2/8/2022

As much fun as I had in Austin catching up with old friends, I was really looking forward to putting on my boots and a cowboy hat and escaping the cities back to rural America, even if only for a short while. My destination this morning was Fredericksburg, a picturesque small town located about an hour-and-a-half west of Austin. It was forecast to be just under 70 degrees today – perfect weather! Fredericksburg marks the furthest west that I’m traveling on this trip, and as I drove out to it…it really did start to look like the west. The cowboy west! It actually looked like the deserts around Los Molinos and Payne’s Creek back in California.

Traditionally, Fredericksburg is a cowboy town with a deep German heritage that permeates the entire community. However, both Shelby and Jess warned me that the town I was planning to visit was not going to be what I was thinking. This is because, like Austin, the Fredericksburg part of Texas too is rapidly changing. It turns out that the new, California transplant crowd in Austin needed a weekend getaway location – a place similar to what Napa was for the Bay. And Fredericksburg met the bill. In fact, the lands between Johnson City and Fredericksburg happen to produce some shockingly decent wine, and the natural environment in the area offers hiking opportunities galore to cool blue rivers, waterfalls, and wildflower meadows. As a result, the entire stretch of highway between Johnson City and Fredericksburg has been transformed over the past decade into chic, modern dude ranches, bed and breakfasts, and wineries (the wineries are quite stunning actually, comparable in size and architecture to their Napa counterparts); and the hiking parks in the area have become so popular that you are not allowed to just go to them, you need an advance reservation (Jess showed me one popular spot yesterday which was already booked through March). And in the spring and summer months, the wildflowers and lavender fields in the area draw the Instagram crowds out from the city in droves. Indeed, Fredericksburg has become the ‘flower capitol of Texas.’ Basically, as soon as spring hits, the city becomes overwhelmed with local tourists going vineyard hopping and making ‘muah-muah’ faces in flower fields for their Instagram feeds. The below aren’t my photos (obviously not mine…as if I could take photos that nice), but gives you a sense of the sort of scenes that people are chasing out here in the spring and summer:

However, I was not here during peak travel season, and I was not hoping to go vineyard hopping. I was just hoping to walk the town for a few hours and see what it had to offer before traveling down to San Antonio. And to that end, mission success!

When I first got to town, it was about 11 am and the town was still pretty empty, which wasn’t too unusual actually for the south. I’ve come to learn that southerners live on a different schedule from their northern counterparts. Peoples’ schedules throughout the south just seem to work a few hours later than peoples’ schedules in the north. In southern towns and cities, you usually don’t see streets start to fill with people until somewhere between 10 am to noon, and you usually don’t see people going out to dinner until 7 pm or later. For a lot of this trip, I’ve been the weird, early bird who is out getting his day going and visiting sites already by 8 or 9 am and usually eating dinner around 6 pm.

Anyways, I decided to kill some time and let the streets fill a bit before touring the city. I drove to a place called Enchanted Rock, which was kind of underwhelming but again showed me scenery that looked so, so, so much like Payne’s Creek in the summer.

By the time I got back to town, it was about 11:45 am and the streets had started to fill with people. It was showtime! I grabbed my hat, and got out to see what Fredericksburg had to offer!

Annnnd…the off-tourist season version of Fredericksburg was kind of underwhelming too. While I loved being back in a small town and felt right at home and properly dressed in my boots and hat, there really just wasn’t much to do there. I walked the entire downtown within about 20 minutes, taking time to take in all of the cool shops and German-themed businesses.

After walking the town, I decided to have lunch at the Fredericksburg Brewery, which prides itself on being the ‘oldest brewpub in Texas.’ But…it also only dates back to the 1990s, because that’s when Texas made it legal to own a craft brewery within the State. So, being the ‘oldest’ really isn’t that impressive here in Texas. It was still a cool spot though.

After lunch I took a quick hour-and-a-half drive down to San Antonio, and I have been enjoying it here ever since. I know, San Antonio’s yet another city on the list (I had to ditch the hat and boots as soon as I got here so I wouldn’t immediately stand out), but wow! It’s a really cool city. I will offer a full report tomorrow. And as for Fredericksburg? I might just have to do what the locals do and plan a trip back to it during peak travel season. I mean, look at those lavender fields and vineyards! That’s a trip all unto itself.

Cheers,

-Rob