bruce immediately got in but Stew & Mary and I opted to only have our feet numb and not our whole body. I think all those years of outdoor morning swim practices or swimming in the swim club’s cold pool have permanently numbed the nerves in Bruce’s skin because cold water is not a deterrent to him. After a while of awkwardly sitting on the rocks dangling our feet, we decided to move up to the pool. It was more comfortable but just as cold. Since it was almost 90 degrees it actually was pretty refreshing to just have our feet in the water.
After such a full day we had ice cream for dinner and then Bruce wanted to chill in our RV. “Chill” is code for turn on the tv and fall asleep on a couch within 10 minutes. I however got hooked on the 20/20 crime solver that he turned on and had to watch it to completion.