4-2 Springtime in The Texas Hill Country

Wild Flowers in the Hill Country

What should we do today? Our agenda was empty, we didn't have any errands to do and there was no square dancing. Wednesday night when we were dancing one of our square dancing friends, Collen, told Larry that Llano was having a fiddle festival today. The admission was free for the competition part during the day, the evening concert was $5 in advance and $10 at the door. Warren Hood was the evening performer. He is a fiddler from Austin and we had attended one of his concerts a couple years ago, he was very good. We hadn't taken a ride in the Hill Country in a long time so we decided to go to the festival. We loaded Flo in the car and off we went. Llano was a little over 100 miles from the house. This time of the year the Hill Country is gorgeous with wild flowers. As we were driving some places had a lot more wild flowers than others, I suppose some areas get just the right amount of rain and others don't. On the way to Llano we stopped at the Lake Buchanan dam so Flo could stretch her legs. The last time we were there was years ago and Lake Buchanan was very low but today it looked nearly full. When we arrived we were the only ones there but it didn't take long before other folks showed up, it was such a beautiful day that lots of folks were out looking at the flowers. We arrived at the fiddle festival at 12:30 and we were surprised how many people were there. The festival was at the Lantex Theater in downtown Llano. We found a nice shady spot to park the car a couple of blocks from the theater. The theater was built in 1927 and even had a balcony, very cool. The view from the balcony was super. We listened to the competition for about an hour. Before leaving the theater I visited the restroom, I was surprised that there weren't doors on the stalls instead there were curtains. We had a very nice time at the festival. We drove home via a different route, it was a little longer but we wanted to see more of the Hill Country wildflowers. The scenery was outstanding with fields and fields of wildflowers. People were stopping along side of the road to take pictures of the flowers and we were one of them. Flo had been in the car for a long time so when we got to Lampasas we stopped at one of their parks, which was Mill Pond Park. It was a magnificent park. It had waterfalls, a pond for the geese and ducks with a fountain, walking paths, an old mill wheel and a stream that ran through the park. A lot of people were enjoying the facilities. We walked around for about a half hour and Flo got some attention from people walking by and petting her. We had a magnificent drive through the Hill Country.

Lake Buchanan

Lantex Theatre in downtown Llano

One of the competitors in the Fiddle Festival

Another fiddler competing at the festival

One of the guys competing in the festival

Standing in a field of wild flowers

The mill at Mill Pond Park

The waterfall from the above duck pond

In the evening we watched a movie on Amazon called Flawless, a comedy-drama. It starred Robert De Niro and Philip Seymour Hoffman. It was a good movie. We had a very good day.