A few weeks ago my husband Mike and I were watching our daughter’s two collie dogs while she accompanied her youngest son to the University of Notre Dame. She lives in one of the most scenic places in the state of Texas, the Hill Country just outside of San Antonio. Visiting there is always magnificent with vistas that seem to define the real Texas, not the one in movies or as portrayed by politicians. It is as fine a place that I have ever seen and I have been to some exceptionally beautiful locales. Maybe I am a bit biased because I was born and raised in Texas or as Willie Nelson likes to boast, I was made in Texas. 

We take advantage of being at my daughter’s home because she is close to so many of Texas’ best spots. We never miss driving on a route that takes us through a cute little town nestled along the Blanco River which sometime is as lazy as can be but others rages over its banks. It boasts a couple of nice restaurants and several little shops and antique stores. It’s a fun place to spend a few leisurely hours, but on the most recent day we went through town and kept heading down the road toward Johnson City, the birthplace of former President Lyndon Baines Johnson. 

Johnson City has preserved Lyndon Johnson’s childhood home and a tour of the place is quite interesting. It’s hard to imagine the long ago when a little boy’s grandmother predicted the rise to power that Lyndon eventually achieved. It’s a small house in a place where there was little to suggest the future of its favorite son. The town itself is still somewhat sleepy much as it has always been. The road leads to what would become known as the “Texas Whitehouse” were Johnson’s family had a ranch and Lyndon first went to school. Nestled along the Pedernales River are structures where Lyndon once lived and a family cemetery where he now lies. 

There was a time when Johnson flew in on a private air strip and drove around in a Lincoln Continental showing off his pride in the Texas landscape to kings and potentates. Now it is a peaceful reminder of a time when the local boy had been the most powerful man in the nation. It was the place that Johnson loved best and when I go there I understand why. It always reminds me of the essence of Texas with its wildness, but also a kind of serenity that is all too often difficult to find anywhere else.

On our latest trip to the area we continued on to Fredericksburg, a town settled by German farmers that has become a tourist mecca with its many shops and wineries. It’s also home to the National Museum of the Pacific War because Admiral Nimitz was from that little hamlet. With the good food and many attractions Fredericksburg is a must see that we never fail to visit whenever we are in the area. I like to stop for wursts and red cabbage and German potato salad and a glass of wine at one of the many wineries. I’m drawn to the quilt shop and more often than not visit to a store that sells locally made jellies and jams. 

This time around we enjoyed some wine at Becker’s Vineyard even though the temperature was topping out at one hundred three degrees. We found shade and a nice breeze under a big fan and relaxed in the quiet near the lavender fields. I would not have minded lingering longer but we were on a mission to purchase some bluebonnet seeds to plant in our backyard in September. Come springtime they will burst into the lovely blue blooms that remind my whe they are the Texas state flower. 

We took a route along backroads on our return to our daughter’s home. As the highway twisted and turned we listened to music from Willie Nelson, the quintessential Texan who seems to understand the heart of Texas and it’s people better than anyone. I have to admit that I got a bit emotional with the beauty of the moment as we passed by farmhouses and fields and a meandering river. Willie serenaded us reminding us of how much we too love Texas. Somehow being in the beating heart of the state not far from Austin made us feel like the luckiest people on the planet. 

I know that Texas is not perfect. I disagree politically with our governor and many of our representatives but I look beyond that craziness. Most of the people here are rather wonderful even though some of them hold ideas of how things should be run that are very different than my own. That’s just the way it is in Texas. We mostly mind our own business and take care of each other no matter which side of the fence we stand on. We’ve got just about anything here that anyone might want. We have beaches and mountains and great cities. We take pride in our universities and our centers of medicine. We have forests and deserts, NASA and cypress swamps. 

Ours is a great state as long as the powers that be don’t get too carried away with telling all of us how we should be. Texans have not traditionally done very well with bossy individuals who get into our business but of late we’ve had some close calls with leaders who seem to think they will improve things by legistating how we should live. I’m hoping that this trend does not last because the best thing about Texas has always been letting us all live however we choose. I even have a pillow that we once purchased at the Johnson Ranch that has a perfect quote from President Lyndon Johnson, “This is my ranch and do as I damn please!” For me that sums up how Texas is supposed to be. Maybe soon we can get back to being that way again. For this gal being made in Texas has been wonderful and I’d like to keep it that way.