Aloha all,
even though I don’t write updates while we are on Maui, it’s still our favorite place to live. It’s home, it’s where our friends are and the weather and scenery are pretty nice, too! For us, the only problem with Maui is that time slips by like sand between your fingers.
We were home for almost half a year, but it felt like a quick visit. We got to celebrate Christmas with the ohana, I got to play ultimate and golf with my buddies, we saw a few fun concerts and plays, visit friends on Oahu, have friends visit from Okinawa and Colorado, go zip-lining, scuba diving and watch plenty of whales, rainbows & sunsets. We also went to a wedding to see a new family getting started and to the hospital to bid farewell to a friend. Our final weekend, we got to go backpacking through Haleakala, continuing our annual tradition with our crater crew, which was an extra special treat this year.
 |
| Our annual backpacking tradition into the crater continues... |
If you have ever read one of my blog posts, you know that we usually pack that many activities in a week or two on the road. I noticed that I was ready for our next big road trip when I got excited driving on a new residential street in Lahaina. Not because it was special, just because I had never been there. Now we’ve been back on the road for a week, where almost every street is new to us, every day brings new adventures and life is always fuller than average.
 |
| We love Joy! |
We were very excited to be reunited with our RV “Joy” in Austin, Texas. I am sure people with kids can relate, what a relief it is if everything is ok after you put your baby in storage for 6 months. We spent a day getting her ready for the road again before heading to our first highlight: The Ladybird Johnson Wildflower Center. For some reason we thought May was too late for the wild flower bloom, maybe because the Blue Bonnets have come and gone already. But it seemed like everything else was blooming. The Indian Blanket (aka Firewheel) was particularly impressive and actually blanketed the meadows in yellow and red. Of course it also helped that the weather was gorgeous, the volunteers were helpful, the butterflies and birds were flying and they served the best mushroom sandwich I ever had. And I would say that even if I had eaten another mushroom sandwich before.
 |
| Indian Blankets in full bloom at the Ladybird Wildflower Center |
We also went to downtown Austin, ate at our favorite BBQ joint, strolled up and down 6th Street and waited for the bats to emerge from under the Congress Bridge…and waited and waited. They specifically designed that bridge to give comfortable nesting spaces to the endangered bats. I guess they were particularly comfortable that night. Usually, hundreds of thousands of bats emerge right around sunset. When we were there, they waited so long that it was almost too dark to see them when they finally came out. Luckily we got an inside scoop from a volunteer, most of the 2,000 bat-watchers there probably did not see many bats at all, but from just the right spot we got to see a lot of them after all.
In case you are wondering why a city would go through the trouble to design a bat-friendy bridge, let me ask you a question: Do you prefer eating guacamole or being bitten by mosquitoes? Bats are essential to pollinate avocados and a single bat can eat thousands of mosquitoes in a single night. With up to almost million bats in that bridge, that’s a lot of avocado plants pollinated and even more annoying bug bites avoided.
Off to San Antonio! Having done “The Alamo” extensively last time (and still remembering it!), we were able to spend time on our beloved Riverwalk with it’s fun restaurants and a floating military appreciation parade. We also walked a bit out of town along the Riverwalk, ending up in the picturesque King William neighborhood with it’s historic mansions and villas.
 |
| Parade on the San Antonio Riverwalk |
If you know us well enough, you probably suspect that there must have been an ulterior motif for us to come back to a city we already knew, rather than going to some new place. Well, we liked last year’s road trip so much and it had started with seeing Hamilton, which instantly became our favorite musical. So why change that, why not make this a tradition? They just happened to be touring in San Antonio in the truly majestic “Majestic Theater”. Since we are not the only fans of the musical, prices can be a little crazy. At $200 for a single seat, we were hesitant. But with a little luck, a little patience and a lot of perseverance we got $69 tickets 10 minutes before the curtain time. It was well worth the effort, we enjoyed it just as much as the first time and will keep an eye on the touring schedule to see it again.
 |
| Hamilton musical at the Majestic Theater |
Since it’s not too hot yet, we decided to head towards Big Bend National Park. While looking for places along the way, Sandra saw an ad about Castroville, which bills itself as the “Alsace of Texas”. My hometown in Germany being right on the border to Alsace, that sounded interesting for a quick stop. Interesting? For sure! Quick? Not so much! We spent about two hours in the first house we walked into. It happened to be a house that was moved to Texas from Alsace to memorize the heritage of the first settlers brought here from Alsace by Henry Castro in the 1840’s. We knew it was pretty authentic when we saw the stork weather vane on the roof, but what tickled me the most was that they had a dining table set up with plates from Alsace, identical to the plates I have eaten from and will eat from again at my parents home in Breisach.
 |
| The Steinbach Haus from Alsace, France was moved to Castroville, Texas |
We did a walking tour through Castroville. It’s not your typical Texan town, but also not an overly touristy historical town. It just seems like a down to earth place where most people appreciate the unique history and take pride in keeping the historic character of the town alive. We ended up in the cutest restaurant with the best trout Sandra ever had, and she is somewhat of a trout connoisseur! Luckily, we were misled to believe that their campground was super cheap, so we spent the night in Castroville. It ended up being almost three times as expensive, but it came with a river to float down and it made us stay in this cute town for another day.
 |
| At the campground in Castroville |
The next morning, we visited the “Landmark Inn”, a State Historical Site where travelers have stayed for the past 170 years. The entrance was a little obscure and we were not sure whether this was just a Bed & Breakfast or whether we were welcome to visit the site. Oh boy, were we welcome! The lady at the desk looked up, smiled and shouted out: “It will be so much more fun to talk to you than to order this John Deer tractor!”
We talked to Elisa for a long time even before visiting the site and we got a private tour of the cute rooms of the Inn. Amongst other things we learnt that Elisa’s mom had lived at the Landmark Inn for a few years and her dad and her uncle and her aunt were mayors of Castroville. Then she arranged for someone to open the Living History Museum in a historical home just for us. As a thank you, but also angling for another one of her favorite trouts, Sandra suggested we invite our new friend to the Alsatian Restaurant for dinner. That restaurant was closed, but we ended up eating a pretty authentic Flammkuchen in the local pizza parlor with Elisa, her 92 year old, super sharp mom Dorothy and Mike. Mike is the kind of person who feels like an old friend after you talked to him for a minute and a half. For extra bonus, he added to our presidential history by telling us some hilarious stories from when his dad went hunting with LBJ. Not surprisingly, they had failed to mention those at his library and at his ranch.
It seems like every time you meet someone in Castroville, they call someone else to meet you, so for breakfast the next morning, it was six of us. Our newest friend Kent might actually be related to me, at least he has a Seibert somewhere up in his family tree. But what else could you possibly talk about with ‘strangers’? Just to show that this is not a problem with this crew: Our breakfast lasted almost 4 hours!
 |
| Breakfast with our new friends in Castroville |
Then it was time to leave this fun town behind, heading west to the Garner State Park, where we spent a night at a lovely campground right by the Frio River. We went floating down the river before dinner last night and again after a hike this afternoon. The water is as clear as at Molokini and we even saw two turtles, a hundred dragon flies and a thousand glow worms at night. What a life!
 |
| Floating down the Frio River in the Garner State Park |
Of course we miss our new friends from Castroville. But apparently, so do they. So tomorrow, they will drive all the way to Uvalde to spend another day with us. I better get this update out, who knows what happens and who we meet when Elisa comes.
 |
| Yes, she's wearing a Disney castle on her head, but you're not surprised we like slightly weird people, are you? |
Aloha from Texas,
Chris & Sandra
