There is a claim that Australian aborigines — hired to work on farms and ranches — would take off from their jobs for a while to go on an unauthorized "walkabout" to live in the traditional manner. It was a sort of tradition that they had a hard time breaking and very frustrating to their employers. Well, Pat and I lived for a time in Australia so maybe we were infected with this tradition. From time to time, we feel a strong need to leave our responsibilities behind and abandon our home for a while. However, Texas is too big a place for us to walk across, so we go on a “rideabout” instead.
Interestingly, when the worldwide poll was taken to choose the Pecan Capital, some of the citizens of Fiji had never eaten a pecan, but -- of course -- many of them apparently knew about San Saba, Texas because that's the one that appeared to receive their vote. Right? Of course, is it possible the San Saba Chamber of Commerce, simply claimed the title without any world-wide vote -- in typical inflated, Texas Brags tradition? Nah!
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| Welcome to San Saba |
Notice the red, white and blue pecan tree with Texas star icon on the welcome sign. Seems entirely appropriate that a World Capital should have such a distinguished icon.
Anyway, we were headed toward San Saba when we decided to visit a pecan shop in Goldthwaite -- where we bought 5 pounds of Cherokee Pecan halves to tide us over until we got to San Saba. It worked!
Then, tragedy happened. We found that our iPhones received a very weak Verizon signal with no data. So, we could not search for the location of the visitors center or anything. Fortunately, the town of San Saba is small so we were able to find the visitors center anyway. Unfortunately, they were closed. Across the street was a hotel sign for the Dofflemyer Hotel so we considered staying there for the night. It was a small boutique hotel with maybe 6 rooms and the door was locked. We called the phone number on the door, but the phone signal was too weak to communicate.
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| Boutique Dofflemyer Hotel |
We drove around town to see some of the major tourist attractions.
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| Mill Pond Waterfall |
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| Mill Pond Mill Site |
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| San Saba located in Pecan Valley |
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| Hanging Bridge over the San Saba River |
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| Bagley Pecans |
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| San Saba River |
Frustrated in our inability to register at the boutique hotel, and we could find none of the big chain hotels in town, we drove to Brady and spent the night in their Best Western Hotel. The next morning we drove to Llano to satisfy our BBQ addictions at Coopers BBQ -- which was good but disappointing because we decided to try the goat. All the goat that remained in their pit was a shank and some ribs. We decided on the shank but it was mostly bone. We paid for one pound of goat BBQ that was mostly bone. It's the only time I have ever been less than very satisfied at Coopers.
Of course, Llano is the Deer Hunting Capital of the World -- or state or whatever.
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| Cooper's BBQ in Llano |
We also took a tour on mostly dirt roads around Smoothing Iron Mountain. It's a historically interesting mountain in that it played an important role in the development of the town of Llano. Investors flocked to the area, convinced that the iron ore in the mountain would make it the iron capital of the south. After a few tunnels were dug, it ware realized that there was insufficient iron ore there to be profitable. Some investors went broke and sold or "accidentally" burned their buildings to collect insurance money. For a while afterward, no insurance company would insure anyone in the area.
Smoothing Iron Mountain
South of Smoothing Iron Mountain, we came upon the old community of Esbon that is now mostly abandoned. However, this historic marker explains some of the historic members of the community. Apparently, they take pride in their remote community.
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| Esbon, Texas History |
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| Esbon's Tatered Flag of Texas |
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| Llano County Loops in Red |
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| Map of Smoothing Iron Mountain area
The map above shows two loops -- Smoothing Iron Mountain and Babyface -- and a trip to Tow (rhymes with cow). Saw lots of interesting country, many, many low water crossings and dead skunks up and down the highway. Apparently, the F 80 weather had brought the skunks out onto the highway where autos ran over them. As you know, when you hit a skunk it often squirts skunk juice on the car which does not wear off very soon. So maybe there were lots of autos parked way out on the back 40 or someplace where the stink was less nauseus.
On the subject of world capitals, I would be amiss not to mention that as we passed through Hill County, Texas, we found a sign proclaiming it as the "Meat Goat Capital" of America. I guess that means they did not take a worldwide vote so they could claim to be the Meat Goat Capital of the World. So, we visited 3 capitals on this trip: Mills County Meat Goat Capital, Llano the Deer Hunting Capital and San Saba, the Pecan Capital.
 And finally, we consumed BBQ three times in four days. Coopers in Llano, JM's in Gatesville, and Hard Eight Pit BBQ in Stevensville so you can be assured that with the BBQ and the pecans, we did not starve. |
