This is STOP 7, the 13th, 14th, 15th and 16th days of our ten week cross country fall adventure in 2021! Here is a link to our previous stop in Jefferson, TX
The Drive from Jefferson, TX to Fredericksburg, TX
Jefferson to Fredericksburg
This drive is probably the longest “jump” of the entire trip and today we will cross the 2000 mile driving mark. We purposely do a route that will take us through historic Palestine. With a minor detour off the main route, Rt 79, we pass through the town which turns out not as great as research implied. We must have missed some road in town that would take us past historic houses – but we have so much driving to do today, we just press on. We continue on Rt 79 to the outskirts of Austin. We don’t want to get on the interstate or go through Austin, so we choose Rt 29 west that is north of Austin through Burnet and across to Llano where we hop on Rt 16 south. The drive from Burnet to Fredericksburg is officially one of the scenic drives of the Texas Hill Country and it is beautiful.
Adams Travis House
We have rented one of the historic Sunday houses in Fredericksburg that is just 2 blocks off of main street. This little 4 room house is beautiful! All walls are stone with high ceilings.
What is a Sunday house (you ask)? When Texas won its independence from Mexico the state sent agents to Germany to recruit settlers by promising them land. When the original group of Germans settlers arrived in in the Fredericksburg area in 1846 they were given 10 acres of farm land and a town house lot. The farm lots were located more than 20 miles out of town and in those days the roads were rutted and it made travel difficult to come into town to visit and shop. Over time, many of them built small homes they used to come into town on the weekends where they would leave on Sunday after dinner. This is where the name Sunday houses comes from.
After getting settled in the house we head downtown to check out main street and to find a place for dinner.
Our First Night in Fredericksburg
The city has become a weekend destination for people in Central Texas, specifically those from Austin and San Antonio. The sidewalks of this historic district (maybe 10 blocks long) are lined with people walking around – and there’s an open container law so we know this is a partying town. You can hear live music as you pass each venue with a small band.
Dinner at the Hichin’ Post
We have chosen a restaurant at the far end of the strip so we walk by most places and get a real feel for the area. It’s only around 5pm, but already, all the bar seats at the Hitchin’ Post Steakhouse are taken – so we opt for a high top in the bar area. Our bartender Mike takes good care of us. The place is packed and there’s a line outside. I have a delicious Steakhouse Salad and Harrison gets the super tasty Mahi, Mahi dinner.
Once back at the homestead, we decide to soak in the hot tub for a while to finish unwinding.
Day 2 – Scenic Driving and Fredericksburg
We love AirBnB/VRBO rentals particularly when it comes to breakfast. We can eat in our jammies and eat lighter than we would at a regular B&B. You never know quite what you are going to get in the kitchen – and sure enough, the coffee pot apparently hasn’t been cleaned in months because even after an hour, the pot hasn’t finished brewing. Luckily, we are prepared – we travel with a small one cup coffee pot and it saves the morning.
Texas Hill Country Drive
Today will be a little bit of a down day for us – you need those every once in a while. We start the morning out with a scenic drive through the Texas Hill Country. We head south today on TX 16 through Kerrville and one observation is this area is packed with wineries. At one point we ask and are told there are over 400 wineries in Texas Hill Country. From Kerrville, we make it to TX 39 west until we hit Ranch Road (RM) 187 south until just north of Vanderpool where we hop onto Farm to Market (FM) 337. At Leakey we drop south onto US 83 for a brief while until we reach FM 1050 east to Utopia where we get on RM 187. We drive through Tarpley and to Bandera and then head back to Fredericksburg. We make an attempt to find Luckenbach, TX but our GPS fails us. We’re hungry so we figure Luckenbach will be or another day.
Sunday in Fredericksburg
Then we go back to Fredericksburg with the intent to have a late lunch and watch college football. We thought this area was crowded yesterday, but all the bars are packed and the streets are shoulder to shoulder with people. We pass 3 different bachelorette groups (they aren’t interested in football). The most interesting thing we discover, is many of the shops have free beer as an incentive to get you inside. Yes – FREE with no purchase necessary. We HAVE to check that out and so we get our free Lone Star Light beers, look around briefly and continue wandering the sidewalks.
Pioneers
We stop by a bar named Pioneer’s and grab a beer, popcorn and watch a little football (one of the few places we’ve passed with an open bar stool). They don’t serve food here – which explains why they have some open seats. We learn they have karaoke on Monday nights, so we pretty much know we’ll back there on Monday.
Cultures Bar & Grill
We finally nail 2 bar seats at Culture’s Bar and Grill where our bartender Pablo keeps us entertained as do the fans of the rivalry of local Texas A&M vs fairly local Arkansas. We order some German potato skins (corned beef & sauerkraut in a potato skin – not the greatest). On the recommendation of father/son, Jim and Chris, we order the Jaeger Schnitzel – which proves to be an exceptional choice.
Day 3 Austin Steam Train day
We are up bright and early and out the door at 7am to drive 1.75 hours to catch our second historic train trip of the road trip. The Cedar Park train depot is located in a strip mall – which made it a slight challenge to find because it was just so unusual. This is the Austin Steam Train and today we are taking what they call the Wedding Oak Winery Tour. We get our tickets and walk the strip mall area to get a feel for things and then board the train.
We have seats on a car named “Rolling Streams” which is a first class 21-and-over only car. There are 5 sleeping compartments in the back that have been converted into small private seated chambers and about 12 seats in the shared area. We are glad to be in the open area to not feel so confined. We enjoy a wine tasting of 5 different wines from the Wedding Oak Winery on the 2 hour trip up to Burnet (pronounced Burn-It – which some former residents say should be done to the town). It is a good thing we had the wine-tasting because the scenery was nothing to get excited about.
We’ve been given the option to buy a box lunch at the winery, but with a 2 hour layover, we choose to explore Burnet and find alternate food. I had researched restaurants and we head to the #1 rated place – Trailblazer Grill – just a few blocks from the winery & train station. It is Sunday and the place is closed so they can hold church services there. We speak briefly with a woman leaving the church to inquire about other restaurants and she informs us that everything is closed on Sundays. We still decide to walk around the town a little to see what all is there – and pretty much everything is closed. We end up grabbing burgers at Dairy Queen and then head back to the winery. We still have over an hour to kill, so we buy a bottle of wine and listen to the one-person band playing and singing. The train ride back only takes 1.5 hours (downhill) and decide this train ride is a once and done experience for us.
Once back in town, we stop at the grocery store and buy a cooked rotisserie chicken, twice baked potatoes & asparagus and have dinner at home. A little time in the hot tub and we’re headed to sleep.
Day 4 San Antonio
One of the things that happens on an extensive road trip – your vehicle needing its regular maintenance. We are about to hit 10,000 miles on the Brown Beast so we had scheduled our maintenance for 9am today. Our truck was actually manufactured at the Toyota plant just south of San Antonio and that city has 5 dealerships. We pick Red Coombs Toyota and this dealership is massive – it has 8 lanes just for checking in your car for service! We walk over to Walmart to fill in some supplies while they service our vehicle.
The Alamo
Now we are off to see the Alamo in San Antonio. We have both driven by it many, many years ago (before we even knew each other), but neither of us has ever stopped to see it. The Alamo is located in the center of the town and they’ve built the area up around it as quite a tourist thing. There’s a Guinness Book of World Records Museum, a 3-D ride of some type, The Amazing Mirror Maze, Ripley’s Believe It Or Not, an IMAX – you get the vibe – which we ignore. We easily find a parking lot within a few blocks.
Most people just call it “The Alamo“, but it was actually the Alamo Mission and/or Mission San Antonio de Valero. It was a mission and fortress founded by the Catholic missionaries. From February 23 – March 6 1836, it was the site of the Battle of the Alamo, a key battle in the Texas Revolution for independence from Mexico. President General Antonio Lopez de Santa Anna defeated the Texans killing nearly everyone in the mission – including legendary folk like James Bowie and Davie Crockett. The inhumanity Santa Anna demonstrated prompted hundreds of Texans to join the Texan Army. This ultimately led to the defeat of the Mexican Army on April 21, 1836 in The Battle of San Jacinto. The newly formed Republic of Texas was now ready to move forward.
We get our timed entry slot for self-touring the Alamo which starts in the church. No photography is allows inside the church itself and we learn that the structures’ biggest enemy is water. There is numerous moisture sensing equipment through the facility. After touring the church, we have time to wander the fortress grounds and learn more and more about the events leading up to and including the famous battle.
San Antonio River Walk
Done with our tour of the Alamo, we head to the well-known San Antonio River Walk. It is rather breathtaking to see how the city has turned the river into something that reminds us of Venice – where the police patrol on boat and informational tours travel the river through the center of town. Originally built to help control flooding of the river with dams at both ends, it soon grew in popularity and became a tourist destination. The River and River walk are one level down from the streets and we choose to walk the pathways to soak in the ambiance of this area and to find a place to eat lunch. There are walking paths on both sides of the river filled with shops and restaurants and several bridges (somewhere around 20 – about every “block”) to cross between. The entire River Walk is 2.5 miles and we darn near walk every inch.
For lunch we choose the Hard Rock Café. Early in our relationship we did a lot of vacations in areas with a Hard Rock Café and we started collecting shot glasses and souvenir glasses. It has probably been 10 years since we’ve eaten in one AND it is Harrison’s birthday, so that is where we choose. We reminisce about some of the various locations we’ve been too over the years while watching music videos we haven’t seen in ages. The burgers are still the high quality we remember and we’re glad we stopped here.
We negotiate the crazy layers of freeways and overpasses out of San Antonio and head back to Fredericksburg for further celebration of Harrison’s birthday. We try to set the GPS to take us to Luckenbach TX on the way, but it somehow messes up and we miss it. We take it as destiny, park the Brown Beast at the house and walk into town to find a place for dinner.
Harrison’s Birthday Evening in Fredericksburg
It is a Monday and several places aren’t open. We don’t want to go back to places we’ve been so we walk all over the historic district not having much luck. Places are either packed or the vibe just isn’t us. Harrison is getting a little frustrated but we finally find The Auslander, a German restaurant and biergarten. We order the pecan-crusted redfish (to split) since lunch wasn’t that long ago. We meet Eric and Jenna and talk over beer and dinner. They even buy Harrison a birthday beer! We mention we are heading to Pioneer’s for karaoke and they are headed to a biker bar.
We arrive at Pioneer’s to hear the karaoke host, Sparky, asking folks to sign up to sing and threatening them that if they don’t sing – he will and admits he’s not very good. He proceeds to sing and his self-evaluation of his own singing talent is spot on. There is a family of about 10 people and only 2 or 3 individuals at the bar. Nancy must save the ears of these patrons, so she gets up and sings Black Horse and Cherry Tree by KT Tunstall. The bartender, Rebecca goes next, but then Sparky belts out another tune. Nancy is sitting next to Brandon who claims he loves to sing karaoke but it too tired (sorry, no such thing is you really enjoy it). Nancy sings Heartbreaker by Pat Benatar and then another person has entered the bar and sings. Brandon leaves and Josiah shows up – we spend a lot of time chatting with him. Next thing we know, in walk Eric & Jenna and they sing a duet. Over the course of the rest of the night, Nancy gets to sing 4 more songs, a few more folks wander in and the vibe changes to where the whole bar joins in singing classics. We close the bar (at the horribly late hour of 10:30pm).
The Next Morning – One Last Thing Before We Leave Town – Luckenbach, Texas
It seems like every person we meet has asked us if we’ve been to Luckenbach and so we make one more attempt to find it before heading to our next stop in Alpine. Since our GPS has failed us twice, we switch to Google Maps on the phone. It is only about 10 miles outside of Fredericksburg and even then, you have to take the Luckenbach Loop (which isn’t well marked) to find this tiny western haven with a population of 3. We now understand why our GPS had so much trouble routing us here – because it really isn’t a town so much as it is a giant place to party. The amount of parking is massive as are the number of tables and such. They have music every day from 1pm til whenever. We learn that Fredericksburg has profited from spill-over tourism of nearby Luckenbach ever since a few events propelled the little town to global fame. Jerry Jeff Walker recorded his landmark 1973 Viva Terlingua album at the Luckenbach dance hall. In 1977, Waylon Jennings and Willie Nelson recorded their hit Luckenbach, Texas (Back to the Basics of Love). SO – it isn’t about going to Luckenbach as much as it is about experiencing Luckenbach – but we have missed our opportunity. We note it as a place to experience the next time we pass through this way.
Our Verdict
We could have spent more time here and we need to come back if for no other reason than to experience Luckenbach. Fredericksburg tends to draw the 20 and 30 something crowd (an observation, not a judgement). Come mid-week to avoid crowds.
Next Up
We are off to explore Big Bend National Park, staying in Alpine TX for 7 nights. We plan to break up those nights with 2 nights of camping in Terlingua, weather permitting (some rain is expected).
Here is a link to our previous stop in Jefferson, TX
[…] This is the first half of STOP 8 which is the 17th, 18th, 19th and 20th days of our ten week cross country fall adventure in 2021! Here is a link to our previous stop in Fredericksburg, TX […]