Exploring Buda, Texas-Just 45 Minutes North of San Antonio

by Celia Hayes

We didn't spend all of last weekend watching the wienerdogs run; the Buda City park where that event took place was pleasingly located right next to old down-town Buda, so when we had enough of wandering around between pavilions, we walked along the three or four blocks that constitute Buda ... and looked around. It's one of those sweet, small towns which retain enough of their original late 19th century buildings to be quite charming, even if those buildings mostly run along one side of the street ... because the railway runs alongside the other. Buda's town founding fathers set aside a 150-foot wide reserve of land between Main Street and the International and Great…

Christmas Eve With Tapas

by Celia Hayes

Our family was long in the habit of having pizza on Christmas Eve; it’s easy to organize for a crazy, mixed-up and chaotic evening, with about three generations present. Either take-out or deliverer - even a selection of frozen or ready-made grocery store pizza would do. There’s a variety to suit every taste, everyone can have as much or as little as they like, eat it off paper plates, and clean-up is a snap.

This year, we varied the program, mostly because my mother sent us a massive gift basket from La Tienda, which specializes in the classic foods of Spain, where my daughter and I lived for six years. We fell upon it with cries of happy delight,  reminded of certain foods that we loved. There was a…

Gone with the Wurst! 2011

Wurstfest in New Braunfels, Texas! Now thru November 13, 2011 

by Celia Hayes

Well, another first weekend after Halloween and where would we be, but up in New Braunfels, in Landa Park, enjoying ourselves amid oceans of beer and continents of sausages  . . .  and kettle-fried potato chips, meatballs-onna-stick, roast corn and sundry other fair food delights. Every year in November, New Braunfels exuberantly celebrates everything to do with sausage, beer, music, their German heritage, and funny hats, not necessarily in that order. Really, we have the impression that every public-spirited citizen and the members of practically every social club, community support organization and scholastic extra-mural…

Cross-Cultural Curiosities

So, whoever would have thought that there was historically such a strong German influence in South Texas, being that in the popular imagination, Germans, Southern good-ol-boy types and Hispanics could not be less alike? The mind boggles, upon first consideration, and then it starts to make sense. While Texas has never exactly been a cultural melting pot . . . but the three different ethnic groups have certainly melted a little around the edges and certain aspects of each have flowed into the other – in some cases, almost imperceptibly.

This has a long history in Texas, beginning when the German entrepreneur combine, the Mainzer Adelsverein, begin transporting German farmers, craftsmen, technical…

Road Trip: Sun City Book Fair

by Julia Hayden

On the road again, last week for a book festival at Sun City, Texas* . . .  which is out on the sun-baked flats of grassland lightly sprinkled with woods, away on the edge of Georgetown, about half an hour's drive north of Austin. We have heard dire things of Austin's rush hour, so in order to get there in time, Blondie and I arose at the crack of dawn  . . .  actually 4:00 AM, plotting to have at least a couple of cups of caffeinated beverage in us and be ready to roll at 5:00 and thus be well-through whatever hellish traffic jams that Austin offered in the morning rush hour. With our luck, we could have given it another hour, for we arrived just before 7:30, to set-up my table in ten minutes flat,…

Peace Like a River

by Julia Hayden

We went to Wimberly last weekend, first for the Market Days, and then to try and find the place where I had taken some particularly beautiful pictures along the Blanco River some years ago. I am getting ready to publish a all-in-one hardback version of the Adelsverein Trilogy, and I thought that a nice rural view of the hills, river, trees and wildflowers would be just the ticket for the cover. Alas, no luck with the wildflowers this year, and we couldn’t find the road that we had gone driving down, which paralleled the river and offered a wonderful vista around every bend  . . .  never mind – we still got some lovely pictures, I got some plants to begin reviving my poor dog-and-frost destroyed garden again,…

More Like Mr. Darcy and Less Like Shane

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I think very fondly of re-enactors when I am working up a book, especially when I am working on a bit of historical fiction about Texas. Next to the public library, and the second-hand bookstores like Half-Price Books, there is no better way to figure out how something works, looks, smells, handles and feels than . . . well, checking out the fantastically dedicated re-enactor community. I first realized this, when I was working up the first book of the Adelsverein Trilogy – and had to become very familiar with the workings of the 1836 Colt Paterson revolver. Behold, I was put in touch with a local collector and re-enactor who happened to…

The Road Goes Ever On and On

So it does in Texas, under a sky that also seems to go on ever and ever, infinitely blue, with clouds floating in it like puffs of cotton. The horizon is not masked by atmospheric pollution, or haze, or dust - it's as clear and as sharp as if there were a line drawn by a compass, or a pencil on the end of a string.

One of my characters in the Adelsverein Trilogy described this part of Texas: "...They call it the Llano Estacada. In Spanish it means ‘the Staked Plain' . . . an empty plain covered with short grass, mostly. It is not quite flat, but it looks as if it would go on to the ends of the world. There is also a sort of bush growing there, with leaves like the points…