Tuesday morning Carolyn and I did our half mile walk then sat outside to have breakfast, coffee, and decide what we wanted to do for the day. Carolyn has been in this area before but it was many years ago. I don't live far from the Texas Hill Country so visit fairly frequently. We decided to head to Kerrville and meander on from there.
Carolyn wanted to visit The Coming King Sculpture Garden with the huge cross. It doesn't really matter what your religion is, if any, this is a beautiful and serene place to visit. The sculptures are beautiful and you can wander around looking at what interests you as well as having a magnificent view of Kerrville. Part of Kerrville anyway as it is built in the hills so you can't really see the entire town from any one place. I should also mention that this place is free for anyone to visit. Leave a donation or not, no one will ask.
The cross can be seen from miles away on the top of the hill.
I didn't get a picture of the rock gardens within all those stone. People are welcome and even encouraged to leave their names or messages written on rocks. They even have free rocks if you didn't prepare one in advance. I was amazed at how the rocks and rock gardens have multiplied since I was there a year ago.
There are many paths to wander and the sculptures are beautiful.
Many of you know about the devastating floods that ripped through this whole area and the many deaths just on this river and it was not just this river that flooded. We did not go down the main downtown street which backs up to the river. The rest of the town is very busy with businesses open. The other thing many outsiders don't realize is that there is one road that runs along the river from Kerrville through Ingram and on through Hunt and beyond. After the horrific flood that road was closed to all but rescue personnel. Then it was opened to residents only. It is now open to all but you need to be aware that there are still many rescue workers and cleanup crews working throughout this area. You may have to wait on trucks hauling debris. This work will not be over anytime soon even though there are mammoth efforts in place. We must have seen at least a 100 gigantic trucks with huge enclosed sided beds pulling a second huge trailer with enclosed sides between Ingram and Hunt. Lanes have been set up for them in some places and there are police and fire department personnel on the road ensuring things run smoothly. The little downtown area in the old Ingram loop was hit pretty badly but there are people back there in trailers.
We stopped at Stonehenge II as Carolyn has never been there. It is back a little ways from the river.
You can still get a good look at Stonehenge II right close up and walk around the stones but it does look they might have been using the area for staging some supplies for cleanup.
The Easter Island statures look just the same.
Then we get to the sad part, and there are many sad parts in this area. These buildings are part of the Hill Country Performing Arts complex. The building on the right contains the outside covered stage where live theater performances occur. Going up from there to the upper buildings are theater seating for many people. These buildings were filled with water and heavily damaged from the flooding. The river is down but you can easily see how badly this area was affected. Obviously it is all closed right now.
These trees were all underwater and you can see debris piled on the far side of the river.
Every pile of debris you can see had to be manually pulled apart searching for bodies. As of this date, one little girl and one man have still not been found on this river but they are still searching.
This is further up the road towards Hunt. This is not where these huge bales of hay were located before the flood.
Seeing the devastation was very sad but the Hill Country people and Texas are not defeated. They are hard at work helping each other. Volunteers are at work every single day as well as companies coming in with these huge trucks.
This road was in use even though the heavy equipment was working right next to it trying to clean up the mess. Don't listen to the reports and accusations coming from clear across the country from people who have no clue what this area is really like or how massive and unprecedented this flood was. What needs to be done in the future needs to be determined by the people who live here. The people here are Hill Country Strong and they are supported by the rest of Texas.
