I like the sides better than the burgers.
I agree with you. I stopped by there yesterday and was kind of disappointed. I think the Diablo burger at Pecan Grove is better.
The ride through Crabapple and Alamo Springs was nice though - Thanks for the motivation FXDS1340.
The weather was so nice again today I could not help but get back out on two wheels. This time I headed east of Austin where my motorcycle shenanigans first began. My childhood friend "Ken" lived a half mile down the road from New Sweden church. I would ride my XL75 from Elgin to his place. He had an XL100 and we spent many days riding between the boundaries of 290, 79, 95 and I35.
A few miles closer to Elgin is the granary and cotton gin near where I grew up. As a 12-15 year old, I drove many bobtail trucks full of wheat, maze (sorghum) and corn to here. Still in operation today, it looks the same as it did in 1980.
A couple of miles and forty two years later, the hillside in the background still has the sharp terraces I enjoyed jumping one after another as a kid. Jumping downhill could get quite lofty and many times things went wrong. But, I never let that stop me from doing it again. The white water tower in the distance is Lund, Texas.
Riding further eastward into the post oaks where my Grandmother grew up - Beaukiss, Texas. The Masonic lodge is the only building left standing from those days.
Riding southeast from Beaukiss, I was not sure what to think of this tunnel until I realized I was close to the strip mines east of Elgin.
Rather than keep heading towards Lexington, I turned southeast towards more family history and good memories. Parked on the side of my great Grandfather's store in McDade, Texas.
The old store where my great Uncle would take the empty coke bottles to get new ones. I think cokes tasted much better back then. Don't you think?
As a young boy, I remember my great Uncle bringing me here to Dungan grocery. At this age, it is a strange experience peering inside - back in time. What I would do to go back there.
Anyone that grew up in central Texas in the 60s and 70s will recognize this.
So, had it not been for the McDade Historical Museum, I would have known the town had such a violent past.
Taken from their website:
The first business in McDade was a tent saloon, where a tin cup of whiskey sold for 10 cents. With the coming of the railroad McDade became a shipping center for cotton and freight going to and from Austin, Bastrop, and Smithville. By the time the town was incorporated in 1873 it had a post office, a cotton gin, and a twelve-member Baptist congregation. The next year the first school was established. In 1879 McDade was called a "thriving depot town" of 150 people, but following the Civil War lawlessness and violence in the area had become a serious concern. The area was a stronghold for a group of outlaws known as the "Notch Cutters," and county law enforcement was far away and ineffective. By 1875 local citizens took the law into their own hands and hung two suspected outlaws, provoking retaliation with the murder of two vigilantes, which led to the hanging of a third outlaw. Early in 1876 two men were caught with a skinned cow, and the skin showed the Olive brand. Both men were shot on the spot. Five months later 15 men, believed to have been led by the son of one of the men shot, attacked the Olive ranch headquarters, killing two men of the ranch and burning the ranch house. On June 26, 1877, vigilantes stopped a dance, took four men out and lynched them. For five years after there was little crime or trouble. However, in November 1883 two men were murdered in Fedor, and in a separate incident another man was beaten, robbed and left for dead. Shortly afterward the deputy sheriff investigating these crimes was shot to death in McDade. A vigilante committee hung four of the suspected perpetrators. But the violence continued with the McDade Christmas hangings on Christmas Eve 1883, when three more suspected outlaws were executed. This event led to a gunfight in front of a McDade saloon on Christmas Day that left three more men dead. This ended the vigilante "justice," but violence and gunfights continued until 1912.