s/v Rachel: 2019/01

13 January, 2019

Gruene Hall

Location: New Braunfels, Texas

New Braunfels is located between Austin and San Antonio, two real hotbeds of live music. There are excellent musicians everywhere down here. If you've ever watched Austin City Limits on PBS, you'll know what we mean.

Gruene Hall (pronounced "green hall") is Texas' oldest dance hall, built in 1878, and is a legendary venue for live music. Someone is playing there every night, and every weekend afternoon. Which is good for us since we don't like driving at night. And the best part is that the weekend afternoon and some weeknight shows are free with the musicians passing a "hat" for donations. Many famous musicians have played here before becoming famous, and many still make the occasional pilgrimage here to return to their roots. Think Willie Nelson, Lyle Lovett, and Lee Ann Rimes, to name a few. We've been in the area for just over a week and have managed to get to Greune Hall 3 times for some really great music.

The Hall itself is a funky old single story wooden structure with character just oozing out of the walls. There's an old Ford ad on the wall and the phone number is "67". That's it – just two digits!

Our first visit was on Saturday the 5^th to see The Eastside Kings who play really authentic Chicago / Memphis style blues. You can some of their music here: http://dwmmusic.com/eastside-kings-self-titled/. The whole band was really, really good. We couldn't believe these guys were here playing for free on a Saturday afternoon!

The national beer of Texas

Live at Gruene Hall mainstage- The Rachels

On Sunday the 6^th we came back with some ex-cruising buddies for The Petersen Brothers. Advertised as a blues band, they instead played sort of funk / fusion / space music and didn't stop between numbers. While they are excellent musicians with really impressive "chops", they weren't really what all of us were looking for at the time.

On Sunday the 13^th, we took in our last show with a different set of ex-cruising buddies. The Toy Hearts (from Birmingham, England, of all places!) played excellent country and bluegrass. Two sisters, one switching between guitar and mandolin, and the other doing some really hot flat pickin' on her acoustic electric guitar. They both had great voices and sang wonderful harmonies. They were accompanied by a string bass and drums, and their father on the steel guitar. Heaven! We really enjoyed ourselves and stayed for the entire show – for more info, go to https://thetoyhearts.com/). Turns out we had an in with the band, Julie being from Sheffield, and got to chat with Hannah and her dad, Stewart. We also got to meet and chat with Miss August 2019 of the "Bandera Cowgirl Calendar" between songs (remember the Frontier Times Museum in Bandera?). Elena and her partner sat next to us and are great dancers - we really enjoyed watching them. Perhaps Texas two-step lessons are in our future....

11 January, 2019

The Frontier Times Museum

Location: Bandera, Texas

We're driving through a small town named Bandera, described in our National Geographic Scenic Drives book as having "a real cowboy flavor with a frontier-style Main Street – and one of the oldest Polish communities in the country." It then goes on to mention the Frontier Times Museum. Since we really like visiting small, local museums, we decide to spring for the $4 each (senior) entry fee and go inside.

What an incredible array of displays are stuffed into 4 rooms! We wander around stunned at the choices and variety.