Head Out on the Highway

The Dabbs Hotel

With his buttermilk biscuits, cowboy coffee, and tall-tale telling, Dabbs proprietor Gary Smith has garnered a reputation every bit as legendary as guests of yore like Bonnie and Clyde.

Whether cooking in the kitchen in huge, cast-iron pots (the key to his cakelike biscuits, he says, the same way a cast-iron stomach is key to surviving his coffee and sweet cream gravy), or sitting in a weather-worn lawn chair under a grove of crepe myrtle, Gary is ever-ready with a story.

He may tell you about how he had the first Mohawk haircut in Austin. Or about when the shock-rock band Gwar stayed at the Dabbs. ("We had a Gwar-B-Q." The menu? "Dead babies.") Or how Rambling Jack Elliot stops by in his Winnebago for breakfast when passing through town.

Gary has re-created the original floor plan and menus as they were in 1907, when the hotel first opened its doors to Austin steam-train travelers arriving at the Texas frontier. Rooms are utilitarian, with an iron-frame bed, table, and chair. Each is painted a bright shade of orange, red, blue, green, or yellow, and from some, you can hear the gentle rush of the Llano River, which runs behind the hotel.

But there's no need to elaborate here -- Gary will tell you everything you need to know about the Dabbs, Llano, and surrounding attractions like Enchanted Rock and the Willow City Loop (see below) when you arrive.

Rooms for two are $75 on Friday and Saturday, $65 on weekdays; rooms for one are $45 any day. Gary also leases the Dabbs for $750 Fridays and Saturdays, $650 weekdays; it can sleep up to 25 people.

Take 71 West to Llano, about 70 miles through rolling, cool-green hills. Once in town, take the first dirt road after the bridge; look for the Dabbs sign and Gary's cream-colored 1950 Chrysler Windsor in the carport.

Dabbs Hotel, 112 E. Burnet St., Llano, TX 78643. 915/247-7905.