Holiday Weekend Roundup
Category: Travel...
Posted Monday, July 04, 2005 at 10:33 PM [GMT-6]

One word will forever define The Weekend of the Fourth, 2005 edition, as experienced in bustling Fredericksburg, Texas: heat. Oh, and let's throw in "humidity," just for good measure.

Yeah, I know. It was hot everywhere in Texas this weekend, but we were in Fburg, where everything is a little more intense. A town with a purported population of 9,000 and change was not meant to hold another 20,000 in 104° weather. We're usually here every Easter weekend, and so experiencing the teeming masses is nothing new, but this weekend's masses were markedly more sweaty and grim-looking than those others.

Still, it was a good getaway, as we set up our remote headquarters in a new (to us) B&B located four miles north of town, on Lower Crabapple Road if you're familiar with the area. The B&B had the unimaginative name of "The Country Haus" (Traveler's note: view with suspicion any Hill Country B&B which incorporates the anglicized "House" into its name; the Germanic variation bestows accomodational legitimacy), but it had a great bed, a full kitchen with well-stocked pantry, satellite TV and a fully functional air conditioner. Herds of deer wandered through the yard, requiring Abbye to stay in high alert mode, and the nest of adolescent barn swallows on the front porch kept us entertained as they did perfect imitations of human teenagers, sleeping late and expecting the parents to feed them even though they were obviously old enough to fend for themselves. And, of course, the parents obliged because, well, that's what parents do.

We brought the long bike with us (photo below), intending to put in a few miles each day in the hills. The heat caused us to ride early, but even finishing before noon we were still riding in temperatures in the 90s. This was one weekend where we didn't complain about the wind...the cooling effects of the breeze was more important than any impediment to our cycling progress. We rode just over 30 miles on Saturday morning (out to Enchanted Rock State Natural Area) and almost 40 miles on Sunday morning.

This morning, we got up earlier than usual for breakfast, then drove back to Enchanted Rock where we hiked to the summit of that amazing chunk of granite, then down the other side to the beautiful-but-tiny Moss Lake (Traveler's note: I didn't look it up, but I suspect there are another 6,000 other bodies of water in Texas named "Moss Lake" or some variation thereof). The climb isn't normally strenuous, except we elected to blaze our own trail on the way back, and the GPS recorded a pitch of over 35° in places. We were literally climbing the rock using our hands like Missing Links; fortunately the granite provided excellent traction for the soles of our boots and there was no slipping and sliding.

Above: Early morning view from atop Enchanted Rock
Below: MLB poses next to a dead tree on the summit of Enchanted Rock

Here are some miscellaneous observations from the weekend, primarily for those who occasionally travel to Fredericksburg.

• We ate dinner Saturday at the Herb Farm and it was wonderful. If you're there during peach season (which usually begins around mid-June and runs through the summer), look for the salad dressed with fresh peachs, and don't pass up the peach cobbler with homemade ice cream.


• Speaking of peaches, we accomplished one of our goals for the trip, which was to bring back as many peaches as we could pack into our Durango (about $100 worth, to be exact). MLB is already busy slicing and preparing them for freezing so we can enjoy them for months to come. We found the best peaches around Blumenthal, ten miles east of town on Highway 290, from the Vogel and Engel orchards. But, as they say, your mileage may vary. Note that freestone peaches don't normally begin to ripen until near the end of June.


• If you can't bear to be offline while traveling, you'll be pleased to know that even little Fburg has an almost continuous string of WiFi hotspots along its main drag. Several shops have window signs advertising "free highspeed internet" and my Canary Wireless Digital Hotspotter identified many other open wireless networks, presumably from the back offices of stores who either didn't know or care that their connection was unsecured.


• The Hill Country is starting to look drought-striken again, after a wet 2004 and early-2005. We can handle a month without rain here in west Texas, but it's a different story as you head east.


• It also appears that half of Gillespie County is for sale. I suppose it's the overall strength of the real estate market: relatively low interest rates and lots of oil money, but it seemed like every other lot, house and ranch we passed had a realtor's sign stuck on it.


• The annual 4th of July parade in Fburg must be a big deal. We just missed it, but it took us twenty minutes to drive through the aftermath on our way out of town. In a scene that's replicated in thousands of small towns across our nation, the main street was lined with pickup trucks with beds crammed full of lawn chairs, and the sidewalks were full with families turned out to watch the farm implement-based floats and the junior rodeoers on horseback and the best of the new cars from the local dealership carrying various city dignitaries and honorees. It's a shameless display of patriotism and civic pride, and as aggravated as I was to be in a traffic jam in Fredericksburg, Texas, I couldn't help sharing their pride and thanking God for the unmitigated blessing of living in such a great nation.

Technorati tags: Fredericksburg | Enchanted Rock