I still remember the first earthquake I felt. I’d been living in Black Mountain, North Carolina (a few miles east of Asheville) for a little less than a year. It was almost midnight, and I was up working. The earthquake in question was centered around Hot Springs, about fifty miles northwest of me. Up until …
I had grand plans on Saturday… to get my hair cut in Georgetown, photograph most of the Lee County Lutheran churches with their Christmas decorations and the like, swing by the Texas Wendish Heritage Museum and pick up some Christmas gifts, have lunch at City Meat Market, Giddings, Texas, head down to Fayetteville to see a art display …
I can’t believe we’re just ten days away from Christmas! It doesn’t seem like it was all that long ago that we were driving back to Hutto from spending Christmas with Margie’s family in Alabama, followed by a fun little road trip on our way back that took us through my old home in Chattanooga, …
Today we dropped by the Texas Wendish Heritage Museum in Serbin to pick up some things for Christmas gifts. Yep, you guessed it. I took a few pictures in St. Paul’s Lutheran Church too. Just a few. Only one hundred and sixteen between our stops there and in Warda and Fedor. After all, we had …
Well, I’ve hit the mother lode of information about the opening of the Hotel Blazilmar in Taylor (now that I’ve got the spelling correct)! There’s quite a bit of coverage of progress on the building in the Taylor Daily Press (yet another Taylor business venture that Howard Bland was involved in– he and three other …
So it turns out you can find a lot more information about the Blazilmar when you search Google with that spelling (instead of the incorrect “Blazimar” I had in yesterday’s post)! Many thanks to Gary Shelton for correcting that, as well as posting some nice historical photos yesterday! My guess is the “Blazimar” spelling comes …
Back before Thanksgiving (which somehow already seems an eternity ago) we discussed how Howard Bland was responsible for the construction of the original Howard theater (which was located across the street from the current Howard). But that’s not the only place his name shows up in Taylor! You just might not recognize it… The Hotel …
Despite the “open” sign, the Taylor Cafe wasn’t open yesterday morning. (Due to the recent death of pitmaster Vencil Mares, who first opened back in 1948: https://www.taylorprovidencefuneralhome.com/ob…/vencil-mares) We stopped by so I could take some photos yesterday on the way to Austin from Thorndale. If you’d like to see one of my other “right-place-at-the-right-time” photos from …
(Nope, this photo ain’t from Texas, but bear with me a bit…) Yesterday I checked “drive through Atlanta on I-85 during rush hour” off my bucket list. Granted, it was down toward the bottom of the list, right around “get stung by a dozen marauding cow killers”, “burn a scented candle that smells like a …
For seventy-one years Vencil Mares arrived early in the morning at the Taylor Cafe (the red building on the left) where he greeted his customers and watched the trains roll by. Today, his spot was empty. This morning, he passed away at the age of ninety-six. This Texas Monthly interview from February 2014 is fantastic:https://www.texasmonthly.com/bbq/pitmaster-interview-vencil-mares-of-taylor-cafe/