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We always have had an interest in geology and now we are digging deeper into caves, springs, and sinks.  This topic is high on our list because we live in an area where the geology is primarily limestone and with its karsty formation, there are a lot of caves and sinks.  Springs are a bit scarce as water is rather scarce most of the year. Longhorn Cavern is north and west of Kingsland, and is now part of the Texas Parks system.  The cave is rather unique in that it is one of the few caves in the state that is the result of an underground river that hollowed out its channel and formed the cavern.  All of that process of forming happened thousands of years ago.  The cavern can best be described by imagining a river of water flowing toward its junction with another river, but in the last mile of this river, it drops down into a hole in the limestone and flows underground for the remaining mile and then empties into the main river.  There it would flo...

Off on this nice day to visit the old town of Yoakum.  Yoakum is like many towns of this size, they grew to moderate size in the mid 1900s, then plateaued and now are not growing at all.  Yoakum has a central area that consists of old brick buildings that are mostly unoccupied or are occupied with marginal businesses. We attended a church picnic in Yoakum a year ago, but that was the Lutheran Picnic and this one is sponsored by the Catholic church.  We first drove directly to the Church, but this was not the place where the picnic was held---it was at the Community center in the old part of downtown, along the rows of warehouses paralleling the railroad tracks.  This town was once a shipping center for agricultural products, like especially tomatoes.  Now there is little of that produce and so the warehouses sit there rather bleak looking. The dinner was the usual, beef stew, sausage, smashed potatoes, sauerkraut, and bread.  And don't forget the desserts...