Luckenbach, TX

For the past couple weekends, Scott has been finishing up his ground school for his commercial rating so lately we haven't been able to do anything fun. He took his written test Thursday and passed with flying colors so we had some time this weekend after he flew on Saturday. He still has some flying to do before he can take his check ride but he hopes to be done in the next month or so. Unfortunately at least one flight a week gets cancelled for weather (which is funny because he got his instrument rating a few months ago so now he can fly in clouds, but the commercial rating requires training on maneuvers in a complex aircraft in visual conditions only, so for now he's back to cancelling for weather!) So we'll see, but he's more than halfway done now so it's just a matter of time...

We decided to find Luckenbach, Texas, as a wise man (Jim) once sent us on a quest to do just that, saying it was very hard to find. Well, being the arrogant young whippersnappers we are we just assumed he didn't know about GPSs or MapQuest, but as it turns out it WAS hard to find! And the reason is because it's not really a town, it's more of a gathering place. But, first thing's first, we stopped at Whittington's in Johnson City for some of their world famous turkey jerkey.

From Whittington's we headed west to Luckenbach, which was on a map of the area we got at Whittington's, but when we got there we were confused because although the sign said Luckenbach, there is no town. The sign is just on the side of the highway. But there were a lot of cars parked in a big grass field so we went to check it out. People were getting out of their cars and walking, as if to some sort of event.

We parked and went to investigate. What it is, is a place where people come to listen to live music, just hang out, and buy souvenirs saying they've been to Luckenbach. A good many people there were taking pictures like us so it's hard to say how many locals were there and how many tourists.
You could get your picture taken with a longhorn steer.
This is the band playing Saturday night. They were really good and it would have been fun to hang out and listen, but it was 100 degrees (even at 7pm) and Bridget looked like she was going to keel over after only 10 minutes of walking.
This is Grape Creek, which runs along the east side of Luckenbach.

Why drink the purified water we brought with us when you can just drink creek water? Mmmmmm, creek water.

There were a couple of fire pits too, although no one was using them at the time. This is looking back towards where the band was playing.

Random rooster.

The post office is now a general store where you can buy souvenirs.

There were a lot of motorcycles people rode in, which is apparently common, and then yesterday was also the Luckenbach car show so there were still a few cars left from that, though not very many. We had seen a lot of classic cars on the highway and figured there was a car show somewhere but turns out it was right where we were going!