COLUMBUS,TX

 We left Bastrop on Friday and went down 71 to Columbus only 53 miles away.

 We had been here 6 years ago,

 There are deer, but not too many. It is nice to look out the window and see them. They aren't too afraid of us but still act wild. A notice ask campers not to feed them.

 We ate here six years ago. Chopped beef sandwich was $1.50 then, today $1.99, still delicious.

 We went to the United Methodist church in Columbus. A very friendly congregation and were invited to join some of them after church at Becky's Cafe.

 They were building this activity center to meet many of the communities needs. It will be a safe place to go for bad weather, will have a full kitchen and food pantry. They are very excited and proud of this project.

 Sunday afternoon was a Community concert at the high school called Behold the Star.  It was made up of a 60 member choir and a small orchestra.

 A children's choir joined them for the first half of the program. They did a great job and sounded beautiful.

 The director Stephen Spanihel has a great voice and sang Angels among Us while they had people in the community that serve as police, EMS, servicemen, clergy, local judge, etc. come down the center aisle with their children. It was very moving.

 The Masonic Lodge in Columbus. Feb 4,1850 dispensation was granted to form the Caledonia Lodge. Past Master Tom Flemming opened the building for us to tour.

 Any birders know what kind of bird this is? It had a bright yellow breast and little larger then a robin. Thanks to those who wrote and told me this was a western meadowlark.

 On Thursday we went to see the painted churches of Texas. These churches were built by German and Czech in 19th century. They look like many country churches built around this time

 but look at the gorgeous painted insides

 Each church had a graveyard close by. We were interested in how the grave plots had concrete boundaries.  Also another interesting thing we saw was the photograph of the person made into the marker.

 The other churches had all been rebuilt once or twice, because of storm and fire damage. This church in Praha is the original building and is under going  a lot of renovation to perserve the structure. The ceiling will not be touched. All of the churches still held services, either weekly or monthly, but this seemed to be the  most active one.

 Our last stop of the day was not on the painted church trail but is a Methodist church founded in 1879.

 Every church is beautiful, and has a great story to tell.

SIDE TRIP

 On November 23 Larry and I drove into Austin to the LBJ library and museum. It was a very interesting museum. I was just 14 when he became president and Larry went to Vietnam under his administration. President Johnson did a lot for Civil rights, Head Start, Medicare and much more.

There are exhibits on the 3rd, 4th and 10th floor. The other floors hold the presidential archives and are only available by appointment.

 The Oval Office as it was during the Johnson administration. It is to seven-eights scale.

 You can see downtown Austin and the capital building from the office where Mrs. Johnson worked.

 We went into Austin and  took this 90 minutes bus tour.

 The Texas Longhorn stadium.

 In the hill country looking at downtown Austin. Up in the hill was the mansion of the owner of Dell computer.

 The capital building. We walked to it after the bus tour but it was too  late to go in and get a tour. We ate a nice meal and then headed back to Bastrop. Being the Friday after Thanksgiving we had no traffic problems.

 Back in Bastrop we walked along the river and looked at all the Christmas decorations  they had just lighted.