We went on this trip as a Mother Daughter bonding trip with my Mom included last year but due to her broken foot she didn't feel like coming and doing a lot of walking this year. I told her that wouldn't have been a problem....She wouldn't have had to walk because we would have made her our designated driver so she could move slowly out side the vehicle or nap if she so desired while Pamela and I drank wine around the Hill Country. And in case you think I'm depriving her of wine I'm not. Mom isn't a big drinker but I'm sure she would have got a good laugh or two out of watching Pamela or Me. I can't imagine the damage we could have done had we had a designated driver. Oh Wee Wino's!
We woke up a week ago last Friday morning ready for some adventure. We got cleaned up, grabbed a light bite of breakfast and went into town to shop. There's all kinds of shops and things to see. Some you can afford and others not so much. Pamela has this idea she'd like to put a chandelier in her master bath so she's keeping her eyes open for the ONE that hits her hot button. So one of the shops we hit was Phil Jackson's Amazing World of We shopped until 11:45 and decided to head to Comfort, TX for some Lunch at Guenthers Biergarten and then go, imagine find some wine and moonshine. Yes moonshine.
Guenther's is a place David and I found to eat the last time we were in Comfort. Reasonably price and pretty tasty. Friday was all you could eat catfish and fixings for $7. Not bad so we stayed and ate.
With our tummies full we were off to the first winery.. Bending Branch. I was so glad to see that mine and David's favorite Somebody was there.
What's a Somebody you ask, well actually the title is a Sommelier. We never knew what that was and then David decided to call it a Somebody being silly and it's stuck. Dana is our favorite The wines were a little to dry for Pamela but I walked out with 2 bottles because David loves their Tannat wine. My tastes buds must be evolving too because I like it too but I'm still more partial like Pamela to the slightly sweeter wines.
As we drove down the road we saw a herd of deer. One of those cute critters is a nice size buck. He had quite a Harem. The wind kept blowing the branch in front of the shot.The young lady who helped us here was a sweetie. This is where Me, David and our Friend Sheryl was asked to be models for a glass of wine. We sat in the tree house drinking wine while a photographer snapped pictures of us. The young lady told Pamela and I that they still have the pictures and they'll be on their new website eventually. We'll see.
So Pamela wanted to go out and take pictures in the tree house too. This is a rare event...She's letting me take pictures of her.
Selfie time!
The country side is just beautiful.A couple of bottles of wine later and we're off to our next stop.
Our next stop is the Hill Country Distillery where they make Moonshine. Oh boy!
First thing we're greeted by a guy and tells the tasting bar is a little full so how about a tour of the distillery. We said sure and the first room they took us too was the fermenting room. OMG. The 2 moonshines they make is Prickly Pear and Jalapeno so can you guess the smell in that room. My nose immediately started burning and then it became hard to breathe. Pamela didn't last long in that room. She had to walk out so she could breathe. Moonshine isn't illegal if you get a license. The only problem the state had was how to classify the distillery. Moonshine well it's not wine and it's not burbon etc so they put them in the category as a Specialty Liquor.
The tasting room cleared out and it was our turn to taste the Moonshine. First taste was Prickly Pear. 102 proof oh boy we're in trouble. Pamela took her first sip and I do believe she was blowing flames like a dragon. I was scared but took my taste. FIRE! WHOA!
Next came the jalapeno moonshine also 102 proof. I'm not sure I'll feel it after the first one. It didn't burn. I think the first one actually torched all my taste buds. Now the next two were mellow. They're producing an orange and lemon cello. They had a tad of a bite but were tasty. They had a whole drink list to try and that's just what we did.
Here is a Dreamsicle and a Blue Moon. The Dreamsicle was made with the Orange cello but Pamela's was made with prickly pear. Yum
Remember Dreamsicles?That's what my drink tasted like.
Now I was really wanting to try a drink made with the japapeno moonshine so ....they made me 1/2 of a bloody Mary. I'm not a Bloody Mary drinker but I wanted to try. It was tasty but too salty for me. Didn't waste it though.
Pamela actually bought a few bottles for her friends. She really wanted to buy some of the cello but they don't have the labels yet. Give them 6 months and they'll be ready for sale.
Time to go on down the road. We wanted to go to Sister Creek Winery and off we went.
We found the an Aggie shed out in the middle of nowhere. I think it's the same one David and I found but it's been repainted. As we continued down the road Pamela saw an old truck for me to photograph. Now this one is rather colorful but still cool.
We stopped at our final winery back in Fredericksburg called Messina Hof like the one in Bryan College Station. We did our wine tasting with a young man who was lacking in wine knowledge and sight. He had to hold the glasses right in front of his face to see how much wine he was pouring.
Then all he basically did was tell us the name of the wine which we already knew since we picked it out. We wanted to relax a little bit before going to dinner so we ordered a glass of wine and
got a cheese plate to sit out on their patio. Not much of a view but it was relaxing until this couple came out and smoked a pack of cigarettes in the 30 minutes we were there. Plus the woman sat on the phone the entire time talking loudly about people getting divorced. Okay so maybe it wasn't so relaxing.
We finished our wine and headed out to find a place to eat.
We ended up at a place called the Buffalo Nickel. There was a new place on the right with pizza that was hopping but I passed on the pizza. I got a portabello mushroom sandwich and Pamela got...mmm I think a chicken sandwich. Dang too much wine I guess because I can't remember for sure what she got. Oh well. We decided against having a drink since we'd had plenty after 3 wineries and 1 moonshine distillery. LOL. You'd think we were alcoholics.
I have to admit that the moonshine was sitting hard on my stomach. By the time dinner was over we were exhausted and decided to call it a night. We were in bed and asleep by 11pm. Crazy.
We slept in till about 9:20 Saturday. Felt good but the moonshine was still rumbling in my stomach but I wasn't gonna let it stop me/us from having fun. We got dressed and went to Main Street for a tad of shopping/browsing until lunch time. We went to Hondo's so Pamela could get that huge chicken sandwich she got last year that over flowed the bun big time.
This picture is from last year. See how huge the chicken was. I wanted to try this chicken sandwich that Pamela thought was so yummy. To our pleasant surprise the chicken was more manageable. It fit on the bun with just a little hanging over the bun. Food was so yummy. I thought about getting one of Hondo's awesome jalapeno margarita's but thought better of it 
because after lunch we were gonna shop just a little more and then take on some more wineries. Go imagine.
Good thing this Girls Weekend to Fredericksburg only happens once a year. I'd be broke and drunk. LOL
We hit a couple of shops near Hondo's and we discussed our plan of attack. We decided to go back into Hye and start there. So as we're driving out of town I changed our course.
I made a quick right turn into Torre Di Pietra Winery. Here we shared a tasting. They wanted $15 for tasting of 6 wines. It was a pretty place and they had live music. They're currently in the process of building a restaurant. Pamela did find a wine that she liked from there before we left. We tried to go to Becker Winery and Lavender fields but holy cow the parking lot was packed and I could see the people were packed near the wine tasting stations. We drove out of the lot and drove the rode where we decided to stop at Woodrose Winery. It has a nice set up. Pretty tasting area in and outside, and 2 meeting buildings.
We walked in and A young lady told us to have a seat in or out and she'd be right with us. She came over to give us a list of wines for tasting and glasses and said she be right back.
We sat there for a good 15 minutes and no one came back to us. Our glasses were empty.It's sad to have wine glasses and no wine.
Finally a different gal came over and started talking and laughing with us and still no wine. Finally she notices and starts our wine tasting. Now Pamela and I chose the sweet list so that made it easy. Okay not so sweet. I think this vineyard is still too new. We sat there again with empty glasses and now a 3rd lady comes up to pour our next 2 tastings. Not much explanation on the wines they just poured. I think I'm spoiled. Dana at the Bending Branch describes each wine and tells you where the tastes will hit your pallet. We left Woodrose disappointed.
We drove on into Hye to go to the Hye Cellars but again parking lot was full and we didn't want to waste time standing around so we turned around and went to William Chris Winery. Not too crowded or so we thought and they had music. We had to check in which was something different and found out that they had no openings until 4:30pm and it was like 2:45. I don't think so but for $5 we could go to the dessert wine tasting. What the hell let's do it we thought..... Why in the hell did we do that? LOL The 3 wines we tasted were infused with Brandy. Neither of us liked that blend.
So back on the road and heading back into Fredericksburg..
Our next stop was Hilmy Vineyards. The young man doing our tasting was very friendly. He ended each conversation with 'yeah'. For instance he told us.. "This wine is good with... sunshine... uh yeah"
But it was done with smiles but we weren't that impressed with the wines. Just not to our liking. They weren't bad but not what we wanted so off we go for to Winery #5. Are you counting?
We wheeled into Fiesta Winery. They too had live music. We went inside and bellied up to the bar. Well the guy behind the bar was a little bitchy. Pamela said he threw out the F bomb at least once but he kept complaining about people coming in and they needed to go home. Hated to tell him but the place didn't close until 6:30pm and he had another hour to go. At least the people standing next to us were fun and nice. We each might have walked away with a bottle of wine from Fiesta in spite of the guy being a jerk.
For last winery we went to Rancho Pointe. They also had music that was a tad too loud for the small patio area but at least the employee's were friendly and so were the people around us. We had been here before and really liked some of their wine. They had one we really liked on the tasting list but was totally sold out. No Fair. You tempt us with something we really like but don't have any to sell. Rude but we did buy a couple bottles before leaving and closing the place.
I needed food by then. My tummy was grumpy with all those wines and believe it or not that damn moonshine was still letting me know I did that shot the day before.
We decided to try an Italian restaurant called Pasta Bella next to the Buffalo Nickel. If a line indicates how good the food is we figured it must be good. We only waited 15 minutes. When we parked I started laughing and Pamela thought I had lost it but I had her look across the street at this poor girl and her boyfriend. She was drunk. She could barely stand and her head just kept flopping back on his chest or shoulder and sliding down. He finally put his arm around her waist and lead her down the street.
NO MORE WINE. Put a fork in me I'm done. Give me water and food.I think the pictures say it all. I did walk out of the restaurant a happy girl. The food and the service was good.
Can't believe this is our last night in Fredericksburg. I guess all good things must come to an end. Pamela and I both found some wines, she found some items for decor at the new house and I found a couple things for David.
Sunday we got up had brunch at the Old German Bakery down by Hondo's. The food and the service was good with large quantities.This is the German pancake I ordered. Almost like a crepe but better. It came unfolded and draped over the edges of the plate. YUM
We grabbed a couple of pastries for breakfast Monday. I shared mine with David.
It was time to head down the road towards home but first we had to stop at the WildSeed Farms. It's always fun to walk through and see what seeds, nick nacks, plants and flowers they have. Again my daughter was being very obliging and let me take more pictures of her.
A few bluebonnets and Aggie bonnets.
On our travels we did see lots of bluebonnets and wildflowers. These particular pictures were taken at the Wildseed Farm. Bluebonnets and Poppies and other wild flowers.
Then I saw the picture I wanted and had been looking for. A longhorn with thousands of bluebonnets and a few of his closest friends.
I love this horse. I don't know much about horses but this one is all spotted like a Dalmatian (maybe Appaloosa) and she's small in stature. And the best part she had a tiny foal. OMG it was so adorable and tiny. It was smaller than a Great Dane. Found out before posting that the horse is a Miniature Appaloosa
The baby came running to Momma when I got out of the car to take their picture.
Sooo pretty.
The rest of the drive was uneventful. Our trip was nearly over. About 50 more miles and we'd be home.
We may try to choose a new location of stay next year but it's all close enough we can drive in to Fredericksburg for the day if we so choose.
But who knows that's next year and maybe then my Mom will feel like joining us.
So until next blog....A daughter may outgrow your lap, but
she will never outgrow your heart
1 comment:
Hi Carla, lovely post. The pics are wonderful and I love the countryside. You have so much fun. Happy Friday.
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