Not All Who Wander Are Lost

Not All Who Wander Are Lost
June, 2019 - Mount Denali, Alaska

Thursday, March 14, 2013

Fredericksburg and Luckenbach

The plan for yesterday was to start out hiking at Enchanted Rock State Park, then check out Fredericksburg, and if there was time stop in Luckenbach at the end of the day.

It was about a 45 minute drive to Enchanted Rock. I had seen a show on TV where they polled Texans as to the best hiking in the state. Enchanted Rock was number one. About 15 miles before the park, I happened to see a roadside sign that said if it was flashing the park was closed. It wasn’t flashing, and I thought closings would be weather related.

This is the closest we got. A picture through the truck window.

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About 3 miles from the entrance, traffic came to a standstill. We waited for about 20 minutes and saw many cars turn around. Most cars had children in them. I had forgotten that it is spring break for all Texas public schools this week. We decided to turn around and check out Fredericksburg first and come back to the park in the afternoon. As we passed the road sign heading back, it was blinking. I guess this park is very popular!

Fredericksburg is a quaint town that was established by German settlers in the mid 1800s. We stopped at the Pioneer Museum for information. The museum had re-enactors giving demonstrations throughout the grounds. Many families were enjoying the event. We visited many of these types of museums when our children were young, and we didn’t want to deal with the crowds, so we moved on.

We walked to the Market Square area and visited the Vereins Kirche (Society Church) Museum. This building is a replica of the first church built in the town.

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Inside there was a map of Germany showing where the German settlers came from. My birth town near Hanover, Germany was included on the map. Maybe I have descendants that lived here.

P1140166There was also a Maibaum (Maypole) in the square. My mom always got excited on May 1st because it was May Day, a day for celebration in Germany. This one was kind of like a totem pole with the history of the town depicted on it.

 

 

 

 

We walked up and down several blocks of Main Street. One of the shops we enjoyed visiting was Rustlin’ Rob’s Texas Trail Supplies. They had all kinds of samples of jams, butters, salsas, sauces and dips to taste with crackers or pretzels. We tried all kinds of the samples, free lunch :)  

There was a room dedicated to the hottest sauces. An employee was on hand to supervise. No children were allowed to sample those sauces. No thanks!! We are lightweights when it comes to spicy sauces.

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I enjoyed window shopping all along our stroll. Many of the items for sale were German and reminded me of things my mom has, or I saw on my trips to Germany.

We saw several of these Texas style signs. Hmm.

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By this time we were thirsty so a stop at the Fredericksburg Brewery was in order. I am not a beer drinker, but Kevin enjoys samples from local microbreweries. He had a sample of each of their brews and declared they were all good. Can you tell he didn’t want to cooperate in having his picture taken?

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I enjoyed our stroll through Fredericksburg. On our travels, I’ve noticed that so many of the small tourist towns are mostly shopping and restaurants. Neither one of those things interests us that much anymore, but we did enjoy our stop in Fredericksburg.

Around 2 p.m. I tried calling Enchanted Rock to see if they had re-opened. I tried about 15 times and just kept getting a busy signal. We’re going to be staying in Blanco next week. Upon checking with the GPS, we found out that its not much further to come back from Blanco, so we’ll be back next week when the kiddies are back in school.

Our next stop was Luckenbach, made famous by a Waylon Jennings’ song.

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It’s not a town anymore, pretty much just a tourist attraction. There is a small general store and a cowboy hat shop. I always thought cowboy hats were made of a felt material. Most of the ones I’ve seen are actually straw. The felt ones are very expensive, around $150 and up. The straw ones are from $20 to $60.

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There is also a bar, a walk-up food stand, a barn dance hall, and an outdoor stage area.

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Two musicians were playing outside under some trees. They were Bo Porter and Jimmie Lee Jones. The little guy in front was dancing and enjoying himself.

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We are not country music fans and have never heard of either one of the performers today. It was fun to sit and listen for a while. Their song topics included being in bed with a woman and dreaming about a different woman, stinky feet, and passing gas. Yup, country music :)

We all have our stereotypes of places we’ve never been to. When I thought of Texas, what came to mind was longhorn steer, cowboys and oil wells. We’ve seen very little of any of these. There was the opportunity to have your picture taken with a longhorn at Luckenbach for a price.

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One of the main reasons I wanted to stay in the Hill Country was because I had read about all of the beautiful wildflowers that bloom in March and April. So far, no flowers. I overheard a lady at the museum yesterday saying that due to the drought in Texas, the flowers are about two weeks behind in blooming. Hopefully, we’ll see some before we leave in early April.

The weather this week has been fantastic with highs in the mid 70s and sunny. Can’t ask for more than that!

Don’t wish upon a star – Reach for one!