Wehner Texas 2016: MARCH 30: SAN ANTONIO TO AUSTIN

We checked out and headed north and west to Fredericksburg, a quaint small town in the Texas Hill Country with a German flair and a vibrant main street with several blocks of eclectic shops. Luckily the rain held off while we walked up and down Main Street and did a little shopping. They have quite the collection of benches lining the street, the wagon wheel benches were our favorite.

We experienced our first bad weather on the drive to Spicewood and the Travis Lake Area. We took the long route through Spicewood to have lunch at the famous Opies BBQ. It did not disappoint, maybe the best BBQ I’ve ever had. We have yet to make to Lockhart, the “BBQ Capital of Texas” so I’ll reserve judgment till then. They had an awesome line of T-shirts that used famous rock album covers and replaced the band’s name with Opies BBQ. I’ll probably regret not getting one. The Travis Lake Area was disappointing, not nearly as nice as it looked on a map.

Late afternoon we arrived at our hotel in Austin to take a break and let the rush hour traffic subside before heading back out to explore.

We meandered through the neighborhoods of West Austin including Tarrytown to Covert Park at the top of Mount Bonnell. The park and walking path at the top of the hill was a pleasant surprise – a must see if you are in town. From the top you have fantastic views of the Austin skyline and the Lake Austin portion of the Colorado River. Multi-million dollar homes line each side of the river. We found a dead end route to a few of the homes that did not have gated drives to see them up close. We found an empty lot that we had guessed must be worth half a million dollars. Boy were we wrong. We looked it up and found it could be had for a mere $5 million, land only.

We ended our day with a small dinner at a Cheddars near the hotel and prepared for a big day tomorrow.

Fredericksburg