Just two miles away from our campground, we found the Monument Hill and Kreische Brewery State Historic Site. We'll explain what that means later, but for now we can say that it's on top of the bluff that overlooks the town of La Grange. From here, we can see that pesky Colorado River that now looks like a tranquil brook staying in its banks.
Our first stop is the towering Memorial at the Monument Hill State Historic Site. It's here that 53 heroes that perished in the fight for Texas independence in the 1840s have been buried. 36 died in the Dawson Massacre, an ambush led by Mexico's Santa Anna. In a separate incident, another 17 were executed by Mexico in the infamous "Black Bean Death Lottery." If you don't know your Texas history, just know that drawing a black bean out of a bowl of white beans is a deadly mistake. Their bodies were brought here to La Grange in 1848, and buried in a group tomb.
There are several miles of trail within the state historical site. One of those trails took us to the home of Heinrich Kreische, one of the many European immigrants that settled here near La Grange in 1849. Mr. Kreische continued to add onto his home as his family grew, until it became the three-story southern plantation home we see today.
Because it is spring break, the home was open to the public. It was an interesting look at life in the mid-1800's in the eastern Texas plains.
It was fully furnished, so we could imagine the food they ate and the clothes they wore (as well as the tiny waists they maintained).
We couldn't help but notice that all the tables were set with permanent displays of beer. That's because this family was famous for their brewery that became Texas's third largest in the state by 1879.
Built just down the hill from the house, the remains of the three-story brewery are visible from another trail.
It was a beautiful day with highs in the 70's, blue skies, and no wind. We were glad to have such a pleasant place to hike. We are noticing more and more wildflowers this spring, but we weren't familiar with this startling red bloom. That's a Red Buckeye, and even though bees and hummingbirds love those flowers, they are toxic to humans.
We also found this very pretty bush, covered with light purple flowers.
The only thing that enjoyed it more than we did, was the yellow swallowtail butterflies. They made a lovely picture against the blue sky.
We enjoyed our walk through the woods, but we found we were not alone. Denisa took this picture of our companion. Do you see who is watching us?
We had to zoom in a little to see the doe watching us cautiously, just a few feet off the trail in the heavy brush.
After hiking all the trails on Monument Hill, we headed to our second destination of the day. About twenty miles away is Buescher State Park. Now that we have purchased another annual Texas state park pass, we have to put it to good use. We thought about putting our kayak out on the lake. But after all the beautifully clear mountain lakes of the northwest, we couldn't get excited about a muddy Texas lake today.
We had heard that from here it's a 12-mile bike ride on a narrow back-country road to Bastrop State Park, and we thought about doing that. But we quickly decided against that plan too when we found out how hilly that 12 miles is. In fact, the first couple miles are straight up-hill to a high point over-looking the valley below. So we drove the car to that viewpoint, and found a nice place for a picnic lunch. We had stopped by Weikel's Bakery on our way, and lunch was two fresh pigs-in-a blanket (with jalapeno sausage and pepper jack and ham) and a cherry cheesecake kolache. We love eating like the locals!
Since we had decided against our first two exercise options, we changed to option #3--a loop hike through the woods. This state park is home to the western-most forest of loblolly pines in the United States. They are removed from their nearest pine neighbors, so they are sometimes called "the lost pines." Mark is in the picture below, hanging out with those tall loblollies.
The forest is also home to what looks like a bumper crop of white blooms. We think they are blackberry bushes, and this should be a delicious hike in a couple months.
We finished our loop hike through the woods, and returned to our car that was sitting at the view point at the top of the hill. That's when we got a great idea. We could still get a bike ride today, and this one would be down-hill! So we unloaded our bikes from the car's rack and sped down that long hill that we had driven up. It was great!
On the park map, we had seen a hiking path that started at the bottom of that hill and went through the woods parallel to the road. So we hiked the two miles up the trail to get the car, then drove back to retrieve the bikes parked at the bottom. What a great day of exercise in the fresh air and blue skies on a beautiful day! We had put in our 8 hours and hiked 8 miles. Even though our schedule is brutal with long 8-hour days, we are still enjoying the simple pleasures of being on the road and exploring this beautiful country again!
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