2026-7-18 Blanco Buggy Museum

The other day a Facebook group about a film location showed up in my feed. It wasn't that far away and my granddaughter is a film major at UTAustin so I thought it might make a nice little trip. 

Blanco is about an hour away. We are going to the Buggy Barn Museum but we are most interested in the fact that it is a film location. Unfortunately, no one was filming while we were there.

There is a whole fictional town called Pine-Moore. As you can see, it is an old western town so this is the kind of film that would be made here.

The Buggy Barn part of the place is located inside of several of the buildings but we wanted to see how the actual town was set up. The hotel is the first thing you can see.

On the right, you can see outbuildings like a tool storage area and blacksmith.

You can see all the typical blacksmith tools out front with the blacksmith hard at work in the background. He actually makes things for sale right there.

This horse replica is all decked out in a very fancy outfit.

This is the hotel on the left. The front definitely looks like a typical western hotel but it is actually a very large building that stores a huge buggy museum but more on that later.

Next up is the barber shop with the inside set up just as you would expect it to be.

On the right is the Texas Rangers headquarters.

As you turn left, you can see the rest of a whole western town laid out with all the typical businesses you would expect. It is very easy to picture filming a western movie here.

Here is the general store.

The town saloon.

The inside of the saloon is already to serve customers or at least fictional town customers.

Just what you would expect to see in front of a general store.

Lots of goods inside too.

Another less fancy hotel.

At the end of the street stands the church.

It is all ready for services to begin.

The last view of the fictional town before we head back to check out the Buggy Museum.

If you were headed west to a town like this, you would probably be traveling in one of these wagons.

I've never seen a curved wagon like this before.

This was more of a buggy.

Next up are some buggies from a TV series. I think some of the series was filmed here but I can't remember seeing it.

These buggies were very unique.

Now this is something we are more familiar with....a stage coach.

A medicine wagon.

Some more unique buggies

There were a lof tf very unique funeral type wagons on display......some extremely elaborate.

This place was packed with memorabilia. The owner has actually been in a number of movies himself and he has purchased and brought in different types of buggies from all over the world. 

We had a very talkative guide that attached himself to us inside the museum. I think he was a little lonely as it wasn't very busy that day. I was only able to take pictures of a relatively small number of the buggies on display. This would make an interesting stop for anyone interested in the old west.
 

2026-7-12 A Breakfast Surprise!

 We had planned on morning coffee as usual but several of our members said that they were going to fix breakfast for all of us.  That is not something we turn down!

I wasn't fast enough with the pictures for this one. Nancy, Beverly, and Whit had these platters piled high with pancakes, scramble eggs, bacon, and sausages along with orange juice and fruit. It was a sumptious and delicious feast made all the better because it was unexpected and volunteered from the heart. Thanks so much ladies.

As I said, I wasn't fast enough at taking the pictures but everyone really enjoyed this spontaneous meal.

I think everyone had a great time at the La Grange rally and enjoyed their time at LGRV Park. I expect that it will be on many members lists for future stops.

2026-7-11 Pizza and Games

 When it's really hot outside and women cringe at cooking for potluck, pizza is always an acceptable substitute in our chapter. And when your hostesses score half price pizza coupons, life is especially good. 

We had about 5 different pizza choices but the Meatza pizza was the group favorite. Good thing there were two of them along with cheese, pepperoni, and supreme. Something for everyone.

For this rally, everyone only had to bring food for one of the events. That way, you don't end of with 20 desserts and 20 side dishes that don't get eaten. I set up the different times we needed food and let everyone choose when they wanted to bring either a side or dessert so we had plenty of food but not a bunch of waste.

                 
We had some great salads and sides to go with the pizza along with a couple desserts.

Everyone loves pizza.

Next up was a game that hostess Kathy Shelton worked on putting together. During the early days of the rally, she asked each person to write down something that no one else knew about them.

The results were astounding and great conversation starters. Kathy had to leave early so Barb and I handed a piece of paper to each person and told them to number them from 1 - 22. Kathy had given each person's submittal a number. I read the fact and everyone had to guess who it belonged to and write it on their paper. Once we went through each of the submittals and everyone had their guesses written down, I read the unknown fact again and asked the person who wrote to stand up. We had some really interesting surprises in our group. I won't give away everyone's surprising item but let's just say we had everything from Master Naturalist to Price is Right participant to Ventriloquist along with a lot of others even more unique.

Fran got the most right with a whopping 9.....I told you there some definite surprises that made for great discussion. Here she is with her three prizes including a boob cooler which is why she is giggling.

Judy had the second highest number of guesses and she is making unique use of a chair wine glass holder. We have a unique and hilarious group of women!

This is the second group picture we took which is missing Kathy and Diana. the first picture taken Friday was missing a third of the group which is why we had to do a retake.