Enchanted Rock... er... Cascade Caverns

So from Llano we drove to Enchanted Rock.  And they were packed.  We detoured toward home and stopped at Cascade Caverns (near Boerne).

Now Cascade Caverns reminded me of a roadside attraction.  The kind that's advertised with billboards on the highway: "Only 2 More Miles Until... THE THING!"  There's a ramshackle gift shop, large campground, big fiberglass T-Rex (that appears in the Patrick Swayze film, Father Hood), and a limestone cave.  That being said, Cascade Caverns was better than I expected.

The tour is 1 hour (and $11) and covers about a quarter mile.  The cave is so small that you are much closer to the features than you are at other cave tours.  And the cave does have many modest features.  It claims to the "wettest" cave in Texas, which means that there are active formations.  Plenty of "soda straws," a waterfall in the final (and large) room (which is dry due to the current Texas drought), and a few examples of "cave bacon."

There are a couple of Mastodon fossils in the cave, and we got a very close-up look at a hibernating bat (tiny little guy about the size of your thumb).

Fredericksburg... er... Llano

From Austin, we drove to Fredericksburg.  We drove around downtown and then looked for a hotel.  Without any luck.  Everything was full so we headed over to Llano.

There we went to dinner at Cooper's Old-Fashioned Pit Barbecue.  So there are rows of pit barbecues under the front porch.  You line up at the pit and point out what you want for dinner.  Then inside you can add cobbler or other sides.  Seating is family-style at long wooden picnic tables.  We walked right up to the pit, but they said earlier in the day it was a 90-minute wait!  Quite a unique place.  We took the cobbler back to our hotel and picked up ice cream on the way.

The next morning we took photos on the steel bridge over the Llano for a while, then tried to drive over to Enchanted rock.

Rally for Texas Schools in Austin

Saturday saw 13,000 people on the Capitol lawn to show their support for Texas schools.

The Cause:  The State legislature is facing a hefty budget deficit for the next two years.  In addition, the 2006 "tinkering" with school finance has created a bad situation for public schools in the state.


The legislature is planning to cut school funds dramatically, and legislators are too distracted with other budget woes to address the underlying school finance issues that have gone ignored for five years now.

So Diana and I road tripped up to Austin to join the crowd.  There was a march before the rally.  Now, if you've never been to Austin, that town is filled with professional demonstrators.  Since we didn't want to have much to do with the Socialist Party marchers (or even the "Our Governor Sucks" marchers), we climbed the nearby parking garage and tool pictures instead.

Then on the Capitol grounds, the rally went on for about two hours.  We met up with about a dozen faculty members from my school.  Our superintendent and our mayor were among the rally speakers.

After the rally, our group made went to Texadelphia for a laaaaate lunch, then split up in different directions.  Some were staying in Austin, many were headed back home to San Antonio, Diana and I were heading to Fredericksburg for an overnight trip.