Mini-Trip to Salado -
Since I had 4 days off for the weekend, I took a one-night trip up the road 45 minutes at the village of Salado. Hadn't stopped there in 8-9 years and remembered the stores being very charming. Plus I love antiquing. Just went by myself, as friends had other plans, and it worked wonderfully as a nice diversion. I was farsighted enough to leave Austin by 1:30 on the Friday before a holiday weekend. Traffic gets soooo crazy then! And lucky for me (not for hundreds of other travelers) I was there by the time an 18-wheeler wrecked and stalled traffic for dozens of miles.
Salado is a charming town! Salado for Salado Creek (Spanish for salty). But oh, the weather has really messed with their tourism and lots of places are struggling. The heat was so very oppressive outside. Hardly saw anyone, and the B&B wasn't full. In fact I had the top floor front rooms of the historic Inn at Salado all to myself Friday night! Very quiet, and as I sat on one porch swing in the hot evening air, the other porch swing kept going too. So I talked with the ghost of the place about how nice the home was, even though the streaming traffic of IH-35 was just on the far side of the opposite block.
That's the Norton-Orgain Home, turned into a darling B&B right in the middle of towntown Salado.
My bedroom was cute and old and creaky, with a working fireplace that the guest book assured me was delightful in the winter. But the old AC (from the 1910's) was not so cool during the sweltering afternoon, but by the middle of the night had turned my room and bathroom freezing! Plus, which was both good and bad: no TV! So I had an old-fashioned evening of reading and using the circa 1880 wifi to check email on my MacBook...
I did my part to help the local economy -- buying some mesquite-bean honey for gifts, a new Vixia-bead watch for me, and some antique iron fence pieces for yard art. I'd hoped to find some charming antique at the stores, but didn't find much there I liked. Lots of glassware and ceramics instead. Oh, and the extremely non-PC black americana things displayed as if they were okay! (No, it's not; how they did things 100 years ago is not an excuse for being insensitive now, jeez...)
But I did get back to the Stagecoach Inn for dinner Friday night! I hadn't eaten there since the 1980s with friends from college. I was convinced it would be crowded on a holiday weekend, but nope. Still the cool old style from when the restaurant started in the 1940s. The ladies recite the menu to you, and the offerings always include hush puppies, tomato aspic and a spicy corn mush, and things made from the recipes of the original owner. I chose the filet mignon and it had an interesting tangy sauce. Plus dessert -- pies made there! The inn from the 1800s was a major stop on the Chisolm Trail and was built on the site of an old Indian village -- the natural spring (and cave!) there had attracted human settlement for thousands of years. I took a photo of the ancient tree the dining hall was built around.
The village has a lovely pedestrian bridge that lets you walk over Salado Creek (which was sadly very dry) instead of in the road.
And around the bridge and around town, various sculptors have put up art. This abstract art is rendered more whimsical by the owners of the fence who hung bicycle carcasses up too.
And whimsical certainly describes the Billy Goat Gruff statues at one end of the bridge!
Leaving Salado on Saturday, I wanted to check out some of the small towns in the farmlands. My route took me through Holland (not charming at all -- they'd abandoned their tiny downtown to dereliction), then Bartlett, and then Granger. Finally I went through Taylor, which I hadn't visited since a school buddy married a guy from there, and got onto Hwy 79 back into Round Rock. I think Bartlett was the small but cute downtown that Shawn had driven us back when she lived outside Georgetown, but it only had 1 store open on the square, sadly. Here's wishing that better weather and better economy get things going again....
Salado is a charming town! Salado for Salado Creek (Spanish for salty). But oh, the weather has really messed with their tourism and lots of places are struggling. The heat was so very oppressive outside. Hardly saw anyone, and the B&B wasn't full. In fact I had the top floor front rooms of the historic Inn at Salado all to myself Friday night! Very quiet, and as I sat on one porch swing in the hot evening air, the other porch swing kept going too. So I talked with the ghost of the place about how nice the home was, even though the streaming traffic of IH-35 was just on the far side of the opposite block.
That's the Norton-Orgain Home, turned into a darling B&B right in the middle of towntown Salado.
My bedroom was cute and old and creaky, with a working fireplace that the guest book assured me was delightful in the winter. But the old AC (from the 1910's) was not so cool during the sweltering afternoon, but by the middle of the night had turned my room and bathroom freezing! Plus, which was both good and bad: no TV! So I had an old-fashioned evening of reading and using the circa 1880 wifi to check email on my MacBook...
I did my part to help the local economy -- buying some mesquite-bean honey for gifts, a new Vixia-bead watch for me, and some antique iron fence pieces for yard art. I'd hoped to find some charming antique at the stores, but didn't find much there I liked. Lots of glassware and ceramics instead. Oh, and the extremely non-PC black americana things displayed as if they were okay! (No, it's not; how they did things 100 years ago is not an excuse for being insensitive now, jeez...)
But I did get back to the Stagecoach Inn for dinner Friday night! I hadn't eaten there since the 1980s with friends from college. I was convinced it would be crowded on a holiday weekend, but nope. Still the cool old style from when the restaurant started in the 1940s. The ladies recite the menu to you, and the offerings always include hush puppies, tomato aspic and a spicy corn mush, and things made from the recipes of the original owner. I chose the filet mignon and it had an interesting tangy sauce. Plus dessert -- pies made there! The inn from the 1800s was a major stop on the Chisolm Trail and was built on the site of an old Indian village -- the natural spring (and cave!) there had attracted human settlement for thousands of years. I took a photo of the ancient tree the dining hall was built around.
The village has a lovely pedestrian bridge that lets you walk over Salado Creek (which was sadly very dry) instead of in the road.
And around the bridge and around town, various sculptors have put up art. This abstract art is rendered more whimsical by the owners of the fence who hung bicycle carcasses up too.
And whimsical certainly describes the Billy Goat Gruff statues at one end of the bridge!
Leaving Salado on Saturday, I wanted to check out some of the small towns in the farmlands. My route took me through Holland (not charming at all -- they'd abandoned their tiny downtown to dereliction), then Bartlett, and then Granger. Finally I went through Taylor, which I hadn't visited since a school buddy married a guy from there, and got onto Hwy 79 back into Round Rock. I think Bartlett was the small but cute downtown that Shawn had driven us back when she lived outside Georgetown, but it only had 1 store open on the square, sadly. Here's wishing that better weather and better economy get things going again....