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Saturday, July 4, 2009

Texas Wednesday

Oi! I hit the ground running after vacation to Texas and it's been difficult finding computer time!

So, to recap so far, Sunday was a travel day, Monday we toured "the Hill Country", and Tuesday we went to Austin. Really, we probably could have spent our four days in Austin easy! So Wednesday was a rest day - we decided to just hang out in Georgetown.

San Gabriel B&B Gardens

We spent the morning at the B&B. We wandered around the gardens the hosts had out back, but since it was already nearly 85* outside, we opted to curl up in the common area upstairs. The Husband was able to catch up on his fantasy baseball teams and I was able to get some reading done.

At noon we went in quest of some lunch and picked In the Back Alley - this was a little lunchtime restaurant that served pannini's, small upscale pizza's and soups. It was tucked in the back of a little kitchy store with an art gallery in the upper level. The upper level was open to below and I was going to wander up and look but forgot. The husband had a tomato, artichoke, eggplant pizza and I had the pannini in the same. It was a fun place for lunch and seemed to be favored by the locals.

After lunch we decided to go check out InnerSpace Caverns just outside of Georgetown. Again, with temps hitting 105*, finding things cool to do was a tiny bit of a challenge. Initially I had dismissed this cavern because it looked touristy-cheesy, but after Longhorn Caverns (Monday's adventures) we decided what the heck.





They offered a couple different tour packages, and I picked "The Explorer Package" because it was limited to about 14 people (less kids principle) and was about 15-30 minutes longer than the regular tour. Alas, while the less kids principle worked and there were only three, those three made up for it in sheer rambunctiousness. Wow.

Anyway, kids aside, the tour guide did a decent job trying to talk to the kid and the adults in the group. I think it was a lost cause for the two sulky 16 year old girls who couldn't bring themselves to admit it was cool. What made this tour smaller than the regular tour was the opportunity to head down a different passage way, be given flashlights and told, go explore! Now THAT was neat! It's a totally different cave when your only light is a large flashlight and you can sometimes hear the rest of the people off chattering and sometimes it got awfully quiet... Much to every ones surprise, including the guides, we went nearly two hours on the tour! A pretty decent time, despite squirrely kids.

That took us right up to dinner and we decided to head a bit north to Waldburg, TX, where reputedly was an excellent German restaurant. All I can say is, Wow! This place, in the middle of seriously, nowhere, was AWESOME! Set in an old store like building (I forgot to keep the menu so I could read about the history of the place) the inside is pure bier hall. Holding easily 130 people, it has room for a band and a walk-in beer cooler in the middle of the dining area. Mugs and steins decorate the shelves along one wall, all sorts of German paraphernalia decorate the walls and the food was OUTSTANDING. Seriously, we should have shared a plate. I had the roulade with red cabbage and 1 small dumpling (one?? who does just one??) while the Husband had pork chops in a great mushroom white gravy with herbed spatzle. His came with three pork chops! Yaoza! For dessert, and yes I saved room for dessert, we shared a monstrous piece of fresh German forest cake. To say we were stuffed at the end would have been an understatement, but oh so worth it!



In a feeble attempt to walk off a bit of dinner, we walked out behind where they have a outside biergarten set up. Tents, picnic tables, a whole full service bar all ready to go for the weekend crowds and bands. We did see or hear that the biergarten holds about 600. They weren't kidding!



Thursday's adventures - Fredricksburg, TX!

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