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!