HAPPY BIRTHDAY CHRISTI (Canyon Lake 4/6/09)

I started my day with a special birthday song to my daughter and chatted a while with Katy. They appear to be having a LOT of fun at Disneyland - ask 'em about Pooh Bear, bubbles, hockey pucks, and Space Mountain.

True to Texas' nature, the weather went from near 90's watching people tube down the Guadalupe River on Saturday, to 60's on Sunday, and tonight Clint pulled in the water hoses because it's suppose to freeze. If we're still here on Thursday, we'll be back up close to 90 and then back down with possible rain for Easter. Every other day we're in Texas, we're reminded of our 20-year old phrase "If you don't like the weather in Texas, wait a few hours and it will change." It's actually been a lot of fun with the changing weather, just a little challenging to plan outdoor activities.

Today we visited the Heritage Museum of the Texas Hill Country where we met this nice fellow "Penada" who was built in a garage for a city parade. It seems while my son was being born, a rancher was leveling out his land near Canyon Lake to make an RV Park. During the bulldozing, they discovered a massive trail of dinosaur tracks perfectly preserved. The owner stopped the RV Park plans, had the tracks authenticated, and opened the tracks for public viewing. Since then, the land has changed hands a number of times and was recently donated to the local History Association. They in turn raised funds to build a small museum, place a cover over the tracks, and build a viewing area around the trail.

The museum is a very small 6-room wooden house. But the operator MORE than makes up for it. We spent over two hours at this tiny place and left well informed, entertained and content. The curator guided us through the museum with a customized presentation of their fossils from Canyon Lake, history of the dinosaurs and Texas geology, plus interesting info on the building of the dam and the 2002 "Little Ditch". I enjoyed the map of Texas under water from east of the Davis mountains and south of the Panhandle plus the before and after info on the dam. Seeing the same style post office box Clint and I used when we were first married now classified as museum historical artifacts has me feeling a little funny.

The weather was too uncomfortably cold for hiking around the Canyon Dam to take a view of the Fossil Gorge, aka Little Ditch, aka Canyon Lake Gorge. Like our friends in Silver City, NM, an area altered by man was abnormally affected by water. In 2002, the area flooded, the dam overflowed or spilled out, and voila, a small canyon was created overnight taking out trees, boulders, homes, etc. After it nearly dried up 6 weeks later, the area had a new canyon exposing fossils, fault lines, springs and waterfalls. Photos and info can be viewed at: http://www.canyonlakeguide.com/helpful_info/gorge.htm.

Afterwards we visited New Braunfels. I enjoyed the Courthouse that reminded me of a castle and many of the other German heritage structures. We had lunch at a great little restaurant, Huisache Grill - excellent food.

On our way home, we traveled through the town of Gruene (pronounced Green). Basically the Village was a tourist trap. It does have the center attraction for all these Hill Country towns of old - a Dance Hall. I was fascinated by the new homes we past before reaching our destination - made of white stone and doors (including the garage door) resembling olden wooden barn doors of the medieval times.