Lake Somerville--another lovely state park

After our detour to see the Painted Churches, we picked up the motor home and finished our drive to our next camping spot at Lake Somerville State Park. Even though it was windy the day we arrived, we finally snapped this picture of a tranquil Lake Somerville on the third day of our stay.

Right on the beach next to the lake is a glorious hill of bluebonnets. Have you noticed that Denisa loves taking pictures of wildflowers?

Mark takes a few pictures too--but he insists that Denisa is in the picture--since flowers are obviously a "girl thing."

On the other hand, losing things is obviously a "guy thing." That is probably why Mark was sympathetic to the guy in the dark pants in the picture below. When we walked up, we saw him on his hands and knees in the shallow water--obviously searching for something. When Mark asked, he found out that he was fishing in the shallows and discovered that his I-phone was missing. So Mark took off his shoes and socks, rolled up his hiking pants, and searched for the missing phone with him. We would like to tell you that there was a happy ending and they found the phone, but it looks like Lake Somerville has claimed it.

We had two windy days at Lake Somerville State Park, where we spent our time hiking and riding bikes among the trees that protected us from the wind. We hiked most of the trails here in the Birch Creek section of the park. But even though it was windy, we couldn't even feel the wind at our camp site where we were tucked in between the trees.

Finally, the weatherman was predicting almost no wind in the early morning of the third day. We had been looking at that big lake with longing, and had already planned a kayak trip up its north edge where it looked like it narrowed to a little creek. So we were up before our usual alarm today for an early morning kayak. The water was blissfully calm, but the weatherman forgot to warn us of the very thick fog at this hour of the morning. When we got the boat on the water, Mark could see Denisa in the front of the kayak, but he couldn't see much else. If you squint just right, you can see the buoy in the water right in front of us, shrouded in fog.

We stayed on the edge of the water, keeping away from any passing motor boats that wouldn't be able to see us. It was interesting that even with limited visibility, eagle-eye Mark could spot an eagle on the top of a tree by the water's edge.

We were experiencing 100 percent humidity this morning. The water droplets were clinging to the spider webs along the shore, forming wet lacy masterpieces.

Eagles must like fishing in the fog, because we continued to find them in the trees this morning. We would see four eagles and several osprey sitting high in the trees.

Cormorants were also hanging out on the foggy lake.

Their silhouettes got crisper as they allowed us to row very close.

As we entered the mouth of the creek, the fog was lifting. But it still made for an eerily early morning float. We wouldn't have ordered the fog, but it made for an interesting change for our kayak trip.

It was fun paddling down the narrow creek, always wondering what we would find in the fog around the next bend. It seemed that the animals let us get unusually close, and we got this perfect profile pictures of a red-eared slider showing off his red ear.

We are in very shallow water by now, so few boats get to visit this part of the creek. Maybe the animals were just as curious to see us as we were to see them.

By 9:00, the fog had lifted and we had blue skies and wonderfully calm water. It must be time to turn around and finish this adventure.

What a neat place to be this morning with water like glass in front of us.

That's when we came upon our favorite bird sighting of the day--a green heron.

A green heron actually has a long neck that helps it to get more distance when fishing.

But they can tuck that neck into their body when they are at rest. They certainly have a different profile when they extend their neck.

Even though their necks are a beautiful chestnut color, their wings and head feathers have an iridescent green color in just the right light. We didn't have that "right light" this foggy morning. The most obvious green on our heron today was the lime green area around his eyes.

He allowed us to float quietly by, taking way too many pictures this morning. Mark is the master oarsman, keeping our boat steady and pointing Denisa in the right direction for taking pictures. We liked this pose with the heron's rock-star hair and long neck as he considered flying away.

By the time we got back to the boat ramp, we could actually see the surroundings where we had paddled this morning in the fog.

As we paddled home, we took one last wildlife picture. It's another of our favorite birds--a scissortail fly catcher.

Even though this boat trip started out with questionable weather, it was a great morning on the water.  We like it here at Lake Somerville--another lovely Texas state park.

The Painted Churches of Texas

Earlier this year, Denisa read an article about the "Painted Churches" around Schulenberg, Texas. So when we realized that Schulenberg could be on our northerly route through this big state, we made a point to stop. This is actually a travel day, so we parked the motor home at the Pilot station on the highway, and took off on a little road trip in the pickup. Our first stop was in the tiny town of Praha, at the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary Catholic Church.

Denisa is always taking way too many pictures of flowers, and she did that today in the rose garden outside this church. So she's going to throw in a few here while we explain some history of these painted churches.

When groups of settlers from Europe came to the United States in the 1800's, they often settled together in communities. They missed their beautiful churches back home in Czechoslovakia or Germany or Austria . . . so they attempted to build beautiful cathedrals here.

This group of settlers used the native Texas limestone on the outside, but had only wood to adorn the interiors. While they didn't have the mosaic tile ceilings or marble columns from Europe, they used intricate paint jobs to decorate their churches. That is why these old churches are called "The Painted Churches."

They also did a masterful job of carving intricate altars and pulpits that are still in use today.

While the actual name of the church is much longer, Denisa has renamed this the "flower church." That's because the top of each wooden column has a unique flower painted on it, and the ceiling is covered with flower gardens.

Mentioning a flower church, also gives Denisa another opportunity to squeeze in a couple more rose pictures that were taken outside.

Our next stop is back towards the town of Schulenberg at St. Mary's Church at High Hill.

This is called the "Queen of the Painted Churches" for its grand arched high ceilings and beautiful attention to detail. It was built by a group of Austrian-Moravian settlers that have been worshipping here since 1860.

Again, it features beautiful carvings at the front of the church . . .

and detailed paintings on the ceiling.

One thing unique to the "Queen" is her gorgeous stained glass windows. All the large side windows are dated in 1899, and they have certainly stood the test of time.

Because they didn't have Austrian marble for the columns, these painted churches used wood beams that were painted to look like marble. Each column holds a saint, with female saints on the left and male saints on the right. When the church was built, the women sat on the left side of the church, and men sat on the right.

While we were visiting these churches in some random order that made sense to us, we met a carload of people at the first church. They were three siblings and their three spouses that had met for a Texas vacation this year. After seeing them at the first church, we laughed and visited again when we saw them again at our second church.

So all of us really laughed when we saw them again in the parking lot at our third church--Sts. Cyril & Methodius Catholic Church near Dubina.

They encouraged us to hurry inside, as a tour guide had just unlocked this painted church for a paying group of sight-seers. So we were lucky to get a full view of this church that we will call "The Blue One."

With its blue ceilings, this painted church was built in 1909 by its congregation of settlers.

In the 1950s, the congregation decided to update their sanctuary, and covered all the intricate art with a fresh clean coat of white paint. It wasn't until the 1980s that the congregation came together to repaint the artwork that was shining through that white paint.

We wandered through the cemetery next door, with names on the head stones like "Blahuta" and "Kosarek" and "Sekerka." This community still has the roots from their homeland in Europe.

By the time we finished at the cemetery, the tour group was gone and the gate at this site was locked. We're glad we got to walk inside earlier, as this view of the blue church wasn't nearly as beautiful.

Just down the road we spotted a pasture that was ablaze with bluebonnets. We had already driven by, but Mark made a fast u-turn to bring us back to the open gate. Wouldn't you know it--our new friends were already there, laughing as we pulled up!

They had seen us drive by, commenting that we should have stopped to offer to take a group picture of them among the wildflowers. So when we turned around, they were all laughing and calling to us like old friends. Of course we took a picture of the six of them, and they took a picture of us together as well.

We stayed around longer, enjoying this most beautiful display of wildflowers. In between wandering God's churches, we have also found God's bluebonnets!

We wandered down more little country roads to find our fourth and final painted church of the day. This is St. John the Baptist Church in the tiny town of Ammansville. Any guesses on what special paint job we will find inside this basic white little church?

If you guessed pink, you are right!

If you also guessed that our new friends were here, you are right again! By now we are talking about exchanging addresses so we can send Christmas cards to each other. In the meantime, they offered to take another picture of us together.

It's interesting to look closely at the "marble" columns and hand rails. They're all actually wood, painted to look like marble.

We finished our tour of the Painted Churches of Texas with a couple of food stops in Schulenberg. As we ate a famous sausage wrap at City Market, we were just a little disappointed that our new friends didn't walk in the door. A stop at the bakery across the street finished our travel day detour. We headed back to the motor home to continue down the road to our next destination. But we are glad to get to wander God's wonderfully painted churches here in Texas.

Our First Harvest Host Camping

We were still camping in Goliad, Texas, on Easter morning. After checking the web sites of several local churches, we settled on going to the interdenominational sunrise church service. It was held outside, at the amphitheater next to the Presidio mission/fort that we had visited earlier. As the church service started, we had a beautiful sunrise in the east. Denisa had to sneak taking a picture down our "pew" as the sky turned gold and pink.

After church, we left our camp site in Goliad and headed down the road toward a new adventure. With a record number of new RVs being sold, we are experiencing a harder time finding open camp sites. So this year we are trying a new option. We joined a group called "Harvest Host" and we are staying at our first harvest host camp site tonight.

This is the Whistling Duck Winery near Weimar,Texas. We are the only RV enjoying their pond and pasture leading up to their business.

It was a beautiful place to be for Easter Sunday afternoon!

Harvest Host is an organization that finds farms, wineries, museums, golf courses . . . any kind of business that has a large parking lot or property that would allow RVers to spend the night. The RVers pay an annual fee to get the addresses and invitations from the hosts, and agree to purchase around $20 of their products in exchange for that free night of camping.

The benefit to the host is having a new customer for their products. But some hosts are so kind that they invite wandering RVers even when they are closed. Whistling Ducks Winery is normally open on Friday, Saturday, and Sunday evenings. They agreed to our visit on this Sunday evening, even though they were actually closed for Easter. This is our first experience, but surely not all of the host sites are this beautiful! The vineyards are in a field adjacent to the winery, and we see that tiny grapes are just beginning to form on the vines.

Even though the winery is called "Whistling Duck" we didn't hear any whistles from the resident flock of ducks on the pond. We did hear what Denisa calls duck-laughs, as they make a ha-ha-ha sound as they scoot around the water.

But we really enjoyed the duck parade as they all got in a line and made their entrance and exit from the water at the same time. They are all headed to the duck house back on the farm.

We enjoyed watching other farm fowl, like these odd-shaped guineas. These birds eat their weight in bugs as they patrolled the perimeter of the farm all day long.

But our favorite farm animals have to be the two guard dogs. They greeted us as soon as we shut off our motor home engine. We love dogs, and these two were happy to stay around as long as we were outside--and petting them.

They were too well-behaved to try to come inside the motor home, but they were always ready for us to come outside to play with them.

We've listed lots of the "pros" of this harvest host system that might seem too good to be true. So to be fair, we should also mention some cons. This site was not exactly on our way to our next destination, so we did have to drive some miles out of the way to get here. In this case, the last 2.2 miles were on a rather rough dirt road. 

Also, we have to run our generator for an hour this evening to keep our refrigerator happy, as most of the hosts have no option for electrical hook-ups. We look forward to staying at farm sites that have fresh produce or edible products that we can purchase. But since we don't drink or play golf, we will have a hard time making a purchase at some of the harvest host sites. But we've read some wineries or golf courses have restaurants where we can purchase a meal.  Also, in the heat of the summer we don't think there will be many places that it will be comfortable sleeping without air-conditioning.

Even with those "cons," we still feel pretty good about our first night of camping at a Harvest Host. It was blissfully quiet out here in the country, and the weather perfectly cooperated to give us a cool breeze all night.

We started this Easter morning watching the sunrise at a church service. Now we are counting our blessings of another good day wandering His wonders as we watch the sunset over our vineyard.