Exploring Kerrville, Texas

After a beautiful day yesterday, Wednesday emerged cloudy and windy and cooler.  It was a good day to get some work done, so we made a list of people and places we needed to contact and started making phone calls.  One thing we have already determined about living in a motorhome is things are going to break and getting them fixed isn't much fun.  We are still trying to determine how and where to get the steps fixed, and now our directional television antennae has quit working.  We have a warranty that will fix both, but finding a good place to get it repaired is tricky when you are in a new place every week.  If a repairman is really good, he will probably be booked solid for the entire week you are there.  The good news is that we can still get into the motorhome without the step, and we don't usually sit around watching much television. So we will continue down the road until we can get these two things repaired.

We had a few things we wanted to explore in Kerrville, so we set out to find them in the afternoon.  Our first stop was the Hill Country Arts Foundation in Ingram.

In 1989, a Texan decided to make a 2/3 size replica of Stonehenge.  While the original in England is 5000 years old and is made of huge stones, this version is steel and concrete and found in a field in Ingram, Texas.  As you can also see, the "stones" are all still standing and in much better shape than the old British version.

In the same field are two "moai," the curious statues of unknown origin in the Easter Islands in the far reaches of the South Pacific.  Again, these Texans thought they would be a good addition to the Stonehenge replica.

The Easter Island civilization was on one of the most isolated islands in the world. The disappearance of these people and the huge statues they left behind has been one of the great mysteries of the world.  We were checking to see if any of the  moai resembled Mark, but again we found that he is much more handsome than these Easter Islanders.













The next stop on our tour of Kerrville was the James Avery factory and gift shop.  Denisa loves factory tours, but because of the great heat used in melting the metal for jewelry-making, tours are not a possibility.  But they do have a wonderful new visitor center that shows the process they use to design and make their beautiful jewelry.  It really was fascinating to us.  We have sworn off shopping because of the limited space we have in the motorhome, but a tiny piece of jewelry was certainly tempting at this stop.

On the north side of I-10 is "The Coming King Sculpture Prayer Garden."  The 70 foot metal cross can be seen for miles around.  You can barely see Denisa standing between the metal beams at the base. 

They are landscaping the entire area, and it will be beautiful when it is finished.  The garden area is laid out in the outline of a cross, with the 70 foot cross at the top, sculptures at the right and left hand sides, and a statue of Jesus at the foot of the cross.  It is so nice to be traveling in the Bible belt, where we can enjoy wonderful Christian gardens like this one.

After our tour around Kerrville, we had one more special evening event planned.  Last Saturday, Denisa was whining that there were no Texas dance halls open in the area.  So our new friend, Rich, organized a trip to the Kerrville Elks Club for the Wednesday night country dance.  This was wonderful timing for us since we were parked in Kerrville, and showed great support from our new friends that had to drive an hour to meet us there.  We met at Bill's Bar-B-Que for dinner, and then danced from the first to the last dance at the Elks Club.

We had a great time!  Thanks, Rich, for planning the evening!  He also told us that the Elks Clubs are great for allowing members to park their motorhomes in their parking lots (that often have hook-ups as well).  So any friends that would sponsor Mark into the Elks Club, let us know!