My visit to the Dabbs Hotel in Llano, Texas.  August 21-22 1992

Copyright 1992 by Matisse Enzer
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	The Dabbs Hotel sits at the crossroads of history.  It is a way
station on an ancient pathway extending far into the future.

	Gary is the current and perhaps most adventurous proprietor of the
hotel.  Gary has a big smile and a friendly manner: "Y'all just relax here
and don't feel like you're on the clock or nuthin" he says, reminding us
that check-out time at the Dabbs comes when you feel like it.

	Located some 80 miles northwest of Austin in the Texas hill
country, the Dabbs hotel is an original Railroad Hotel.  In the 1880's it
was the End Of The Line.  If you wanted to go westward into Indian
territory you took the train to Llano and changed there for the Stagecoach
for rest of the journey.

	The Dabbs is an old two story wooden hotel, with about 15 tiny
rooms, bathroom down the hall, lovely gardens and the big Llano river out
back, and front porch for sitting in the not-quite-as-hot-as-daytime Texas
evening.

	Breakfast is served country style every morning after the ringing
of a makeshift bell - a pan and spoon, or something louder. At breakfast
you help yourself to piles of homemade biscuits, taters and gravy.  Jam and
sliced garden tomatoes and a big pot of cowboy coffee (*really good*
coffee) round things out.

	Now, the most important thing about the Dabbs is that it continues
to be a frontier hotel.  The Dabbs is located on one the many frontiers of
the human spirit.  Nowadays frontiers are located is 'psychographic spaces'
rather than at the edge of a two-dimensional region on a map.

	At the Dabbs the ancient efforts of people to be *social* are
honored and continued.  A visit to the Dabbs is also a visit with the other
people staying there - you are as likely to spend time with the other
guests as in the river.  Gary has the perfect personality to offer kindness
and friendly good nature to all who pass by.

	When we arrived at the Dabbs it was past midnight.  Artemis drove us
down the dusty dirt road that leads to the front door.  There are no signs
on the "main" road Texas 71 saying "Dabbs Hotel" or "Hotel this way -->" -
you must know that the directions "First right after the bridge" mean
literally the first right, which is a dirt alley-way and is not the first
stop light or paved right turn.  Anyway, like I said, we arrived after
midnight and we couldn't find anyone awake... so looking on the front desk
in the tiny lobby we found a large artists sketch book open to a page full
of drawings in ball-point pen... closer inspection revealed that this was
the vistors' or guest book which had been filled with numerous free-sty;e
entries, often with graphics, sometimes commenting upon one another.  It
was like 100 pages of a bathroom wall in a community where graffiti is an
art-form.  Most of the messages were addressed to "Gary" as if he were some
friendly cousin for whom dozens of people had wanted to leave short notes.
Artemis who had been here before, took a full page and wrote "Gary, arrived
late and so we helped ourselves to a room - we'll see you in the morning,
-Artemis"

	So, we went upstairs and poked around - found about 3 or 4 rooms
with the door open and choose the one at the back with a view of the river.
We brought in a blanket from another room and set of Sophie and her
litterbox.  Oh yes, Sophie - did I mention that we had brought Sophie Kitty
on vacation with us?  The Dabbs is that kind of place.  She went right out
the window onto the the back porch roof and from there she found here way
back in somehow, because the next time I saw her she was in the hallway.
Sophie had a good time at the Dabbs too, I think.

	Later that morning (much later) after we awoke and had large
country breakfasts we went for a walk into the town of Llano.  In the
1890's LLano was known as a town without a church, which wile probably not
strictly accurate was a code-phrase at that time for a Party Town.  Llano
had several hotels, including the luxurious Don Carlos which had a grand
ballroom and and tenniss courts.  Clyde Barrow stayed at the Dabbs in the
1930's.  Brothels were an important part of the local scene.  The wealthy
and elite would hitch their private rail-cars to trains from New York or
San Francisco, or come by boat from Europe to Galveston and board the
Austin & Nothwestern line for Llano - the edge of the Texas Frontier.  The
Dabbs was a frontier gateway site on the Internet of its day. From 1907
until 1979 the crew of the Austin train would sleep overnight at the Dabbs
and the turn the train around and take it back to Austin.

	The town of Llano now has simmered down some, and it seemed to me
that the sale and repair of used boots was the most common storefront
business.  The loading docks and doorways of many buildings looked unused,
and the overall air was of a town center for the surrounding ranch spreads.
Llano is also home to the best barbeque in Texas, and therefore the world.
But more about that later. We checked out one of the places selling used
boots where Nicholas, another Dabbs guest had purchased a fine pair of
pre-owneds' for only $5 that morning.  Nothing in the store was Artemis's
size though and she sure looked funny with her size 6 feet in size 10 boots
:-)

	We found the local drugstore and Artemis went to buy the tampons she
needed... but they only had one size: Super... why?  because the lady that
does the orderin' well, that's the size she uses and she don't see why she
should order another... we walked on and found a small department store
with the necessary selection of absorbant inserts.

	The short walk into town and back took us over a bridge which spans
the Llano river just 200 yards down from a dam that holds the local water
supply.  I believe the dam is privately owned.  The bridge is 160 feet off
the riverbed, and we could see the remains of the the previous bridge,
swept away several years ago when the river rose to 150 feet.

	Back at the Dabbs we made sure Sophie Kitty wasn't fighting with
the local river cat, and then we went swimming in the Llano.  The river
runs right behind the hotel, as close behind as the train tracks are in
front - less than 100 yards, and this with the river at its summer low
point.  In winter you could spit out the back porch and hit water.  Between
the river and the hotel is a lovely lawn and garden with tropical plants
and gold fish pond.

	Saturday evenings at the Dabbs are cook-out night and at sunset
there is a meal of slow-smoked mesquite carrots, squash, cabbage, potatoes,
onions, chicken and salads with fresh buttermilk dressin.  But this was
friday night and our last, so we we went out to sample what is generally
agreed to be the best best barbeque in Texas, and therefore the world.

	Now as gary explains it, Barbeque is a style of cooking that
combines Creole with Spanish methods and the word itself is from froma
Spanish word (XXXX)  Real barbeque is cooked slowly, all day over smokey
coals.

	We went down the road a piece to Coopers where we were met at the
door by a friendly man who took us back outside where the orders are
placed.  Under a big open roofed area there were some half dozen giant
barbeque pits, with heavy steel counter-weighted lids and under the lid you
see the various meats available for choosing - brisket, pork chops, 2 kinds
of sausage and goat.  You tell the guy what you want - a slice of this, 2
of those etc and he plops them down onto a plastic cafeteria tray and takes
it inside for wheighing.  It's all sold by the pound.  The the meat is
wrapped in white butchers paper and you take it on a tray into the next
room.  The dining area is a concrete-block cafeteria room with plywood
tables and bags of wonder-bread and a tank of absolutely the best barbeque
sauce in the world.  Also there are 2 big coolers with Ice-tea: sweetend
and unsweetend.

	You unwrap the meat and spread the paper on the table between you
(no plates) and eat.  It's great.

	Next to the barbeque pits outside is a huge pile of mesquite logs -
bigger than 2 or 3 greyhound buses.  At least 3 cats were living in that
woodpile.

	Next stop was the Dairy Queen - sort of a mistake in that we were
simply to full to finsh the ultra-sweet Blizzards we bought, and none of
the guests  sitting on the Dabbs' front porch would take any either, except
fro nancy who closed her eyes and had one chocolate bite.  As it turns out
there were 2 other couples staying at the Dabbs that night and we were all,
along with gary, settled in on the front porch for an evening of gossip,
story-telling, politics, social commentary and humor.

	There were 7 of us on the porch - 8 for a while when Sophie Kitty
joined us.

Everyone on the porch except myself was from Texas or Arkansas, although
one couple had been living in Boston for a couple of years.

	We were very cozy there on the porch, sitting in a couple of plump
couches and chairs.  It was dark by now and we had entered into an
open-minded and slightly giddy realm that often comes to people who are
good friends and not at work.  We each told stories of where we'd been or
what we're doing - bring back the reports from the different frontiers we'd
each traveled.  Gary told us stories - honed no doubt by many repititions -
of the history of Llano and the Dabbs.

	Gary told of his early marketing efforts for the Dabbs, when he
drive into Austin 80 miles away, on weekends and put up flyers on the the
main hippie strip.  Gary was just discovering the art of PhotoCopy and he
began making creative uses of that technology.  Gary's flyers were modeled
after the Burma Shave billboards that still (barely) survived in the Texas
countryside when gary was a child in the 50's - each sign would have some
light, witty saying or joke as it's headline - something to add laughter to
your day as you glanced upon it.  The most famous of the early Dabbs signs
were the "29 reasons to stay at the Dabbs" and the "3 things most often
overheard at the Dabbs"

	During the evenings discussions I discovered that 2 of the other
folks there not only were involved with computers but had actually heard
about the WELL - in fact Nicholas was obviously impressed that someone from
the WELL actually existed and was here in Llano :-)  I was too :-)

	The next morning we got up and had another Big Country Breakfast
and then went for a swim.  Artemis and I then went looking for Sophie Kitty
and found her holed up way back in the crawlspace under the hotel, hiding
from the local river cat...  so, I crawled on my stomach, combat style,
slowly, all the way to where she was, got ahold of her and crawled back out
where I handed her to, nice furry mound of meat that she was to Artemis.  At
that point the local doggy showed up, eager to help and Sophie Kitty
freaked out and escaped... so back I went... even further back under the
hotel amdist all the dirt and debris and got ahold of her again... this
time she went straight into the box when Artemis got her, and I went back in
the river to try and clean off some of that dusty dirt.

	The most amazing thing about the Dabbs is its ability to be host
once again to a fontier spirit, long after the physical frontiers have
passed it by.  Frontiers are now defined by what we think and how we act,
and at the Dabbs something of that quest for the ancient and unknown has a
place for the night.


	Dabbs Hotel
	Llano Texas
	112 E. Burnet Street
	Llano, Texas  78643

	Romantic overnight for 2 is $30.00 with breakfast
	Reservations:  915.247.7905

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