LOCKHART TEXAS

THE BARBEQUE CAPITAL OF TEXAS

At the risk of offending SOMEONE, I’m going to talk about barbeque. Your favorite way of BBQ preparation may be different than ours here at VFH Central. Dang, there’s even a schism going on in this House ‘O Travel here in Collegeville, PA as Janet savors a brisket, while that chopped up pig does my belly a valuable service.

FOUR STYLES OF BARBEQUE

There are four distinct styles of barbeque in these here United States.

Kansas City:

In Kansas City they smoke everything from chicken to beef to even fish and the all-important sauce is tomato-based and tangy and there’s always lots of sides, like baked beans, fries and cole slaw.

Memphis:

Memphis style the critter is mostly pig ribs and shoulders and either “dry” rubbed and served without sauce after cooking, and “wet”, when the ribs are brushed with sauce before, during and after cooking.

Carolina:

North Carolina Barbeque gets a bit complicated depending where you happen to be in the Tar Heel State. Western North Carolina is just pig shoulder and has a tomatoey sauce, while Eastern North Carolina barbeques the whole hog and chops it all up together with a vinegar sauce. And, in South Carolina they have been known to make a “Carolina Gold” sauce that mixes yellow mustard, vinegar, brown sugar and other spices.

Makes me hungry just writing this.

TEXAS BBQ

Now, in Texas, it’s mostly beef brisket. Big slices of beef with charred ends and, for some, a little bit of savory fat and beef ribs. Yes, you can also get sausages and chopped pig and pork ribs and chicken, but brisket rules the day. From food trucks to brick and mortar establishments, barbeque is as ubiquitous as horns on steers, and if I did not have a devout fondness for Mexican cuisine, we would have eaten barbeque each day while we were recently in Austin, Texas.

BBQ styles in Texas:

In a state as large as Texas there’s several styles of barbequing.

In the Central Texas area of Austin where we stayed, the meat is rubbed with spices and cooked over indirect heat from oak or pecan wood. Sides like mac and cheese, cole slaw and pinto beans are available and grilled sausages make for a hearty, filling meal. Oh, and some sweet peach or apple cobblers round you all out! 

All served buffet style, you just have them fill your tray as you walk through the cavernous bbq halls that serve as restaurants.

In East Texas, the meat is cooked slowly over hickory wood until it “falls off the bone”!

In West Texas they use mesquite wood.

In South Texas the barbeque features thick as molasses BBQ sauces that keep the meat moist.

BLACK’S ROADTRIP

On one of our days in our recent trip to Austin, we decided to take a quick road trip to get our barbeque and drove to Lockhart Texas at the original Black’s Barbeque about 25 miles south east from our Hippy Haven AirBnB in Manchaca.

Black’s was founded in 1932 and is one of the oldest BBQ restaurants in Texas, and depending on the level of enthusiasm about discussing food rather than simply eating it, many say Black’s serves the best BBQ. In May 1997 Texas Monthly had Black’s slated as one of Texas’ top 50 barbeque restaurants. 

SENATE RESOLUTION NO. 13

Now, there are several franchises of Black’s Barbeque; we ate at one on Guadalupe Street in Austin the last time we were in Texas; but we decided to drive to the original location in Lockhart Texas to pick up some take-out barbeque to bring back home. (Currently you cannot eat inside because of COVID, although there were tables set up outside.) The 25-mile drive was quick along a 65-mph road. We could have taken the toll road at 85-mph, but I hate spending the extra money.

CALDWELL CTY TX
COURTHOUSE

Lockhart itself is a pretty, neat town with the beautiful Caldwell County Courthouse looming in the center square with several shops surrounding it. The Lockhart area has been used in several movies over the years, most recently the HBO series, The Leftovers, but we weren’t scouting locations and so you’re probably wondering why the lengthy drive even if gas is hovering around $1.50 in the area and we had a Jeep Cherokee as a rental. Isn’t the barbeque all the same?

No, we did not travel to this charming little town to stroll the grounds of the Courthouse, or to visit the Caldwell County Jail Museum or to check out a book at the oldest operating public library in Texas, the Dr. Eugene Clark library, erected in 1899. We came here because this town is, by State Senate Resolution No. 13, adopted in 2003, officially recognized as the Barbeque Capital of Texas.

You can read the resolution here: 

LOCKHART TEXAS IS THE BBQ CAPITAL OF TEXAS 

Yeah, it’s gimmicky and touristy, but Lockhart does boast four very well-respected barbeque places. Here are the four:

Black’s Barbeque 215 North Main Street

BLACK'S BBQ.

 Chisholm Trail Barbeque, 1323 S. Colorado

CHISHOLM TRAIL BBQ

Kreuz Market Barbeque 619 S. Colorado

KREUZ MARKET (PRONOUNCED KRITES)  

Smitty’s Market, 208 S. Commerce

SMITTY'S MARKET BBQ

To read more about each you can either go to their webpages or read what Lockhart says about these fine establishments. If you're not feeling the drive to Lockhart, there are other new locations of each place in different locales. Follow the websites.

LOCKHART TX OFFICAL WEBSITE

COME FOR THE BBQ LINGER OVER A BEER 

Sadly, we got to Lockhart too late in the day to explore this charming place and with the COVID we didn’t want to poke our heads into shops. After collecting our meal at Blacks, (we had ordered everything online beforehand), we parked near the courthouse and walked a block to have a quick beer at Load Off Fanny’s. 

Nothing on tap, but we had Karbach Brewery, out of Houston, Hopadilla IPA in cans as we sat for a while in their courtyard. Everyone here was respectful with mask wearing and every other table was sectioned off for proper distancing.

LOAD OFF FANNY'S 

KARBACH BREWING

TEXAS TRADITIONS

A LONG WEEKEND IN AUSTIN

Austin Texas is our destination for a long weekend. This part of the Lone Star State deviates from the rest of Texas. It is the state’s capital and a very liberal island in a vast unending sea of conservative views. Austin prides itself to be a counter culture haven and the copyrighted ad campaign for the city is “Keep Austin Weird”.

Despite the wayward and sometimes “look-at-me” antics of the wacky citizens, Austin is a great place to visit, but don’t worry, because of this pandemic we’re not cavorting along 6^th Street drinking shot after shot of tequila. Instead we’re in a little Airbnb cabin in the nearby town of Manchaca.  

It’s a funky, colorfully painted comfortable cabin, neat despite not having a lot of right angles in the structure and a just perfect location as Janet’s daughter lives nearby. The place does have indoor plumbing and corrugated metal forms the walls of the kitchenette. There’s a little courtyard with tables and in the middle there’s a little pond with koi that are sometimes harvested by racoons, and we were told not to be alarmed by prancing armadillos that have been known to scamper about.

GETTING HERE

The spread of COVID has slowed both in Texas and Pennsylvania as more and more people are respecting the virus and wearing face coverings as a precaution. Travel restrictions between these two states has been lifted with no necessary quarantine or lockdowns, so we thought it was safe to travel.

Originally, we had a direct flight from Philadelphia to Austin, but that got cancelled and we ended up having to fly through Charlotte and changing planes. Both flights were packed, but everyone complied with the necessary face coverings for this pandemic.

According to the U.S. Transportation Command, flying is pretty safe in this COVID era as the filtration system of the plane removes particles every 6 minutes, so the risk of transmission comes from just the people near to you and if everyone wears masks that risk drops. Wearing masks is a requirement to fly, so until this pandemic is miraculously controlled, it’s best to not buck the system. 

U.S. TRANSPORTATION COMMAND

THE FIRST STOP

Janet’s daughter has made a nice life for herself down here. She’s bought a house and has a job with a highly regarded cowboy bootmaker, Texas Traditions. Their celebrity clientele list is as long as the four year waiting list to get a pair of their boots made, and the starting cost of $3,000.00 is enough to keep me in sneakers.

We’ve been to Austin several times over the years and whenever we visit Lee Miller’s shop its with a bit of reverence knowing that the craftsmanship has been passed down for generations. 

After we picked up our rental car our first stop was to see everyone at the boot shop.

Here’s a great story about the boot making process.

HOW $3,000 COWBOY BOOTS ARE MADE

We’ve already had the tour, so it was just distant hugs and air kisses before we headed off to our hippy cabin in Manchaca.

 

THE PINNACLE AND THE PULPIT

DAY HIKING IN PENNSYLVANIA

Readers of this travel blog know that we are avid day hikers and not just because of this COVID pandemic limiting our choices for recreation. We really DO like to take hikes. 

In June your favorite traveling tandem drove to the Great Smoky Mountains National Park in Tennessee to hike there for a week, returning each day to our cabin aerie just outside of Pigeon Forge. Hikes there ranged from easy to moderately hard. The Great Smoky Mountains National Park is the most visited NP in the United States and at times the trails were crowded. We were never really alone.

FITZWATER STATION

Another place we like to hike is along the Schuykill River Trail just outside of Phoenixville, Pennsylvania. Pleasant and flat this easy trail is sided on one side by the river and the canal on the other. This too is a popular route and can be crowded at times, but often we stop for a well-deserved beer at Fitzwater Station and sit on their deck overlooking both the river and the canal. 

FITZWATER STATION

We also like to hike at Green Lane Park a few miles north from us. There are several, mostly easy, trails here that skirt the reservoir. During the warmer months, paddleboards, rowboats and kayaks can be rented here though there is no swimming allowed in the reservoir. This is a popular place for many hikers and it too can also get crowded.

GREEN LANE PARK

On the Appalachian Trail

These two trails are about 5-10 miles from the house and more of a suburban setting. Recently though we decided to drive about an hour away to Hamburg, Pennsylvania to hike along the Appalachian Trail. Parking is at the small Hamburg Water Treatment plant and we took a moderately difficult 9-mile loop, linking up with the Appalachian Trail in order to reach two popular vistas that give commanding views of the Pennsylvania Lehigh Valley countryside and surrounding ridges, The Pinnacle and The Pulpit.

Using two APS, All-Trails and The Hiking Project, which provide topographical maps of the trail, points out interesting features along the way and offers guidance to the trail-head on Reservoir Road, we reached the trail-head in a little more than an hour from our house. Despite the rural setting, the trail-head is a short distance from Interstate Route 78, and snippets of the highway can be seen from the Pulpit, the first of the outcroppings, offering incredible views along this stretch of the Appalachian Trail.

THE HIKING PROJECT

ALL TRAILS

Be aware that this is a popular day-hike. On weekends parking is at a premium and if interested it is best to go during a week day. We hiked on a Tuesday and we still passed plenty of other hikers.

From the plant the trail ascends steeply to meet up with the Appalachian Trail. We followed the trail north for a few miles and near the Pulpit outlook the trail becomes a rocky boulder field that you have to pick your way carefully along. I'd hate to do that with a full backpack.  

THE APPALACHIAN TRAIL or A.T.

 The Appalachian Trail extends for over 2,000 miles from Maine to Georgia. Although there are many thru-hikers who walk end-to-end, which takes 5-6 months, A.T. can be enjoyed by day hikers like ourselves. It is estimated that some 2 million people hike at least a portion of the trail yearly and according the Appalachian Trail Conservancy it is the longest hiking-only footpath in the world, meaning no bikes or motorized vehicles are allowed on the trail.

As a young man I used to park at an old YMCA camp in New Jersey and hike onto the Appalachian Trail nearby, pitch a tent and spend the night, but the thought of taking half a year out of my life to complete it has always seemed daunting (and not a lot of fun).

New Jersey has about 77 miles of Appalachian Trail when it crosses over from Pennsylvania at the Delaware Water Gap. Over 220 miles of the trail are in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, colloquially known as the Keystone State and it enters Maryland at the tiny border town of Pen Mar.

Passing through a total of fourteen states, the Appalachian Trail is part of the Triple Crown of Long-distant Hiking in the United States, which includes the Continental Divide and the Pacific Crest Trails.

Throughout its length the A.T. is marked by “white blazers”, rectangular splotches of white on trees and rocks. To reach the Appalachian Trail we had to follow similarly shaped “blue blazers” which are found all along the trail denoting side trips to shelters, viewpoints and parking areas. 

PULPIT OUTLOOK

It’s a fairly steep ascent to Pulpit Rock and near the end the trail is just a boulder field and we had to pick our way along from rock-to-rock, but this effort to reach the promontory is worth the effort. We sat for a long while gazing out into the Lehigh Valley, and the fall foliage was beautiful. Here and later at the Pinnacle vultures catching the up drafts soared past us at eye level. With my binoculars I was able to see the distant ribbon of the highway, but just below us and to our right was the Blue Rocks boulder field. We thought it was a stream at first, but it was a field of rocks that was hedged by deep woods, giving the appearance of a body of water from this distance.

PULPIT OUTLOOK WITH
BLUE ROCKS
IN THE DISTANCE

The Blue Rocks boulder field were formed by erosion of the nearby Blue Mountains, which rise in the distance. Extreme cold and thawing broke off parts of the mountain sending them tumbling downhill onto the still frozen ground. Water then washed away the soil preventing any vegetation growth. No trees or grass grows here and the boulder field really looks like a river.

The Pinnacle is another couple of miles along the trail and the promontory is a larger area. Finding a place to sit on the rocks we had lunch and admired the landscape, being careful to flinch every once in a while, so a vulture didn’t think we were a morsel. Dotted around this promontory were campsite fire places left by thru-hikers having spent the night. The approach to the Pinnacle is designated by a cairn of rocks.

THE PULPIT

Here the Appalachian Trail makes a 340 degree turn and the trail becomes an easy trail through the woods until we reached a large grassy field that is used as a helipad. There, we picked up the Furnace Creek Trail, marked by blue blazes, and headed downhill. The trail here is quiet and pleasant follows the creek and passes the reservoir before finally reaching the car.  

 

THE PINNACLE

THE PINNACLE