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!