Road trippin' in Texas ... and New Mexico

A certain German hiking in Caprock Canyons State Park, 90 miles from Lubbock

It all starts out innocently enough: There's a small depression in the ground, not perceptible to the naked eye, but just enough to collect an extra drop or two of scarce moisture, whenever it happens to fall. Once in a while, there are enough drops to pool, and eventually their cumulative weight turns into the semblance of momentum, and the combined mass seeks escape. First, there's a small fissure, and before you know it, there's a trickle that turns into a tiny rivulet that in turn becomes a small carving in the ground that now starts to attract smallish shrubs and trees because moisture also seeps into the ground and remains there while most of it continues its journey, carving an ever-deepening groove that soon will be called a draw and, after a while, a canyon, ever so small, but a canyon. And there are tiny and bigger tributaries that add to it, coming from the sides, more often than not dry but sometimes laden with moisture and moving water, and given enough time there will be a beautiful place somewhere in this world, maybe the one they call Caprock Canyons State Park.

And similarly, Sabine bit by bit, in ever increasing amounts, started to appreciate and understand and maybe even come to love where I have been living for the past 41 years.

Small ravines become large canyons

Two of about 50 wild buffalo crossing through in Caprock Canyons

Sabine, who left last night after a three-week stay with me, had been to the US and texas on numerous occasions, the longest one being a one-year stunt as a Fulbright student in Seattle. Still, she'd never been fully exposed to Texas' culture, and to remedy I had in mind a full schedule involving riding our bikes to Lubbock's canyons and several evenings with local friends; checking Lubbock's newest brewery; viewing a herd of bison;  stopping at a well-stocked mini mart outside of Wingate and hiking up Enchanted Rock; having local beers in Boerne and talking to the re-enactors at the Alamo; using a share bike to circle Lady Bird Lake and cruising 6th Street in Austin; and checking out Salado's cultural scene and getting a glimpse behind the scenes of how Texas barbecue is born at Miller's in Belton.

The landscape architect inspecting micro-biotopes on Enchanted Rock

On top of Texas

Not knowing how much the fine for trundling is, Sabine tries to set the process in motion

It's not been easy to balance sightseeing with relaxing with meeting my friends with just being on vacation, but I think Sabine and I struck a pretty good balance. After her arrival we first spent a few days in Lubbock, with a forced laid-back Wednesday when fair-week brought a day of steady rain. Thursday we ventured out on dry roads to explore the TTU campus on the tandem, and Friday we rode my usual in-town loop through the Canyon Lakes before heading for the larger canyons outside of town on Saturday. We spent our evenings with numerous friends, at my house or theirs, with me cooking or them. Wonderful!

Her first Sunday in town was the day for our excursion to Caprock Canyons, where we hiked for almost eight miles though what I believe is an even more attractive canyon environment than Palo Duro. A short distance from Lubbock, few visitors, extremely diverse canyons, and the amazing herd of bison make this one of our best regional attractions. Sabine was hooked on the landscape!

Old and new on the San Antonio Riverwalk

Sabine could hardly believe the size of the Live Oaks at the Alamo

For a landscape architect, the newly expanded River Walk is a fine case study

The tourists

Monday we left for our road trip to Central Texas, which took us to the Hill Country (including Luckenbach and Fredericksburg), San Antonio, and of course Austin. We spent two delightful nights with David and Priscilla in Boerne--apologies to all those friends and family whom we didn't contact about bunking out with you! Boerne was a perfect location to visit San Antonio, where Sabine was enthralled by the new-and-improved (starting in 2006) Riverwalk. As a landscape architect she saw things with different eyes, and on top of that she was able to enjoy those gardens and huge live oaks of the Alamo. Margaritas and Mexican food didn't hurt the impression one bit.

Wine tasting in Sisterdale--this ain't you mama's fancy winery (from the outside, at least)

Next was Austin--after first hitting Sisterdale for one of Texas' oldest wineries, Luckenbach to check on its population of three, and Fredricksburg with its touristy Main street (and one of many microbreweries that we added to our lifetime list on this trip. Luckenbach was especially memorable as it was a slow day in this town with a population of two (is there ever a fast-paced day???) and only a dozen or so tourists were on hand to listen two old-timer's stories and songs while nursing a Lonestar longneck (and heckling them a bit, as was the case with what appeared to be a longtime Luckenbach regular who was celebrating his close-to-octogenarian-material birthday on that Tuesday). Sabine was getting the idea what Texas is all about! Screw the politicians and all that crap--there's as much homegrown culture here as anywhere.

Relaxin' in Luckenbach ... (one of the plates is from Germany)

We took the backroads to Austin--with the BMW's roof down, enjoying a perfect sunny early fall afternoon--and stopped over for a short visit and delicious dinner with my old friend Micki and her husband, Kent, just on the westside of the sprawling capital city. Sabine had a first taste of what it means when we go out for dinner--much more noise, much more busy-ness, much less intimacy than in most German traditional restaurants. But the food was outstanding, combining so many different styles into the fusion that characterizes not only Austin restaurants but an exploding number of American eateries. Thanks, Micki and Kent for treating us!

It was rather late when we arrived in our excellent AirBnB in The Domain area of Austin--who says you can't find an affordable place for a couple of nights in Austin that gives you all the amenities of home? After a good night's sleep we drove down to the Whole Foods on Lamar where one can park all day (for free, in the underground garage, if you don't get caught. YMMV). First we visited this flagship store with all its cool departments that you won't find in your local Food King or Piggly Wiggly. Sabine was especially intrigued by the produce section and the fact that almost all products are NOT pre-packaged, as they often are in Germany. She had noticed that difference before in Lubbock, but in a massive store like this the selection and the ability to choose exactly what and how much you want was very attractive to her. The same went for the bulk food section, again in contrast to most stores in Germany. Grinding your nuts into butter is an added bonus. And yes, I know what I wrote. ;)

The next stop of our tour of Austin was the new Central Library, a beautiful, user-friendly building that appears to be everything that one could ask of a public library. Sabine loved it, as did I. The solar array shading the outdoor reading area is exactly what I'd like to do with my porch. Please touch base with ideas or suggestions! B-Cycle share bikes allowed us to explore Texas' capital, without ever making it to the Capitol. Sabine was much more interested in quaint neighborhoods, Town Lake, Zilker Park, and all the other things that make Austin Austin. And I always found a brewpub when it was time to rehydrate. By sheer chance we ran into one of my friends from the high school mountain bike circuit and were given the opportunity to kajak for half an hour. Thanks, Kimmery!

The final stop of our Texas road trip was in Temple, with Martha and Alan. On the way we stopped by hatmaker Nathaniel's store in lovely Georgetown, and our first night's dinner was in a quaint restaurant in scenic Salado. The next day, Sabine had a chance to see how true Texas barbecue is prepared when we got a tour of the smokers at Miller's in Belton. We checked out the Indians that were in town for some shindig, and Sabine got to ask a bunch of questions of one of the motorcycle guys. Actually, she always asked a lot of questions... Needless to say, Martha and Alan, with whom we had spent a week cross-country skiing in Austria years ago, were excited to have Sabine with them, and together we had a fabulous time.

Sabine was a little uneasy for the first 500 meters before she opened the throttle...

Judging from what the weather reports and the satellite photos were telling us, we were extremely lucky during our week in Central Texas. It wasn't until our last day that we got hit by some rain, minuscule, really. This lucky streak continued during our second road trip, which we started after two rather crappy (weather-wise) days back in Lubbock. This time around we headed west, toward Ruidoso first. Lugging two bikes into a horrendous headwind we stopped by the Mescalero Sand Dunes just east of Roswell, with huge thunderclouds looming in the west. While visiting the grandly named International UFO Museum and Research Center in this town of green, bug-eyed, and spindly-legged things the first downpour hit, and from then on the drive was wet, with amazing cloud formations continuing to remind Sabine that this part of the world is not to be trifled with. Aliens could be lurking anywhere.

For the next three nights we stayed in a friend's (who shall remain unnamed so he won't be accosted by other beggars like me--thanks, Jarred!) totally amazing "cabin" outside of Ruidoso. You know the type--a "cabin" that makes your house look like a double-wide. We had a wonderful time with the fireplace, the view, the deck, the outdoor grill, and the total isolation. We shared the cabin with nobody else but taxidermically preserved local fauna. The two racoons kept reminding me of the Avenger movies, and thankfully the living room grizzly had been removed by the former owner.

The cabin was our launching pad for two days of mountain bike riding. We had borrowed Donna's mountain bike for the week (thanks again!) and it was the first time for Sabine to ever do any trail riding on a mountain bike, at the tender age of around six oh. Let me tell you, that woman is a natural! Once again the weather held up, and on our first day around Grindstone Lake we had sunshine the entire day, convincing Sabine that taking a quick sun-break in the middle of the trail was de rigueur, and the post-ride beers on the west porch looking upon Sierra Blanca were amazing!

Finally some smooth trails after lots of single track. Nice, eh?

When we left on Friday morning to drive up to Albuquerque, it started to sprinkle. We checked out the Carrizozo lava flows (Valley of Fire) and then we stopped after beautifully empty landscape (devoid of humans, that is) in Socorro where we had a nice beer at Sourdough Mine, housed in the historic Baca building. Socorro's small historic center is definitely worth a 30-minute stop-over. Onward to Albuquerque, where we just had to stop at Marble Brewing to relive our visit a few years past. Funnily, I once again started to bemoan the lack of a beer culture in Lubbock, and Sabine made me pull up my blog entry from our last visit where I had used almost the identical words to complain about that crappy wanna-be brewery Triple J's in Lubbock. Oh well, some things never change.

20 oz beers are the way to go. Perfect pours, too.

From Marble it was just a quick 25 minutes up to Placitas where my friend Lee and his six monster dogs were waiting for our arrival. Lee and his wife, FeFi (whom we didn't get to see because of a flight cancellation in Dallas that prevented her return in time to see us), live in a beautiful adobe home with views of north to north-western New Mexico. Gorgeous! (I'm afraid I'll never live up to Sabine's now-totally-skewered standards that all my friends have set in regard to accommodations on these trips!!!)

We had high hopes that weather would hold for Saturday's mass ascension scheduled for the penultimate day of the 2018 Albuquerque Balloon Fiesta, and once again we lucked out. Even if the sun barely poked through the clouds, depriving us of those spectacularly colored photos that you see in every travel magazine, we nevertheless got to experience how about 500 balloons took off on an almost dead calm morning (drifting on an unusual course NW toward the reservation, and, worried about being ticketed, confiscated, or worse, decided to land in the bosque or adjacent fields outside of the tribal police's reach. Really, Native American authorities, is this the appropriate response to what is an international event and not some US government repeat of the ills that you were dealt?) It was an amazing sight, and the sound of the burners being fired in short spurts gave the balloons an eerie resemblance to medieval dragons, ready to spit fire upon you and follow that up with a measure dose of brimstone. A stunner, and a fitting end to our trip.

We spent the afternoon in the lava fields on the the westside of Albuquerque and looked at a few of the petroglyphs in the monument. It was a nice hike, and we regaled ourselves with feeding stroopwafel crumbs to various types of arthropods--ants, beetles, millipedes--in purely scientific pursuit. Two 60-year-olds having fun like little kids! And that was before the evening's beers at Lava Rock Brewing just a mile from Petroglyph National Monument and the final dinner at Il Vicinos with Lee....

On Sunday we headed home, with a massive cold front already having iced Raton Pass and dire forecasts for the Santa Rosa area later in the day. We squeezed through, unscathed. The roof never came down on this trip (we had too much bike- and warm-weather gear in the trunk anyhow), and back in Lubbock Sabine never saw the sun again before she departed last night. Doesn't matter. On our two trips we totalled a bit more than 2,100 miles and we had a damn good time, largely thanks to the generosity of friends who gave us shelter, hospitality, and lots of friendship! And thank you, Sabine, for coming over--it was a privilege to share my part of the world with you. See you soon!

LIA security at work--bye, Sabine!

Jürgen