RESEARCH IN PERSON IS MORE FUN!

Cat Helping With Research

Most writers have a substantial home research library on their areas of interest. Each of us has learned how to surf the web for additional information. Sometimes, though, it helps to go in person and experience a setting first hand. Since most of my books are set in Texas and I live in Texas, this usually doesn’t present a problem for me. Hmm, maybe I should write foreign settings so I could really travel. <G>

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When I was writing my western historical, THE TEXAN’S IRISH BRIDE, I needed to see the setting once again to refresh my memory and fill in missing details. I already knew I loved the Central Texas area around Bandera. Years before our family had stayed at the well-known Mayan Dude Ranch near Bandera. My husband was not captivated, but our daughters and I loved the place.
　
A while back, my youngest daughter and I attended a conference hosted by the San Antonio RWA chapter. (They have a great conference, by the way.) Afterward, my daughter and I took a detour by Bandera and Medina. We love road trips and are famous in our family for our "detours" that seem logical only to us. To us, everything is "on the way." <G>

Lost Maples

This time, I needed to visit Lost Maples State Natural Area in Bandera and Real Counties, five miles north of Vanderpool, Texas on Ranch Road 187. The setting for this particular book was a fictional ranch near Bandera in 1885, but Lost Maples plays an important part in the book's plot when the hero and his family chase rustlers there.

Lost Maples State Natural Area covers 2174.2 scenic acres on the Sabinal River. Long before the area was a park, sightseers crowded the narrow gravel road winding its way along the Sabinal River Canyon to see the fall colors. Acquired by purchase from private owners in 1973 -1974, the site was opened to the public on September 1, 1979. The annual visitation is approximately 200,000 visitors.

In pre-history, dinosaurs roamed here and left their prints in the limestone mud. Footprints were discovered by Roland Byrd in the 1930’s on what he labeled the Mayan Ranch Trackway. When the ranch owner wouldn’t allow excavation, Byrd moved on to Glen Rose and excavated on the Paluxy River. Those tracks are in the American Museum of Natural History in New York City.

Archealogical evidence shows that prehistoric peoples used this area at various times. In historic times, which began with Spanish exploration and colonization efforts in the late 17th century, the Apache, Lipan Apache, and Comanche Indians ranged over the land and posed a threat to settlement well into the 19th century. In the late nineteenth century, Texas was still a pretty wild place in some areas. By 1875, the time of Indian raids on settlers had passed, but that doesn’t mean that life was safe or easy. That's why I thought this an ideal spot for rustlers in my story.


Fall View of Lost Maples

 Lost Maples is one of the loveliest areas in that part of the state, but it was used as a route for rustlers, renegade Comanche, and the evil Comancheros who victimized everyone. They traveled through Lost Maples on their rides between Indian Territory (now Oklahoma) and Mexico. Abundant water, high canyon walls, and tiny side canyons and creeks offered protection for criminals. The well known Indian trail along the Sabinal River was marked on early Spanish maps as Comanche Trail.

Golden Cheeked Warbler

The park is an outstanding example of Edwards Plateau flora and fauna. It is a combination of steep, rugged limestone canyons, springs, plateau grasslands, wooded slopes, and clear streams. Rare species of birds such as the Green Kingfisher live there year round. The endangered Black-Capped Vireo and Golden-Cheeked Warbler nest and feed in the spring and early summer.

Uvalde Big Tooth Maples

Lost Maples features a large, isolated stand of uncommon Uvalde Bigtooth Maple, whose fall foliage can be spectacular. Generally, the foliage changes the last two weeks of October through the first two weeks of November. To northerners these maples might appear ordinary, but this is the only place in Texas that these trees are native, so Texans value and protect their existence.

Tranquil, reverent scene

The first thing my daughter and I noticed is that the area offers tranquility—almost a reverent, religious experience. In fact, the Sabinal River was originally called Arroyo de la Soledad, Spanish for "stream of solitude." The river rises in fissure springs that flow from great slabs of limestone southwest to the Balcones Escarpment. The river is sixty miles long. In several places it sinks underground to rise again downstream. It is fed by Hale, Hollow and Can Creeks within the park and by Mill, Little, and Onion Creeks south of the park. Canyon Creek in Uvalde County is called the West Prong of the Sabinal.

No article can convey the beauty of this park. Seeing this impressive canyon and the huge Bigtooth Maple trees left an unforgettable image in my mind that helped me as I wrote my story. Sometimes, research in person pays off not only in information gathered, but in a pleasant experience! I hope I conveyed that mystical experience in THE TEXAN'S IRISH BRIDE. If you want to find out, you can buy my book at
www.thewildrosepress.com/caroline-clemmons-m-638.html and at Amazon, Digi-Books, and other online stores.

Thanks, Caroline

What Started My Love For Cowboys and Ranchers?

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My Early Hero
Second Only 
To My Dad

Welcome to Sweethearts of the West. We hope you'll visit us often.

My name is Caroline Clemmons and I write contemporary, historical, and time travel romances set in Texas. During my early years, I was one of the thousands of young girls in love with Roy Rogers—that’s before I realized that Dale Evans had already stolen my singing cowboy. Later, my family drove through ranch land on trips from Lubbock, Texas to visit my grandmother in southwestern Oklahoma. Even when we happened by a roundup near the road one day, my dad didn’t stop to let me watch. He was a very nice man, but strictly a Point A to Point B traveler with no detours. I drove the poor man nuts chattering on and on about cowboys anyway.

My up close and personal introduction to ranching was at the Hicks family’s Mayan Ranch located on the Medina River near Bandera, Texas. This is a first class guest ranch, and my daughters and I fell in love with the ranch and the area. My husband, not so much, but he’s a good sport and let us have our fun. And the Mayan is a great place to have that fun, true western style. The Hicks are a large family, and the Mayan is an efficient, family-run enterprise. Bandera bills itself as "The Cowboy Capital of the World." I’m willing to believe the claim. In addition to genuine working ranches, there are numerous guest ranches in the area. (Doesn’t "guest" sound better than "dude" ranch?)



Mayan trail ride

  The Mayan Ranch caters to everyone from returning cowpokes to city slickers. Did we ever fall into the latter group! On arrival we were shown to our lodgings—a two-bedroom cedar board-and-batten cabin nestled among the trees and furnished in picturesque western style. As Texans say, "We were in high cotton." The Hicks family provides first class everything. Meals are all you can eat in the dining room, a cookout on the patio, or a hayride to breakfast by the river.

Small Band at the Mayan

Entertainment includes parties each night, swimming, dances complete with instructors, daily trail rides, cowboy singers and musicians, and a trip to their Old West town, Hicksville. I was hooked on ranching life! Of course, ranching is so much easier with the Hicks family and their employees taking care of all the work!


Lost Maples State Park--my photo

Is it any wonder that so many of my western stories take place in this setting? Nearby is the picturesque Lost Maples State Natural Area with the only native maple trees in the state. Inhabited by prehistoric peoples, the area was a hot spot for Comanche and Apache Indian renegades as well as both Indian and anglo  rustlers. I took advantage of that setting for the rustlers in my latest release, THE TEXAN'S IRISH BRIDE.

Lost Maples in the fall

Bandera is within easy driving distance from the unique city of San Antonio. On a trip to attend a San Antonio RWA chapter conference one year, my youngest daughter and I took a side trip through Bandera and Lost Maples to refresh my memory for THE TEXAN’S IRISH BRIDE, available from The Wild Rose Press. From Bandera, we wound around through Medina—stopping for apple cider, Fredericksburg, and Kerrville on our way home. Not a direct route, it’s true, but very scenic. This would be a wonderful area in which to live, but land prices are rising by the minute.

Bandera Texas--Cowboy Capital of the World!

What better place to locate the ranch owned by my book’s hero, Dallas McClintock, than on the Medina River near Bandera? Dallas raises cattle, sheep (yes, they can coexist on one ranch), and breeds and trains horses. It’s his horse breeding that creates the story, for Dallas has been to deliver horses to a buyer and is on his way home when the story opens. He hears screams from the heroine, Cenora Rose O’Neill, and rushes to her rescue, killing her two attackers while receiving gunshot wounds. Instead of a reward for saving his daughter, Sean O’Neill traps Dallas into marrying the lovely Cenora. Not a great hardship except that Dallas is not ready to marry anyone, much less a girl he doesn’t know. Even worse, he inherits the other four members of Cenora’s unruly family and their numerous problems, as well as the new crises they create or him. And that makes for lots of turmoil.

Here are a couple of reviews:

"There were no down times in this book. The action was almost non-stop." 5 Hearts from The Romance Studio

"What starts as a clash in cultures becomes a fantastic story…Just when you thought a happily ever after was just around the corner, another corner appears." Top Pick from Night Owl Reviews


THE TEXAN’S IRISH BRIDE is available in print or download at www.thewildrosepress.com/caroline-clemmons-m-638.html, as well as at Amazon, DigiBooks, and other online sources.

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