this and that in Texas

The touted Zilker Botanical Gardens were kind of a letdown, but as a friend pointed out, its hard to beat Phoenix and St. Louis.

Dad and Neri bought some talavera serving bowls at one of the places on SoCo and the store owner gave me a concho with a steer head and “Austin Texas” on it as a souvenir. It kind of makes me want to start collecting conchos of the places I’ve been and making a belt out of them. Too bad its kind of limited to places with cowboy/vaquero traditions.

Our last night there, we ate at the highly rated Hudson’s on the Bend, a spendy little restaurant out in the countryside up in the rolling hills outside of Austin, near the shores of one of the big lakes out there.

Apparently, it’s also a favorite haunt of Lance Armstrong. The drive was really beautiful, with the sun setting behind the hills covered with trees. The food and service were superb. I ordered the seared duck with diver scallops, with a duck confit and sweet potato hash and grilled vegetables. I’ve had better scallops, but  I can’t remember when. The bread pudding for dessert was flawless. Not only was it the best bread pudding I’ve ever had, there was not one thing I would change about it.

On our way out of town, we took the 71 country highway and found ourselves out in the middle of nowhere in the middle of Texas, surprisingly green and pretty countryside. I wanted to see the Historical marker on top of the sandstone bluff overlooking the tiny town of La Grange. The marker commemorated the best little whorehouse war dead from one of the Mexican-American wars. It was an interesting bit of history, but also a great view of the surrounding landscape and the winding Colorado river below (not The Colorado, but a Colorado river).

We also stopped at Hruska’s Grocery gas station gift shop bakery travel market outside of Ellinger. Interestingly, this part of Texas was heavily settled by Germans (and also some Czechs, from the sound of it). Apparently, the Kolaches were not to be missed, so we got some cheeseburgers and some Kolaches to go, along with some locally canned pickles. The Kolaches really reminded dad and I of the rolls dad’s grandmother used to bake. They were nearly identical actually.