Nov. 1: Wurstfest

Ya know, I love Myron Floren as much as the next guy, but after roughly 8 hours, I'd had all the German music I needed in one day (and if you don't know who Myron Floren is, ya all are not the accordion lovers I thought you to be). But I did have a great time and really enjoyed taking the short videos knowing that you all could share this fun music with Larry and me.

We took the River Road from Canyon Lake to New Braunfels. This lake crosses the Guadalupe River 5 times and follows the river most of the way. It was absolutely beautiful. We met the bicycle ride that was part of Wurstfest. About 1000 riders were registered and I think they all showed up. Fortunately, they were coming at us and we weren't behind them trying to get around. I got out on a bridge to take the picture on the right that I thought was showing some fall colors and Larry was saying I should check out the other side. When I turned around I saw lots of fall colors. We seem to be following the back side of the season. Not many trees turning colors yet around here.

We got to the park early (Wurstfest didn't open until 11:00am) so we went on a train ride that circumvents the park. Found out the squirrels have been conditioned to get food from the train. They came a runnin'. Even begged--as I captured in one photo.






The train also went by the Founders Oak. This beautiful tree was huge and fenced in so I'm assuming it's important. I could not find one piece of information on this tree on-line so I'm assuming it's a tree from olden days when the area was "founded". I should write for Wikipedia. These particular oak trees have a very strange growing pattern. They just send out branches where ever, some even along the ground. One home had steel cylinders up under the branches to support them for about 30 to 40 feet before the branch finally shot up into the air again. We've seen these supports under trees before but not for this long of a stretch.

Inside the gates to Wurstfest, the first thing I did, before the lines got long, was buy my beer tickets. You can only buy beer with tickets--$4 for one cup of beer. No place on the inside took credit cards, so about half way thru the day of feeding Larry, we made a trip to the on-site ATM. Photos attached of feeding Larry. Wurstfest is all about the sausage and he did them proud--even ate some sauerkraut. He had 5 sausages on a stick, a sausage & kraut bun and a sausage on a stick with a dinner roll. We shared the fried potatoes. I had potato soup, German Choc. Cake, pig in a blanket and German Choc. Pie. And, of course, one beer. My obligatory alcoholic beverage for the day.












There were 12 groups performing and some of them performed 3 times during the day. From 11:00 to midnight, you could listen to 24 performances. I've captured 3 of them here: The first group is the TubeMeisters. The second band is the Sauerkrauts. And the last guy was Kerry Christensen, Master Yodeler. He was extremely entertaining - even Larry enjoyed him.




There were bands and orchestras. The bands were in the "little tent" and the "big tent" depending on the size of your band. Both tents were always full. The orchestras were in Wursthalle. This is a very tall, long building that housed bars, picnic tables, a large dance floor and the orchestra. There is another 1/3 of the building behind me in this photo. People danced everywhere. At both tents where they could make room and especially in Wursthalle - the dance floor was filled. Let me tell you, there were people there older than me - much older - that I could not have kept up with. Probably why they've managed to achieve their age.

I now know why the Germans can drink so much beer. Not only do they dance A LOT, but it's an aerobic workout just sitting there. They have sing along songs, drinking songs (you have to learn in German) and move-your-body songs. You sway left and right, forward and backward and then stand up, sit down, stand up, sit down. And then you dance some more. One audience participation song was "Pizza Hut, Kentucky Fried Chicken and McDonalds - kinda like YMCA. Enough activity to keep you sober.

The groups did try to branch out and play stuff other than polkas. I heard Ghost Riders in the Sky in German by the master yodeler (that will send tinkles up your spine). And I heard a remake of Alabama's "Ya Gotta Have a Fiddle In The Band". The words to this one went "If you're gonna play in Deutschland, ya gotta have a tube in the band. That bass guitar is hot but not in a German umpah band." It wasn't just all polkas, marches and waltzes. Cow bells were popular too.

The arts and crafts fair wasn't very big but if I needed to get my German outfit (there were many, many people there attending in their traditional German leather shorts, suspenders and hats), I could have done so there. Did buy a small package of choc. pecan toffee. Really, really good. These Texans really know how to make good food with their pecans.