Fredericksburg, Texas - July 19th to 21st, 2023
There is just something very appealing to us about cute, small, historic towns. Add in a little German heritage and you have Fredericksburg, Texas. We’ve been to Fredericksburg a couple of times before. We always enjoy our visits there.
Wednesday was a short drive from McKinney Falls State Park in Austin, to Lady Bird Johnson Municipal Campground in Fredericksburg, less than a two hour drive. Since we were out somewhat late the night before to watch the bats, we slept in and took our time packing up in the morning.
We arrived in Fredericksburg around noon. The town is in the Hill Country of Texas, with a German heritage. The area is known for its wineries and peaches. We passed many vineyards, wineries, peach orchids, and breweries on the way into town. The Hill Country is the place to go in the spring when the wild flowers are in bloom, especially the bluebonnets. There weren’t many wildlflower blooms while we were there. The heat wave was still in full swing.
Before going to check in at the campground, we stopped in town to have lunch on Main Street. Fredericksburg Brewing Company sounded interesting, so we went there. Keith tried the Knackwurst sandwich while Ann ordered the green chile burger. Normally we gravitate towards the German food whenever we can, but Ann’s brother always raves about the green chile burgers in New Mexico, so she decided to try one, even though we weren’t in New Mexico yet. Ann enjoyed the burger, but Keith didn’t think his sandwich was anything special. However, he did enjoy the sample of Honey Cream Ale that he ordered.
From there we drove over to a laundromat in town. We were getting low on clean clothes. Ann was wearing her last clean shirt. Fredericksburg Laundry had plenty of clean, well-maintained machines. We were able to get our three loads done in less than an hour and a half. Pretty painless.
Lady Bird Johnson Municipal Campground is to the south of town, right next to the Gillespie County Airport. The campground doesn’t have much shade, but our site had partial shade, thanks to the tree right next to it. It didn’t take long for Ann to spot the public swimming pool in the park, just past the campground. She made plans to visit the next day to cool off in the afternoon.
Even though we were right next to the airport, we couldn’t hear the planes from inside Red Tail (our Winnebago EKKO). That was due to a combination of our loud air conditioner drowning out the sound of the planes and the small planes were not very loud to begin with. We could see the planes take off and land from Red Tail, looking out the few windows we didn’t have covered to keep the sun out.
Thursday we went for a hike. Enchanted Rock State Recreation Area was only a 30 minute drive from our campground. It was a beautiful drive through the Hill Country to get there. As we approached Enchanted Rock, we passed a sign saying reservations were required. Ann quickly got online while we still had a cell signal. Reservations for day passes are required for weekends and holidays. They are only recommended at other times. She tried to purchase a day pass online, but it wouldn’t let her select the current day, so we kept on driving, hoping we could get in when we got there.
When we arrived, it was no problem purchasing a day pass at the entrance gate. The ranger warned us about the heat and that the trails are exposed. Their recommendation was to take at least one liter of water per hour we planned being on the trail. A posted sign indicated how many people and dogs they have already rescued this season due to heat. There was no water at the park, except for bottles of water available for purchase. We had plenty of water in our fresh water tank, so that was not a problem. If you go, make sure you bring plenty of water with you.
The trail we picked out was the Loop Trail. The trail is the longest in the park, circling Enchanted Rock, Little Rock, and Freshman Mountain. All three of those peaks are solid rock hills with little to no vegetation. There is a trail that goes up to the summit of Enchanted Rock. The views are probably even better from the summit of Enchanted Rock and the Summit Trail is much shorter, but walking up a hot rock on a hot day didn’t seem worth it to us.
The Loop Trail was a lovely trail. It would have been even better on a cooler day. Most of the trail is exposed, but there are scrubby trees, bushes and plenty of prickly pear cactus all around you. The trees provided a small spot of shade every now and then. Not only were there views out across the Hill Country from the trail, there were also views of the rocky hills we were encircling. The rock formations were very interesting.
Lizards scurried down the trail in front of us, leading the way. We crossed several dry washes. At different times of the year, you may need to walk through water, but not while we were there.
We took the trail in the clockwise direction. The back side of Enchanted Rock was the most exposed, but we ended up in more shade during the end of our hike. On the front side of Enchanted Rock, the Loop Trail follows alongside Sand Creek. There was no water in the creek that we saw, except for two puddles, but there was more vegetation and trees along the creek, providing some shade on the trail. There were fish swimming in the small pools of water. In the first pool, Keith saw a turtle jump in and somehow found a place to hide from us. In the second pool, there was a snake, laying in the water, probably trying to stay cool.
By the time we returned to Red Tail, we had gone 5.5 miles with an elevation gain of 390 feet in just under three hours. We counted it as hike number 35 of our 52 Hike Challenge for 2023. It was 12:15 pm when we finished, just as the temperature reached 95 degrees. We were careful to stop every 15 minutes and take a drink of water, whether we felt thirsty or not. It was hot, but a gentle breeze across our clothing, damp from our sweat, kept it tolerable.
After our hike, we headed back to Fredericksburg, to the Airport Diner near the campground. The diner was a fun little place. We enjoyed our reuben and club sandwiches paired with sweet potato tots, and especially enjoyed our chocolate malts. The windows of the diner faced the runway, so we could watch the small planes take off and land. It looked like someone was taking flying lessons, as one plane made quite a few touch-and-goes, landing and taking off again often. The diner was cutely decorated in a 1950’s style. It was a great place to refresh ourselves after our hike.
Later that afternoon, Ann walked over to the public swimming pool and took a dip. It was $2 per person and was open from 1 pm to 6:30 pm every day except Tuesday. The pool was wonderful. There was a kiddie pool, a shallow junior pool, and a main pool. The depth of the main pool ranged from about 4 feet to 5 feet. One corner of the pool was roped off for a diving board, so hopefully the water was a little deeper there. There were also a couple of lanes roped off for lap swimming.
Dinner involved some creative thinking. Pasta with sautéed broccoli was on our menu plan. We didn’t want to cook inside on the stove because we didn’t want to heat up Red Tail. If we use the induction cooktop inside, we need to turn off the AC, which we didn’t want to do either. We’ve cooked pasta outside before on the induction cooktop with it directly connected to the 20A circuit on the campsite pedestal. However, the 20A outlets were located right above the 30A connection and the plug would not fit while our 30A connector was plugged in. After thinking about our dilemma for a couple of minutes, we pulled out our 50A to 30A dog bone and moved our 30A connection over to the 50A outlet. Then we had no problems plugging the induction cooktop into one of the 20A outlets. Problem solved!
Friday we spent the day strolling the historic downtown of Fredericksburg. Many of the old buildings are made from limestone. We started our tour by heading to the Old German Bakery Restaurant. There were people waiting outside for a table, fortunately in the shade. We went inside and added our name to the waiting list. It was 10:45 am and there was about a 20 minute wait. Keith noticed there were only two apple strudels left in the bakery showcase, so he bought them to have later in the day.
The restaurant was rather disappointing for us. Less than half the items on the menu were German dishes. The German pancake caught our eye, but when it came out, it was not what we were expecting. To us, a German pancake is similar to a Dutch Baby, baked in an oven. However, here it was fried on a griddle in oil, similar to an American pancake. At least they served it with fresh lemon and powdered sugar. The batter they used might have been similar to a German pancake, but frying it gave it a different flavor.
Later that evening, when we ate our strudel, we were disappointed again. In our minds, strudel is made with a flaky, layered dough, like puff pastry. The strudel from Old German Bakery was a thick layer of simple pastry dough wrapped around the apple filling. We expected more authentic German food from a place called Old German Bakery Restaurant in a town with a long German heritage.
After walking up and down Main Street, admiring all the limestone buildings in the heat, we cooled off in Clear River. Clear River is an ice cream shop, bakery, and deli all wrapped in one. It has a fun decor. There is seating both downstairs and upstairs. We tried going upstairs to sit, but it was much warmer up there, so we quickly went back down to the cool air conditioning of the main floor.
We started out with kolaches. Again, Keith had the polish sausage while Ann had the one with sausage, jalapeño and cheese, like we had when we were in Austin just a couple of days prior. Why change when you find something you like? We did mix it up for our ice cream. Keith had a vanilla shake, but made with Mexican vanilla to add a little spice to it. Believe it or not, Ann’s ice cream contained no mint and no chocolate. She went with peaches & cream paired with strawberry, peaches, and pecans. She felt she needed to eat something with peaches while in the Hill Country. All our food was very tasty.
After strolling around town a little more to work off all those calories, we returned to the campground. There were a lot of cars parked over by the public pool, so Ann skipped swimming, as she didn’t feel like being in a crowded pool. We just hung out in the air conditioning the rest of the evening. Since we had pasta leftover from the night before, we didn’t need to cook. We just reheated our meal in the microwave. Running the microwave automatically turns off the AC and automatically turns the AC back on after the microwave finishes. We like the convenience of that feature.
When we visited Fredericksburg before, we just stopped for a couple of hours as we drove through the Hill Country. This time we got a chance to get to know the area a little better. Even though we didn’t feel like we got much in the way of German food this time, we still had a great visit. We’ll be back…when it’s cooler outside…perhaps during bluebonnet season.
Check out our related video: Fredericksburg, Texas
(Ann)