OFF THE BEATEN PATH

Friday, March 13 – Having seen most of the touristy stops around Fredericksburg several years ago  (Enchanted Rock, LBJ Museum & Ranch, Museum of the Pacific War, OPA's Smoked Meats, etc.), we visited a few smaller sights today.

We walked around a roadside pottery an metal shop looking at some of the crazy metal art. They did have some beautiful pottery, but we have all we can carry packed in the RV.

The Wildseed Farm is a pretty neat stopping experience.

It is a family-owned farm since 1983. John R. Thomas, Wildseed's founder and president, turned his sideline turf seeding business into a full-time wildflower farm. In addition, he developed a machine to plant the tiny seeds and another to harvest them. The new company pioneered the practice of planting wildflowers in rows on large acreage. The farm has more than 1,000 cultivated acres in Texas and over 200 acres of wildflower fields at its Hill Country. They plant, harvest and sell seed of over 100 species of wildflowers, herbs and garden variety flowers.

They have hundreds of metal sculptures. The cacti below are all metal.

They have two very nice gift shop that Marsha enjoyed strolling around.

Make this one of your stops when visiting Hill Country.

We then stopped at das Peach Haus.

We were a little disappointed with this stop. Founded in 1969 on the grounds of the Wieser family orchards, the tourist literature describes it as having developed into a premier country store. We aren't too sure of that! Pretty small and not much to see. This is the only place we did find free wine tasting though.

More about our day in tomorrow's blog.

Thanks for stopping by. Hope to see y'all back real soon. Have a great day!

GERMANY MEETS HILL COUNTRY..FREDERICKSBURG

Thursday, March 7 – We made it into Fredericksburg today to walk around and checkout all the little shops.

Willkommen mean welcome.

This is the main tourist stop for Texas Hill Country. This town has a heavy mixture of German heritage with the typical Texan hospitality. The result is an inviting blend of architecture, shopping, arts and crafts, peach orchards, wildflowers (not blooming yet), historical sites, museums and live Texas music.

 

Flowers are blooming all over town.

We visited the Pioneer Memorial and Pioneer Garden.

The gentleman that worked in the Museum told us about his grandparents being one of the first to arrive in Fredericksburg. He showed us a picture of the boat they came over on.

Yes, there were Comanche Indians when they arrived in 1848. He told us tons of wonderful tails that his parents had told him and what he knew to be "the truth." He just turned 90. He took so much pride in his job.

The Gardens

There are also over 70 restaurants available. Whether you're craving traditional Texan favorites or Biergarten casual, there's a place waiting for you. And don't forget German bakeries with their sweets and breads.

Notice the difference in the color of beer. Marsha isn't a big beer drinker. She will drink beer only if it doesn't taste like beer…you figure that one out.

Biergarten

We stopped at one of those German bakeries for a German Sweet Pretzel. It's pretty much a cinnamon roll in the shape of a pretzel. Pretty good, but nothing to write home about.

Another stop was Rustlin Rob's Texas Gourmet Foods for some tasting. They sell all kinds of sauces, salsas, dips, and jellies. We walked through the store tasting dozens of products. We did find a dip we liked (one of those you mix with sour cream), so we made a small purchase.

It was a day of walking around Fredericksburg, enjoying people watching and a little window shopping. Nothing much has changed since we were here in 2010. We highly recommend a stop in historic Fredericksburg.

We did purchase a wine bottle holder. It won't hold all the wine we have purchased but will get us started on our tasting.

Thanks for stopping by. Hope to see y'all back real soon. Have a great day!

SPENDING A DAY WITH FRIENDS

Wednesday, March 6 – Paul made a “rookie” mistake last night. We knew nighttime temperatures were suppose to drop to around freezing but Paul figured the water lines would be fine. Well, temps dropped BELOW freezing to 22 degrees......YIIKES! You guessed it – frozen hose. Thankfully that was all that was frozen. Paul changed hoses, and we had water again.

That was good because we had plans to meet RV friends Jan and Dave this morning at Sister Creek Vineyard. The Winery is located in an old cotton gin built in 1885.

We tried to get together with them in the RGV about a month ago but that was the day our driver side window got blown out, so we had to cancel. Glad we didn't have to cancel again because of no water.

We took the self-guided tour.

David did a great job in explaining the different varietals of wine. We tasted eight different wines. Our favorite was the Chardonnay and Muscat Canelli.

We met at the winery at 11 a.m. – never too early to taste some wine – and had a wonderful reunion. It's fun to see people you've met along the road and catch up with each others travels.

Dave, Jan, Marsha, Paul…Cheers!

From the winery, we drove over to the Alamo Springs Cafe – famous for their hamburgers.

This restaurant is not huge but has a homey feeling.

When we entered, the waiter told us to just help ourselves to whatever drink we wanted. We all got hamburgers (HUGE) and shared an order of onion rings (also HUGE). Everything was delicious.We spent a couple of hours talking with old friends.

Says it all.

We hope to meet up with Jan and Dave down the road again real soon. Thanks friends for a wonderful day.

Thanks for stopping by. Hope to see y'all back real soon. Have a great day!

 

MORE WINE TASTING IN HILL COUNTRY

Tuesday, March 5 – We moved about 50 miles up the road today to the Fredericksburg, TX area. We are staying in the Peach Country RV Park in Stonewall, TX. This is a small town between Fredericksburg and Johnson City, TX. We will be here five nights. Last time, fall of 2010, we were in Hill Country, we stayed at Lady Bird Johnson State Park, a really nice park. Unfortunately, they were completely booked with no sites available.

Peach Country RV is also a nice park. It has WIDE gravel roads, gravel sites, mostly pull-thru sites, concrete pads with picnic tables at each site, a nice activity center, and lots of grassy areas. They also have a 10% Good Sam discount. Our Good Sam/Camping World membership was expired as of February 28 so we renewed it here in the campground office. It cost $20 to renew our membership. We saved $15 on the 5 nights stay. Almost saved our renewal cost in one stay. Cool!

Site #43…We picked this site so we could have the huge side yard for Bella.

Looking right

Looking left

Activity Center

After getting setup in our campsite, we decided to visit the Woodrose Winery. We are located on TX-290 which is Winery Row here in Hill Country. There are more than a dozen wineries in this area. Didn't know Texas was such a wine producing state.

The Woodrose Winery is very nice. We had the tasting in the dance hall (fitting for cowboy country). Instead of sitting or standing at a tasting bar, we sat at a dinner table and the wine steward brought the bottles of wine to our table.

We sampled six wines and purchased one bottle. We cheated a little by tasting the wines at the winery and then stopping at Walmart to purchase the same wine at about half the price. Walmart has many of the local wines, so we may return to purchase others.

That was the end of our touring for the day. We returned to the CG to relax, take Bella out for a walk, and for Marsha to work on making her baskets. Its a little windy in the area, so Bella and Paul didn't last long outdoors in the cold breeze. Bella wanted to get indoors to bug Marsha trying to do her baskets.

Thanks for stopping by. Hope to see y'all back real soon. Have a great day!

FREDERICKSBURG AND ENCHANTED ROCK

Monday, November 1 - Making a short move this morning to another section of Texas Hill Country, we headed about 50 miles north to Lady Bird Johnson Municipal Park and RV Park in Fredericksburg, TX. It is right on TX-16 so we couldn't miss it. Seems like a nice place with paved streets and sites, full hook-ups and nice size sites. We are in Site 75 in the Horseshoe Loop. There is tons to do in the Park…huge swimming pool (closed right now), ball fields, tennis, golf, trails, etc.

Our site.

Looking around the loop.

Once settled in we headed out exploring. We've got lots to do and little time.....ha ha! We went directly to Enchanted Rock.

It’s about 18 miles north of town. Enchanted Rock State Natural Area consists of 1643.5 acres on Big Sandy Creek. It is a pink granite dome dominating the horizon. From the start of the trail to the summit it is 3/5 of a mile and 425 vertical feet. It was actually a pretty strenuous climb. Of course we forgot our hiking boots and bottles of water....YIKES! The Rock is only a small protrusion on a HUGE granite mass.

The trail which isn’t really a trail. You just climb where ever you can get a foot hold.

Only 10% of the granite mass is visible above ground. We serpentined up this slab, stopping several times to catch our breath and enjoy the sights. After about 30 minutes, we reached the summit and enjoyed the view.

Top of the Rock. The view is amazing.

Paul had a bit of a struggle on one part of the trail. Look how far down the road is…Marsha said her knees could barely hold her up. Remember there is no railing just wide open steep rock.

 

We decided to take the Echo Canyon Trail down the mountain. We found it was less steep and not as scary for Marsha. She wouldn't look down....only at her feet. She yelled at me for talking......”quiet and concentrate!” Jeesh! This is me, Marsha, now listen…it is way UP there! It is very scar-eeeeeeeee! At one point, I didn’t think I could go any further up or down. I think that is the most terrified I have been in my entire life. Faint of heart…DO NOT ATTEMPT THIS CLIMB!

Paul saw a boulder located right where we wanted to walk. Being the gentleman he is, he pushed it out of the way for Marsha. Thanks hon!

This is what is called exfoliation sheeting. It means peeling. Granite expands slightly breaking into curved sheets to form a kind of hill.

Just outside of the park, we stopped at a little beverage store. Two girls were running this tiny shop selling all types of refreshments and snacks. Out back is a stage and a bar for enjoying live music. Cool.

We then headed to the Visitor's Center in Fredericksburg to pick up a ton of pamphlets on things to see in the area. This is a much better stop than Bandera, in our opinion.

Next stop.....Luckenbach, Texas.....population 3. Luckenbach was established in 1849. One of the first settlers in the area was Jacob Luckenbach (1817-1911). In 1977, Bobby Emmons and Chips Moman – penned an idyllic ode to the burg—“Luckenbach Texas (Back to the Basics)”—which became a massive hit for Waylon Jennings & Willie Nelson, bringing Luckenbach to its ultimate worldwide fame. The story of Luckenbach is rather interesting. Read all about it here.

One and only way in and out of the town.

It was only about nine miles out of Fredericksburg. It consisted of a post office/general store,

a huge dance hall (We weren’t allowed to go in.)

and a bar. (Small bar)

Big bar and stage.

The bar had live music out back. The singer, Jimmy Lee Jones, serenaded Marsha after asking her where we were from. Everything rhymed with Ohio....a fun guy and a neat song.

Next was a tour of several historic one room school houses. There are twelve schools on the entire tour but we only stopped to see two. Interesting stops since we are both retired school teachers.

Luckenbach School – First log schoolhouse in 1855 with native limestone addition in 1881.

Lower South Grape Creek School – Log cabin school built in 1871. Present school built in 1900.

We could see through some of the windows in this school.

After that exploration, we headed into Fredericksburg to check-out all the little shops. Fredericksburg is seventy miles west of Austin. The town was one of a projected series of German settlements from the Texas coast to the land north of the Llano River, originally the ultimate destination of the German immigrants sent to Texas by the Adelsverein, Society for the Protection of German Immigrants in Texas.

This is another neat town full of quaint little shops. We spent a couple of hours strolling through the stores and even purchased a couple items.

One of our favorite stops was Rustlin' Robs Texas Gourmet Foods. We tasted about 50 different sauces, salsas, dips, chili, and other spicy products.....ummmmmm!! We purchased two jars of sauce.

German restaurants are very popular here.

We also stopped in several wineries and had a couple tastes of local wine. We learned that we were permitted to walk the streets with a beer or glass of wine.

We arrived back at the Park about 5. Bella was ready for a walk. We are surrounded by Pecan trees. A gal told us how to spot a good Pecan nut…Never pick them off the tree only off the ground. So, found a few and brought them back to the motor home.

Looks like these may yield some good eatin’s.

We guessed wrong…but they were good! Now we see why Pecans are so expensive.

A few neighbors stopped by to chat later in the evening. One neighbor was walking with her dog, who wanted to befriend Bella. Well this is what it looked like.

All looks like it is going fine.

Oh no, the paw is up.

Thanks for stopping by. Hope you join us again real soon. Have a great day!