Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire WTF, who doesn't know about "Luckenbach Texas....

Old hunting pard of mine bartended there a while back until they cut both his legs off from the diabeetus. And he ended up dying nohow. He was from Marble Falls

I make it out there about quarterly. I am usually heading to a classic car dealership outside Fredericksburg or to a gun show there. It's about a half hour from me. Always make some conversation when there.

It's still a fun place to stop for a beer and a little picking.

To All,

I've been there exactly once for an antique British car "tour", about 15 years ago & some of our number "had too much fun" & had to sober up before going on with the tour.

I wasn't driving & as such (I was still drinking/single back then.) was able to enjoy numerous glasses of beer & several Texas "mostly undressed" lovelies that day. = FUN day.

yours, tex

People drink beer out of a glass as Luckenbach? I never have seen it tho I suppose they might have something on tap, likewise IME it ain’t/weren’t a place for “undressed lovelies” tho I apparently missed out on the bachanalia of the 70’s.

Couple of sad cosmetic changes: The antique gas pumps out front have been gone for at least 20 years, worse, the wood-burning stove has been removed from the bar. After riding there a few times on cold winter days (motorcycles were my only transport back then) I still regard that stove with a feeling of nostalgic affection.

Have to admit i've never been there.

There were no glasses of beer back in the day at Luekenbach and I well remember that old wood burning stove. Is the tall “airmail “ mailbox still out in front?

The most remarkable thing about the place - at least to me - was the peacefulness of it. I was something of an expert on Texas beer joints back then and fistfights were routine, particularly at closing time. Bikers, Cowboys, Bankers, and Hippies all present at the same time and I never heard a cross word.

We were there last month. We go two or three times a year to eat at Alamo Springs Cafe. If you've never been there it is the best burger you'll ever eat. Then we mosey on over to Luckenbach.

I might have had a burger or two at Alamo Springs Cafe over the years! Watching the bats come out of the tunnel next door is cool.

Ditto, although I drive through F'Burg all the time on the way to the deer lease. I might have to stop & hang out some night.

Last year I did stop one day and have dinner at Hondo's, figuring it would be a fun place. They screwed up my chick fried steak, tough and unevenly seasoned. Not sure how any self-respecting Texas eatery can screw up CFS, but they did.

Actually, there's enough shopping, wineries, museums, distilleries, and such along Hwy 290, that you could probably kill a week in the F'Burg area. I should lasso a single cutie and take her there for a few days.

If you like Cimmaron Guns and similar Old West paraphernalia, Texas Jack Outfitters on Adams Street is run by the folks who own Cimmaron; they guns and Old West clothing & accessories.

There once was a time when the Alamo Springs Cafe wasn't there yet, nor that whole acreage homesite development, there was an actual surviving commune up that dirt road past the railway tunnel. Used to be you would head north out of Luckenbach, hang a left on the old Grapetown Road and then hang a left again at the "T" junction at the Old San Antonio Road. A cool ride, past the Grapetown Shuetzen Verein and with a couple of sudden dips steep enough to catch air on, even two-up.

Then on the left after you passed an old German stone farmhouse or two there was the open gravel area where ya parked to watch the bats come out. You could sit with your legs swinging on the top of the actual cut leading up to the tunnel. First a few scattered bats, then the rustle of hundreds of thousands along with a bat wing-generated breeze like from an electric fan except it positively reeked of ammonia (how nobody got airborne rabies I dunno). They would spiral up out of the cut, you were right at the edge of the swarming bats which looked unreal, like movie special effects, you could reach out and touch one.

Always there were one or two pale (or albino I dunno) bats visible in the horde at any given moment that you could follow in their upward spiral, once clear of the cut the whole bat swarm rose up like a cloud of smoke blowing in the breeze, a long line of bats steadily climbing. Look to the north and you'd see the bat swarm from the other end of the tunnel maybe 100 yards away on private land.

This was up until about 1990, at that time the State took over the tunnel, and then the heavyset, stern-looking short-haired women in Park Service uniforms arrived, making everyone stay away from near the railroad cut and sit on a set of bleachers about 25 yards back and telling everyone to be quiet lest they disturb the bats.

After that I quit stopping at the bat tunnel.

There's only 2 things in life that make it worth livin
is guitars that tune good and firm feelin women

In Death Valley once I was camped at dusk, near the Eureka Sand Dunes, which are the largest sand dunes in North America. A few bugs started flying around my lantern, and before you knew it, there were about 50 little bats chasing the bugs. I just sat there quietly by the lantern, watching the bats flay all around me. I could have easily reached out and grabbed a couple, but figured I'd get bit, and that would be rabies for sure. After 10 minutes, I guess they caught all the bugs, and left. That was before I'd heard of airborne rabies transmission.

When I retired in 2006 we spent our first winter in Fredricksburg & Bandera so we got to spend some time in Luckenbach. Very interesting place & the music was great. Saw the bat cave, the famous hamburger joint was closed for the day so we missed that. Had a lot of great meals in Fredricksburg & the old cemeteries were really interesting. as was Cimmaron Arms.
But Luckenbach was just really a neat place to stop & see, some places you could see through the walls in the back of the old Post Office, bar. Oh, and Texas women, yikes!!

Dick

use to knock bats down out of our palm trees when i was kid and keep them in a bird cage, glad none ever had rabies,

Where's Texas?

Here or there.......

Maybe because it ain't possible.

Rabies is NOT transmitted through the blood, urine, or feces of an infected animal, nor is it spread airborne through the open environment.

http://www.911wildlife.com/animals/common-misconceptions-about-rabies/

As long as you stay out of bat caves....

https://academic.oup.com/jid/article/195/8/1144/816583

Aerosol transmission has been implied in 4 reports of human rabies cases and documented in experimental work with animals. In all instances when aerosol transmission was cited as the route of human infection, more plausible explanations may exist. In the 2 cases involving spelunkers working in Frio Cave there were notations of direct contact between the spelunkers and the bats, although no documented bites were reported..... Constantine documented aerosol transmission of rabies virus to experimental animals in Frio Cave. This Texas cave, which is home to 110 million bats, was the location where 2 humans were believed to have contracted rabies via aerosol. Constantine was able to demonstrate transmission of rabies virus to animals housed in cages that excluded all but cave atmosphere. Rabies virus was isolated from samples collected via air condensation techniques that were used to monitor the atmosphere in this cave.


A well-known concern among spelunkers and cave researchers here in Texas. IIRC the researchers routinely get rabies shots beforehand, I dunno about the spelunkers.

The Four Horsemen of the Gerontocalypse as seen in San Antonio not too long ago........

Three of these guys grew up in Texas, three were oilfield roughnecks, one was a Peace Corps dweeb. One is a teacher, one has a bunch of cows, one is a petroleum engineer and one wrenches on aircraft.

All of 'em were riding motorcycles entirely too fast around College Station TX about 35 years ago, stopped in at Luckenbach a time or three too