Texas, Fredericksburg - Monday, April 22, 2019 - Tour of Fredericksburg

Our first stop on Monday was Wildseed Farms, which is just down the road from where we are staying.

In the Seed Room you can buy over 90 different varieties of wildflower, vegetable and grass seeds.

The gift shop had some very lovely things.  One thing I admired and should have taken a picture of were some exquisite beaded shawls.  I would never go anywhere suitable for wearing anything so fancy but they did catch my eye.

Plants in abundance!  I know some ladies in Indiana who would have a field day here.  I was thinking of you Dinah, Linda and Beth!

This is the view of the Brewbonnet Biergarten outside the wine tasting room.  Once again, we ran into mostly dry wines so we passed on the tasting.  Besides it was still before noon and I hadn’t had lunch – it would have gone straight to my head.

Heading into the outside gardens.

The Butterfly garden had plants to attract butterflies but none were in residence today.

I love poppies!!  This facility has trial gardens and production crops, different flowers are blooming throughout the year and right now it is poppies.

We could see a field of another kind of flower across the way.  There are 200 acres here devoted mainly to wildflowers.

Texas Blue Bonnets were popping up in several places.  I understand these only bloom for a short period of time each year.

There is a half mile walking trail through the fields, with several areas with seating where you can take a rest if necessary.

If you don’t feel like walking you can always hop on the trolley.

We stopped in the Amish Market, Amish stores are usually a good place to find some different low sodium treats.  They also had some beautiful furniture.

Since we had been here before I knew I wanted to stop by Rustlin’ Rob’s Texas Gourmet Foods for some Mexican vanilla.  Of course, we did a lot of sampling of other products.

I love this building.  It is currently a library but it was previously the courthouse.  The new courthouse next door is definitely not worthy of a picture.

Our last stop of the day was the Fredericksburg Winery.  There are 15 wineries represented in downtown Fredericksburg – there are 40 throughout the area.  In addition to the wineries there are some very impressive looking breweries.  Since Fredericksburg was founded by German settlers, German beer seems to be a specialty.

A look down Main Street.

Our purchases today.

We met some more of our neighbors last night, but they were moving too fast to get a good picture – at least 5 very fat chickens.

Texas, Fredericksburg - Sunday, April 21, 2019 - Travel to Fredericksburg

This is the view from our front window at the Ft. Stockton RV Park.  We like the convenience of this country RV park right off of I-10.  Our site has always been one of the pull through sites with easy exit back out to the highway.  The only thing we found wrong with our stay this time was a very persistently cooing dove in the tree next to us – I don’t think that darn bird ever took a breath.

 On Saturday evening we decided to brave the very strong winds and take a walk on the Six Shooter Trail.

No neatly trimmed landscaping here, just lots of rugged nature.

Not sure if these are wildflowers or weeds, guess it depends on your perspective, I’m going with flowers.

These yellow flowers were a constant roadside companion all the way to Fredericksburg.

Fredericksburg is in Texas Hill Country.  I actually call these mountains.

We were expecting a sleepy town on Easter Sunday afternoon – wow, this place was crowded.  

Across the highway from the KOA where we are staying we saw corn that was already about 8” high.

We met a couple of our neighbors on our Sunday evening walk.

There we are across the grassy area.

Texas, Fredericksburg - Thursday, October 10, 2013 - Texas Hill Country

We saw part of the Texas Hill Country a couple of years ago when we attended a rally in Kerrville and found it was a beautiful area to ride through.  Today we decided to take a “scenic” route described in one of our travel books.  We left San Antonio on I-10 then took route 46 west and then hit route 16 into Kerrville and on to Fredericksburg.  There is a 35 mile stretch of route 16 that has signs that warn of sharp curves and steep grades – they aren’t kidding!!  I experienced my first “hairpin” curve today and then repeated it several times as we went up and down what they call a hill (mountain in my book).  A couple of the curves we went into blind, those are kind of scary.  Greg handled them very well but I just know I was helping by putting on my backseat driver brakes.

The next camera we buy we need to make sure it has a setting for taking pictures while we are in motion.  We saw some beautiful hills, ranches and wide open spaces today that would have been nice to share.

Fredericksburg was settled in the 1880’s and has a strong German heritage.  Many of the stores on Main Street still have evidence of the original buildings even through the inhabitants have changed to mostly upscale shops and boutique clothing stores.  This is a shot looking down Main Street – busy place.

 

 

This former bank is now a real estate office.

 

The former hospital is a kitchen wares store.

 

Our favorite was Rustlin’ Rob’s Texas Gourmet Foods.  There were at least 20 alcoves like this in the store featuring different kinds of dips, sauces, seasonings, oils and vinegars.  What was surprising was that each product had a sample out for you to taste.

 

This is what we picked out to bring home.  I hesitated to buy the Mexican Vanilla since it was kind of pricey and I really didn’t need that big of a bottle, but it smells so good, I decided I had to have it.  I’m sure we will enjoy some tasty baked goods.

I tried jalapeño peanut butter, it tasted just like regular peanut butter until I had already swallowed it and then the jalapeno kicked in!  A small bite was rather good but I don’t know what I would have done with a whole jar – wonder what it would do to peanut butter cookies?

We had trouble all day with the security system locking the bike every time we stopped and turned off the bike.  Greg could get it started by overriding the system with a PIN number but it was a hassle.  When we got home we found out the key fob just needed a new battery.

It was a really nice ride, but we are both tired this evening.  It’s been a while since we have ridden that far.