30 October 2020 Becker Vineyard

 We had been to the Becker wine tasting room in downtown on previous trips and enjoyed their wines. But we wanted to go out to the main winery this time. We got lucky and it was not busy, else we would have required reservations. They were still working under their COVID rules, so they were serving bites of food along with their wine tastings. The food pairings were fantastic and really brought out the character of the wines. We really enjoyed the tasting and the views were great. We definitely will be back to visit again. 

29 October 2020 Alexander Vineyard

 Leslie has been wanting to checkout Alexander winery for a couple of trips, so we made it a point to get there this time. They import their wines from Europe, so they are not Texas wines. We did a tasting of their dry reds. We had a fun time talking to our hostess as she and her husband are ex-military and moved to Texas to get away from California. The wines were ok and we bought a couple of bottles but it is not a place we would return too

28 October 2020 Old Tunnel State Park

 David had the afternoon off from his consulting work, so we decided to investigate another state park. Old Tunnel State Park is the smallest state park in the Texas system at only 16 acres. The tunnel is an old railroad tunnel that was built in 1908 for a rail line between Fredericksburg and Austin. The rail line 

closed in 1943. The park was opened in 1991. Its claim to fame is the 3 million Mexican bats that live in the tunnel between May and October. The tunnel is not accessible to hikers. We walked the short nature trail and saw a deer along the walk.

Entrance Sign

The Old Tunnel

26 October 2020 Shopping

Having scouted out the shops earlier we headed back to downtown to do some more shopping. We of course were looking for Christmas presents but also some goodies for ourselves.   We also noticed that they had erected the town Christmas Pyramid as well as their Christmas Tree. We then went out to the Fredericksburg Brewery and taste a sampling of their beers. We were not overwhelmed. 

Town Christmas Tree

Town Christmas Pyramid

25 October 2020 LBJ State Park and National Historic Park

 We have been to the Fredericksburg area multiple times and always talked about going to the Lyndon Johnson Ranch but never actually made it there. So we decided to check it out this time. LBJ Ranch is part of two parks. A portion of it is a Texas State Park and another portion of the ranch is a National Historic Park. Most of the ranch, over 200 acres of it, are still owned by the descendants of LBJ. The ranch house was called the Texas White House due to LBJ liking to host meetings 

and dignitaries on the ranch. It has a small airfield that they would fly LBJ to the ranch on what he referred to as Air Force ½ since it was a small business jet (Air Force one was too big for the runway on the ranch). LBJ was also an active rancher and bred Hereford cows on the ranch that he would then sell as breeding stock to other ranchers. The ranch house was closed due to COVID as well as structural issues with the old house, but we did get to tour the museum in the National Historic Park and drove around the ranch areas open to the public. We then went back to the state park and toured the historic ranch and buildings from some of the original German settlers to the area. 

State Park Entrance Sign

Historical Park entrance sign

Air Force 1/2

Texas White House

24 October 2020 Hill Country Loop

 We decided to head down to Lost Maples state park for a hike. We hoped the leaves might be changing already. We drove on down to Kerrville and stopped in Bills BBQ for some good Hill Country BBQ. The place is not much to look at, but the food is great. From Kerrville, we headed south on TX39 along the Guadalupe River to TX187 north along the Sabinal River. Lost Maples State Park is along the Sabinal river. We pulled into the park and were stopped by a park ranger. It seems that many state parks now require reservations to limit the number of people in the park. Of course we did not have a reservation and there were none available until about the time we are leaving. We could see that some of the leaves were starting to change but they were at least 2-3 weeks away from prime leaf peak. So we head back out and took TX187 to TX16 north back to Kerrville. It's a quaint essential Texas Hill Country drive. We were disappointed we did not get in a hike but still enjoyed the drive. 

Now thats a real BBQ pit!!

Bill's BBQ!

23 October 2020 Luckenbach Texas

Having heard the song about Luckenbach Texas so many times, we decided we had to visit there. We were expecting something like Gruene Texas, a small tourist town with old buildings. What we found was a collection of 4 old buildings and that was about it! They did have a dance hall that was roped off due to COVID. A general store that had also been the Post office, a take out short order restaurant and a bar. The good part was they had a live folk band playing and Shiner on tap. So we grabbed a burger and a beer and sat down to enjoy the band. Leslie found a hat she wanted in the little store out behind the Post Office. A relaxing afternoon.

Lückenbach Concert Venue

Luckenbach Post Office