Sunday, June 22, 2014

Road Trip, Day 3 - Fredericksburg, Texas

Day three of our three week road trip began in El Paso, Texas.  We had to hit the road early for our long, 500 mile drive to Fredericksburg, Texas.  And, I mean lonnnng!  West Texas is SO big and mannnny of the miles have pretty much the same scenery.  Luckily, it changes from plain desert to having some green, limestone walls where the road was cut into, and cattle.


It got greener as we got closer to Hill Country.
  

We stopped in the tiny town of Ozona for lunch.  I thought this was an interesting sight there...


The scenery got prettier and more fun as we got into Hill Country and closer to Fredericksburg.  The landscape became greener, more lush, and more colorful.  There were huge carpets of yellow, orange, and purple flowers.  It was beautiful!  Unfortunately, as in all road trips, many of the most beautiful areas and gorgeous flowers happen to be where we can't pull over to take photos.  There were pink flowers that I'd never seen but they were never anywhere we pull could over.  I wanted so badly to see what they looked like!  We did, however, get some photos of a field of yellow...


It was filled with yellow daisies and these pretty little flowers...


These tiny, white flowers were on the edge of the road where we pulled over.
I've never seen them before.  They're cute and look like little stars.
Without a careful look they'd easily be missed because they're so small.


 As we drove into town late that afternoon we saw this beautiful old library building...


We decided to take a quick stroll through the old main street area of Fredericksburg before checking into the hotel.  I love it when towns preserve their old town area.  There were lots of charming stores.
I was disappointed though that the my favorites from the last visit were no longer there.  The fabulous weaving and knitting store that was there last time had closed too.


We stayed at a Holiday Inn close by.  Our room smelled like someone had spilled a bottle of cheap and horrible smelling men's cologne.  It was so strong that it was giving us a headache within minutes of being there.  Thankfully, they switched us to another room that smelled soooo much better!  And, it was nicer too....it was larger and had a balcony over the pool area.  

They had a nice swimming pool.  It had a peninsula/island, water slides, an area that went around like a river, a water fall, a cave, fountains, fire rings, and a jacuzzi.  We had to take a dip!

Our nice room and balcony were just what we needed after our long day.  The weather was wonderful that evening.  We sat on the balcony, propped our feet up and ate dinner.  Later, we enjoyed a glass (plastic cup) of wine, strawberries, and chocolate cookies out there.  I even got a little knitting time in that evening.  Ahhhh!


There's a two hour time difference and we seem to still be on California time.  So, we keep finding ourselves turning in pretty late.  But, we did get some sleep that night.  The weird thing is that I keep waking up super early....around 4'ish, California time.  So, that morning, I got up and did some blogging while my daughter got a little more sleep.  I was able to get the first two posts of our trip up.
We packed up a little later and headed to nearby Austin, Texas for our next stop.

Several more days have passed since then but I have wifi again and I'm trying to get caught up.
Stay tuned!

6 comments:

judith said...

How are you liking the heat? Awesome huh?

The red and yellow flowers are Indian Blankets, the white ones are probably Wine Cap. You can identify more as you see them on this site.

http://www.texaswildflowerpictures.com/wf_index.htm

We LOVE our wildflowers in Texas and cities even plant their medians between streets and highways with them. We even have festivals in their names.

I need a road trip with my daughter.

Art and Sand said...

Oh, that sky!

I love the flowers.

Keep having fun!

Art and Sand said...

Oh, that sky!

I love the flowers.

Keep having fun!

Delighted Hands said...

What a great time! Love the scenery-I traveled through Texas back in the '70's; I am sure it has changed a little since then! Have fun!

Susan said...

I am sure enjoying 'your' trip! Nothing like traveling vicariously and having someone else take wonderful pix! Looks like you two are having a ball.

benita said...

I wonder if you could dye with those yellow/orange flowers like you can with coreopsis, which they resemble?

Too bad the weaving shop had closed.

Ozona Wool & Mohair Company, huh? Gotta look that up. :)