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.
Look – a rhododendron root!
Here's a two-headed goat!
Ooh – stuffed mountain lions and bobcats!
Can you believe it? Rattlesnake fangs!
OMG - a pile of nails that were melted together in the great Chicago fire of 1871!
Who would have known there were so many varieties of barbed wire!
Look - Judge Roy Bean's gavel – oops, mallet!
There are rodeo championship saddles (apparently a large number of very successful rodeo competitors have come from Bandera) ,
a teacher nicknamed "Old Bristletop" by his students,
a collection of 400 bells from all over the world,
ancient baskets from "the basket makers" who lived in the area from 1400-4000 years ago, a Venetian birthing chair,
a mummified squirrel,
even the Mona Lisa!
Other favorites are a Rockin' Disco Mr. Bullfrog record album,
(BTW - all the girls love a cowboy!!)
a stuffed armadillo complete with chin hair,
an early curling iron,
some very sad stuffed birds,
an artistic marriage license,
and a young artist's take on the Massacre at Bandera Pass.
What a find!!
