How to Marry a Cowboy - Day 1

So we drove for hours today - really no idea how many, but we ended up only about an hour and forty minutes away from Austin. Our route took us through Spicewood and several different counties, but we ended up here in Fredericksburg for the night.

The weather has been beautiful all day! It has, of course, been nasty and humid, but we didn't really expect anything differet.



We headed down SH 71 to Spicewood first. It ended up being pretty close to noon by the time we got out of town, so we were reallly ready for lunch by the time we got there. We followed the directions on a billboard to this place:



First we were impressed with the view from our table:



Then we were delighted by our food; the picture of which is not very pretty. I always forget to take a picture before I start eating. Oh well...we ended up pleasantly full and pretty much danced back to the car:




Fredericksburg was the next stop, but we wanted a pretty drive. So we asked about a scenic drive at a gas station and got an enthusiastic recommendation of Tallow (sp?) Willow Road. The guy gave us directions and we set out to follow them. We did find a very pretty drive, but we never did find the turn off for Tallow Willow. Oh well - maybe next year.

This is what we did find:





We also set up my tripod for the first time and took a picture (or ten) of us together:




In case you're interested in a scenic drive yourself, we took Sandy Road. It runs from 281 in Johnson City to a RR outside of Fredericksburg.

Many miles and many country songs later, we ended up here:




At Serendipity Guest House in Fredericksburg. It is delightful!! You never realllly know when you book a bed & breakfast, but this one turned out okay. It's a little quirky (no inside stairs from the downstairs to the upstairs) but it makes up for it in downright cuteness.


Whoo! Long day = long post. Hang in there! There are cowboys on the way!!

But before we got to the cowboys, we found some sustenance at Hondo's in Fredericksburg. Yum. And a cool place, too!

Finally, we made our way to Stonewall, Texas and found...:




Just exactly what we were looking for! If you can call a rodeo cute, this one was the cutest! It was in a tiny little arena in Stonewall. They started with Mutton Busting and ended with Bull Riding. There were mannnny cowboy hats and lots of very excited kids (some of them in what looked like adult-sized cowboy hats! So cute) But unfortunately the light got pretty low pretty quickly, so that's all we have from the rodeo.

We stuck around for the dance, but Stonewall is apparently not a very dance-y crowd. Oh well! We had a great time.

We're off to bed soon, but at the moment, we are sitting outside a McDonald's pinching Wi-Fi (it's free anyway - they just happen to be closed) to post this blog. The Wi-Fi at the house is a little spotty and it wasn't doing anything for us when we got back from the rodeo.

Whew!! Thanks for sticking it out to the end of that one! More tomorrow!