Memorial Weekend Road Trip Review

Old German Restaurant and Bakery

Spear grass spear. 

Steeple to an old black church in F'burg.

When they have Texas's Ugliest Courthouse Competition this one will be  a shoo in. Really, it is so ugly that if there wasn't a discussion to make it so during the planning phase they simply had to have determined beforehand to have the simplest, least provocative and cheapest court house in Texas.

• We got home around 6:00 Monday evening. Holy smokes I was tired. I was so tired I couldn't sleep- I would nod off and jerk awake. I took some Nyquil and I am not sure I moved for the next 8 hours.
• Old Tunnel Bat Cave park near Blanco was a hi lite of the trip. FG was the first to see the first bat fly out. Before it was over with we watched 300 thousand+ emerge. By the end of the season there may be as many as 3 million bats there. As the name implies the tunnel was an old railroad tunnel that fell into disuse in the 40s.
•  We found a Holiday Inn with one room available after searching for over an hour. We could have planned that better. At one point before we scored the Holiday Inn room I pulled up to a fleabag motel. Here is the conversation that followed: Oh Kevin. What is this? We can't do this. This place looks dangerous. We've been looking for an hour and it is only going to get worse as people want to get off the road. It is either this or sleep in the car with one eye open in a Wal Mart parking lot. I replied.  Kevin, It looks dangerous! she said. Oh, I know that- you are going to get beat up and robbed and I'm going to get raped- either way. You might as well get your head wrapped around that. You've got that backwards Kevin. Whatever, the story ends with you sold into slavery and belly dancing for some perverted prince in Dubai- whether it starts here or a Wal Mart parking lot. There wasn't a vacancy. The manager removed the dirty paper towel covering the No on the No Vacancy sign that was in the window as we were leaving.

• We ate at the Old German Restaurant and Bakery in Fredericksburg. They had a passable Jaegerschitzel with pan fries and as reported by FG very good cheeseburgers.

• The crawdad festival in town was a lot of fun. They had some decent live Zydeco and a guy who brought out gators and snakes for demonstration. As we approached the gate I had a little sticker shock- especially as it looked rainy so we went and found sustenance. It poured for an hour closing down some vendors but most importantly the ticket booth.  We went in for free and about 15 minutes later it was sunny.
• I am still amazed at the number of vineyards and wineries in the Fredricksburg area. It was comical to see all the high toned ladies floating around stoned out of their gourds after those classy wine tastings.
•  We sat at the bat emergence with a couple from San Antonio. They had met 20 years ago in Cali and got together 4 years ago through Facebook- aka The Devil. The first night they went out as teens they found their initials carved in a tunnel wall near a beach and saw it as a sign. He dropped hints he was awesome as he had been in Desert Storm.  My guess is he fibbed about Desert Storm but I don't know, maybe he was awesome.

•  While we listened to the Zydeco I leaned back and looked up into the rafters and around at the people. There were 3 little girls daring each other to dance who finally formed a conga line and had a blast dancing around. FG was smiling. There was the requisite couple who dance unnaturally well and another who don't realize how awfully they dance and wouldn't care if it was pointed out to them. It smelled good- rain, seasoning from the cooking, cotton candy and cheap cologne. An elderly man got up and started dancing by himself. His wife is probably dead. A trashy girl got up and started dirty dancing with him. He didn't care. Everybody smiled and pointed them out to their friends. I let out a Cajun yell, Ah yeeeeee! FG laughed and smiled. And I thought, We will never be here again.