Georgetown (TX) and Mansfield Dam – March 2012 (Mum & Dad Visit Texas, Part One)

DAY ONE:  Tuesday, 27 March 2012

            I’d picked Mum & Dad up the previous afternoon at the Austin airport.  It worked out pretty well, as I’d gotten to spend some time down at the offices of the Austin Planetarium doing some volunteer work.  It was warm and sunny when my parents arrived, and we’d just spent the remainder of Monday relaxing.

It was a little overcast today, so that meant it wasn’t going to be too hot today.  We decided to do some walking tours of the surrounding areas, so my parents could get a feel for the areas in Williamson County.  We started out by heading up to Georgetown.  Since it was during the normal work week, it should be pretty easy to wander around, as most people tend to be out on the weekends.

Upon arriving in Georgetown, I found a great parking spot right out in front of the Georgetown’s historical museum … which just happened to be closed on Tuesdays.  We made a note of it, and if time allowed, we’d go back on another day.  We headed across the street to the town square, where the court house was.  This was very common in Texas (and perhaps other southern towns, as well).  The center of the town is the square which contained the court house, and the rest of the buildings circle around that.

Mum likes the architecture of the various court houses in Texas, and she liked to take pictures of them, and the statues which generally were found around them.  This obelisk was a monument to Williamson County’s Confederate soldiers and sailors, and erected in 1916.

We circled around the square checking out the various buildings, which of course were mostly shops.  On one corner was the old Masonic Lodge, easily identifiable by its Illuminati-like symbol, which had a for sale sign on it.  I noticed something of interest, and went closer to investigate.  It was a sculpture of a dolphin.  And on closer inspection, I saw it was made of various tools glued together.  I thought that was pretty interesting.

Spaced all along the square were some interesting sculptures, ranging from a large scorpion to a funky cube-like “plus sign.”  I’m not sure if these were temporary items (like a travelling exhibit), creations of students from the local college (Southwestern University), or were placed there for other reasons.  Even though I didn’t see any specific connection to Georgetown, I still thought they were pretty interesting.

Once we’d gotten a snack at a local coffee shop, we finished our stroll around the square.  I looked for artistic shots as we went along.  One opportunity presented itself at the old fire house there was a bell which honored Emzy Taylor, an Arkansas native who moved to Georgetown after the Civil War and helped formed the volunteer fire department.  Walking tours of cities are good because you can find little informational tidbits like this.

The Georgetown Visitor’s Center had told us about how they were gearing up for the Red Poppy Festival, hence all the images of the red flowers all over the place.  I see poppies and I think of either Oz or opium.  Mum commented while she really would like to see the poppies, she wanted to see her bluebonnets.  Mum commented that she’d taken a bunch of bluebonnet seeds back with her to New York, and planted them in window boxes, but they didn’t take very well.  She got some poppy seeds in hopes these would do better.

Georgetown’s fascination with poppies stem from (no pun intended) how these plants have grown naturally in the street and highway edges, and have been cultivated in yards and vacant lots for the past seventy or so years.  Some soldiers returning from World War I brought poppy seeds came back from Europe, and through natural means (birds, etc.) were spread all over the area.  Like other Texas wildflowers, the poppies begin bloom in the Spring, hence while the Red Poppy Festival in the later part of April.

A gentleman at the Visitor’s Center told us about a place just north of Fredericksburg called the Willow City Loop, which was a driving tour in order to see “fields of bluebonnets.”  Mum added that to her list of things she wanted to see on this trip, and I took notes so I’d remember how to even locate this place.

After that, we headed south a short distance so we could take a walking tour of historic Round Rock.  Like Georgetown, Round Rock had a small section of restored buildings with informational signs.  Unlike Georgetown, Round Rock didn’t have the “courthouse square,” because it was more of a stop-over on the Chisholm Trail.  Because this was more a “frontier town,” the buildings were a lot shorter.  Interesting how Round Rock’s population has doubled in the last decade due to Dell Computer, and the city has expanded outwards to encompass other areas, that the “downtown” area didn’t really change.

At one point, from what others have told me, as the Austin city limits expanded, it was just assumed that eventually Round Rock would be absorbed within its boundaries (much the way Houston absorbed the areas around as it expanded).  But with the recent economic explosion in the region, Round Rock is quickly nearing the size of Austin.  Current opinion is that Austin and Round Rock will form a “two-axis metroplex” similar to the Dallas-Fort Worth region.  Smaller nearby towns, like Pflugerville immediately south and Cedar Park to the west, expected to be absorbed by Austin as well, and then later wondered if they’d become part of Round Rock.  Pflugerville and Cedar Park have had their own economic expansions in the last few years and are growing quickly.  My guess is those regions will be able to retain their independent identities, and there will be four large communities crammed together in this Central Texas region.

Unfortunately, Pflugerville is just now considering how to revitalize their “downtown” area, which is even small than Round Rock’s.  I drove my parents through the area and used the standard “don’t blink or you’ll miss it” phrase.  There’s wasn’t any reason to park and wander around because there wasn’t anything historical marked.  That may have changed the next time Mum & Dad come down (as they’ve been coming down annually the past few years).

In order to reinforce how much last summer’s drought had affected the area, I decided to take Mum & Dad back over to Mansfield Dam.  During the Summer of 2011, there was no rain from roughly May until September, and there were about eighty days over 100 degree temperatures.  At one point, there were no less than _five_ separate wildfires burning the in the greater Austin area (Bastrop being the worst of them), and tens-of-thousands of acres went up in smoke.  While the aquifer which provides water to the region is a sixty-percent capacity, no one can see it so most people don’t understand the impact.  Looking at the water levels of Lake Travis (the area behind Mansfield Dam) is a good representation of what’s happening there.

Now compare the above picture to one which was taken on my parents’ first visit here back in March 2003.  When preparing this, I tried to find previously taken shot which was taken from approximately the same angle.  In failing that, I thought there would be a greater impact of seeing what the lake used to look like.

On this visit to Mansfield Dam, we went down into the park area, so we could go right up to the water level … or where the water level should be.  Last March when my parents visited, the water level had just dropped to expose these whitish rocks.  Now, a year later, those whitish rocks have become greenish-brown scrub.  Even looking on the back of the dam, you can see the change of color which showed where the water level should be.

Lake Travis used to have a lot of boating going on, but with the level significantly lower, the local residents have had to adapt.  The inlet which used to be the local marina is completely dry, so they’ve had to store their boats somewhere else.  The more shallow nature of the lake has caused the use of smaller vessels that don’t displace much water.  And those who have actual boat houses needed to put them closer to the water level.

We wandered around the park area for a bit.  Mum was happy to have found a huge field of blue bonnets.  So no matter what this drive over to Willow City Loop turned out to be like, she’d be happy that she got to enjoy her flowers.

Like we did the previous year, we took a quick stop up at Steiner Ranch Steakhouse only to get an elevated view of the area.  Not only did this make an interesting perspective to the shots we’d taken last March, and back in 2003, but it gave a new perspective when we looked in the direction opposite the lake.  Back behind the Steakhouse is the area where one of last summer’s wildfires happened.  Houses were still destroyed in this area, but not to the extent as the other fires.  Most of the destruction followed the contours of the hills, and consisted mostly of burned trees.  Some of the sections were controlled-burned to create bare areas to protect nearby residents.

These were thoughts to keep in mind that no matter where you live, you’re always going to have to deal with some nature aspect that will add challenges to your life.  The central Texas region has droughts, wild fires, tornadoes, floods, and the occasional earthquake.  But find an area in the world that doesn’t have something like that.  Looking at the low water levels of Lake Travis are signs of what is to come, and hopefully this will start to change the minds of those in the area.  This wasn’t meant to be a killjoy for the day, but it gave us some interesting conversation during dinner later.

More information can be found on the places we visited at:

            Georgetown:  http://visit.georgetown.org/

            Poppy Festival:  http://poppy.georgetown.org/

Round Rock:  www.roundrocktexas.gov

Steiner Ranch Steakhouse:  www.steinersteakhouse.com