Central Texas – Cranfills Gap & Hico

If you missed our last post about our last minute trip to Waco and the Magnolia Market scratch-and-dent sale, be sure to check out the post!

While we had a ton of fun in Waco, we had to laugh because we literally visited the Magnolia Sale, a few antique stores, a drive out to the Branch Davidian complex and a drive to the Waco Mammoth National Monument all before lunchtime. We were not on a time crunch at all, but was just having fun exploring and crossing some locations off our list.

Instead of being super boring and driving back to Dallas on I-35, we decided to take the back roads home and drive through another part of Central Texas we’ve never explored before.

We started our drive with no idea of where we’d stop or run into. Many years ago I had seen some Pinterest wedding photos within The Old Rock Church, and somehow that popped into my mind. I had no idea where that church was, but I did some googling and discovered that it was fairly close to where we were heading.

The Rock Church was built in 1886 by Norwegian settlers in the area. The church sits back on quite a bit of property on a hill that overlooks some of the “town.” I had to put that in quotes because there really isn’t all that much there.

Donovan and I parked the car and walked around the outside of the church, peeking in all of the windows. I desperately wanted to go inside, but I also didn’t want to be arrested for breaking and entering into a church. A few minutes later, I was walking around the old graveyard, and Donovan yelled at me that the door was open. Um…DUH! Why didn’t I even think to check that?!

The inside of the church was everything I hoped it would be. It just smelled old — and oddly enough, I like that smell. The light fixtures were all gas, and there was an old boiler up front. It was evident the church hadn’t really been updated much since it was built other than general maintenance.

I really wanted to go up the stairs to the small balcony and play on the piano, but unfortunately it was all locked up. Instead, we sat in the pews for a bit and admired all the handy work that went into building such a beautiful, holy structure.

After awhile, we decided to get in the car and continue on. We drove down a few country roads near the church admiring all the farm land…and boy, is there a lot of farm land. There were also a lot of gorgeous homes out there. We’re still unsure of what kind of industry those folks work in to have a house that large and nice when the town is so small.

Our next stop was Fairy, Texas. Yep! You read that right! Also…a small town where there’s not much going on. The only reason we stopped was because I saw there was a historical marker, and I’m always interested to see what went down back in the day.

To give you a frame of reference of how big Fairy, Texas is, the population is 31. Yep. 31 people. (although I wouldn’t be surprised if it was actually 31 cows). Fairy was originally known as Martin’s Gap. James Martin was a settler who came to Texas on an oxcart via the mountain gap. The post office in the town was established in 1884. It’s all very interesting!

We kept on driving and finally arrived in Hico, Texas. Mostly another small farming community, the stories of the outlaw Billy the Kid originated in this area. It was nice to park the car and walk for a bit.

Of course, the first place we saw (and had to stop!) was Wiseman House Chocolates. We spent about 30 minutes meandering around the store admiring all of the chocolate. They also had coffee beans and other treats. It smelled delicious in there! We sampled a few truffles before purchasing a few different types of cookies and chocolates.

Then, we walked down the street towards the main street. We laughed out loud when we saw the sign on the barbershop windows:

There are plenty of museums and art galleries downtown, however, we didn’t have a ton of time to spend, so unfortunately we didn’t get to explore them. We did stop in a few boutiques and antique stores, but didn’t buy anything – it was just fun to look!

We will definitely go back to Hico at some point in our lives. After we left, I read online that the Koffee Kup has the best pie. If I wouldn’t had just bought a whole bag full of chocolates, we probably would’ve stopped for pie, too.

We left Hico about 4pm, and we were starting to get exhausted. We drove up through Stephenville and grabbed a (really) early dinner in the cute downtown area at Greer’s Ranch Cafe. For how hungry we were, the food was amazing. I had the chicken fried steak, and Donovan had a salad and a hamburger. Both of us were pretty droopy-eyed at dinner, so we figured it was time to head towards home.

Overall, we really enjoyed our drive through Central Texas and really explored a lot within 1 day! I’m sure we’ll be back soon!