July 6-14, 2002: A Summer Trip to Colorado
	June 1-2, 2002: In the Wichita Mountains
	Return to the Index for 2002

Almost every year, our friends Frank Roberts, Joe Wells and Linda Hamilton are invited to the Texas Folk Life Festival that is held on the grounds of the Institute of Texas Cultures in downtown San Antonio. The Institute was originally one of the buildings constructed for the Hemisfair held in San Antonio in 1968. They are, I suppose, to be representative of the Texas Anglo/Cowboy culture, and they do a show of their songs and poetry.

We usually try to get down to San Antonio to see them, and this will be the second or third Folk Life performance that we have been down there to see. Prudence was kind enough to offer us space at Ruckman Haus, and so we'll spend another weekend with them there. (I'll also take this opportunity to do some additional photography for the Ruckman Haus website.)

Getting Down to San Antonio

Since we have limited time this weekend, we decided to fly Southwest from Dallas to San Antonio, cutting off the four-hour drive that we usually make. Fred came down to my house after getting off work a bit early, and we caught the 7 p.m. flight from Love Field to San Antonio, arriving there at eight. Ron picked us up and took us to the B&B. Guy was waiting there for us, and the five of us went out to have dinner together.

At dinner we discussed the plans for Saturday, when we would spend most of the day at Folk Life. Prudence and Ron had also kindly offered Frank, Joe and Linda rooms for the weekend, but the Texas State Park Commission subsidizes their appearances and gives them hotel accommodations downtown. On Sunday, we'll probably be going down to the Riverwalk. Guy, of course, has services on Sunday, but he'll join us afterwards.

At the Texas Folk Life Festival

On Saturday morning, we met Frank, Joe and Linda inside the Folk Life Festival, and we spent some time watching them get set up and find their performance venues at the Festival.

In the aerial view of part of the site of the 1968 Hemisfair, I've indicated the building that is the location of the Institute of Texan Culture. The building houses the offices of the Institute, and also a fairly large museum devoted to the cultural heritage of the state of Texas. We have visited the museum before, and it is always interesting. I have also indicated the general area that was occupied by the Festival, which consisted of performance stages, exhibitions and food vendors. Every culture that has a presence in Texas seems to have been represented- from the obvious (Hispanic, German) to the not-so-obvious (Russian, Italian, Indian and so on). Just as a matter of interest, I also pointed out the Hemisfair Tower; Fred and I have been up in it before, but it has been a long time.

Frank and Joe would be performing three or four times at two different locations during the day, and we were in the audience for all but one of them. The rest of the time, we all wandered around the Festival looking at the exhibits, sampling the food and watching the various performances.

Ron and Prudence had another guest this weekend- one of Ron's sisters and her three children. They are from Illnois, I believe, which is where most of their family still lives. They joined us at Folk Life, along with an Austin acquaintance of Frank and Joe's, a lady named Barbara. Some years ago, the four of us stayed at Barbara's house south of Austin when Frank and Joe had been performing there. Also with us was a friend of Barbara's, whose name I neglected to write down. Here are all these folks at the Folk Life Festival:

We took a few pictures as we walked around the Festival today, and if you will click on the thumbnails below you can have a look at some of them:

As it always is, the Folk Life Festival was really enjoyable, and Frank and Joe's performances were great. (The Festival continues on Sunday with a whole raft of different performances.)

Towards the end of the day, we all left to head off to have dinner on the Riverwalk. I stayed ahead of the group to get some pictures as we walked back to where Ron had left the car. Here are Robin, her mother and Joe, and way behind us you can see Frank walking along.

When we got to the end of the drive, I had Ron take a picture of Fred, Frank, Joe and I, and that's the picture you can see at left. I also got a shot of Fred and Prudence in front of a fountain with the Hemisfair tower as a backdrop, and you can see that picture here.

We all went back to Ruckman Haus to visit for a while before heading off for dinner.

On the RiverWalk

After Frank and Joe had a chance to change clothes, we headed downtown to meet them at their hotel and go down to the RiverWalk for dinner.

We got down to the RiverWalk while it was still light, and enjoyed walking along it with the group. I took the picture of Fred that you can see at left, and another of the activity along the RiverWalk.

We went to one of the Mexican places right on the lower level of the RiverWalk and had a great dinner.

At Ruckman Haus

On Sunday, we had breakfast at Ruckman Haus with Ron, his sister, their kids and Prudence. After he was done with his church services, Guy came over and we spent the early part of the afternoon just relaxing. Fred got the picture of Guy and I that you see at left, having a conversation on the West Deck of the house.

One of the purposes for coming down was to get some additional pictures of the house itself and some of its accents (take a look at the front door here) for use on the evolving web site, and we used Fred's camera for that. I won't include all the pictures we took here; many of them were repetitive as we were looking for the best angles for the house shots. You can click on the thumbnails below to see some of the pictures we took today:

We had a nice dinner with Ron, Prudence and everyone, and Ron dropped us back at the airport for our 8 p.m. flight home. Our thanks to Ron and Prudence for another very enjoyable visit.

You can use the links below to continue to another photo album page.

	July 6-14, 2002: A Summer Trip to Colorado
	June 1-2, 2002: In the Wichita Mountains
	Return to the Index for 2002