A Texas by-way

After our 2-day, 15 mile paddle down the Colorado River, since we had very little to eat during that time [this is definitely a joke—see my previous post], we were famished and sought out a recommended Mexican restaurant in beautiful downtown Bastrop, Texas.

It was Ramos' original location, on Chestnut Street, and the food there was really good. Or, at least it tasted really good after two days of hard paddling, but I think it would have been yummy in normal circumstances, too.

I really need to get into the habit of snapping photos interesting food, but unfortunately my stuffed avocado was half gone before I thought about doing this. (The first Urban Spoon review on the link above, at least when I saw the website, praised this dish as well.)

A bonus treat in addition to the great food was the restaurant's location. I have driven through the Bastrop area before, and admired its lovely pine woods, but I don't think I'd ever been to its charming downtown.

Here's a somewhat panoramic view:

And then a closer-up look at one of the more attractive old buildings:


Henry and I walked off some of our extra Tex-Mex calories taking in the 4 or 5 or so square blocks of downtown Bastrop. We noted that it was originally built on the old Camino Real (see plaque on the right) but were unaware of any more of its interesting history. Which I read about later in the incomparable resource, the Handbook of Texas, which is now online and searchable. If you're interested in Texas history at all, take a look at the link to the Handbook's article on the town and you'll see what I mean.

Being somewhat connoisseurs of courthouse buildings [and who wouldn't be, when there are so many of them in your home state, most of which are eminently photogenic] we were happy to find the Bastrop County seat just a block from the restaurant.

It has this terrific (though non-functional) clock tower atop the structure. [I wonder if lightning struck the clock at 5:40 sometime in the past; I couldn't help thinking of Back to the Future when I saw that the clock wasn't right.]

And here is a view of more of the building. Not quite in the same league as the handsome tower, but attractive nonetheless. The obelisk in the foreground is a confederate soldier memorial. It probably surprises yankee visitors to find so many of these memorials in a state not well-known for Civil War battlefields.


Although it's not quite as old a building as the courthouse, the jail next door is also an interesting structure:


An altogether pleasant post-paddle outing: great food, good company, some Texas history, and a late afternoon stroll on a beautiful fall day. It doesn't get much better than that.