Texas 2017

Last week found the Husband and I on yet another adventure:  Texas Hill Country!

 

The Theme:  BBQ!  Based off of this online article:   18 Texas BBQ Joints to Try Before You Die. 
Destinations:  Canyon Lake, San Antonio, Llano, Wemberly, Driftwood, Austin, and Lockhart.

Saturday - Departure Day!  After a bit of a rough start Saturday morning, where I woke up at 3a only to find that our flight out of Duluth was cancelled, which meant we would completely miss our connecting flight in Minneapolis, and thus our Noon arrival in San Antonio.   Argh!  It was a weather related delay, the ticket agent was most accommodating, and we (and the luggage!) did make it to San Antonio by 830p Saturday night, and the Canyon Lake Resort by 10pm.  As long as we were on the ground in Texas, WITH the luggage, I was satisfied.

Sunday - get our bearings day/hang out.  We went and got a handful of groceries and settled in to watch a bit of football.  Not very exciting, I know, but after a day like Saturday, we desperately needed it.

Monday - San Antonio was the destination.  Weather was a beautiful 78* and sunny.  We strolled around the Alamo, lunch outside on the Riverwalk, and then went and walked around the oldest of the Missions - San Juan Capistrano.  That brought us up to about 330p, where we called it a day and we headed back to Canyon Lake to miss the heaviest of rush hour.

San Juan Mission, San Antonio

Tuesday - was a scheduled "down day" and the destination was Llano.   We stopped at a great winery near Johnson called Texas Hills Vineyard where we found out the owner is originally from White Bear Lake, MN, and her brother still lives there.   Neat!   This was by and far, our favorite winery.

Anyhow, Llano has the the #3 ranked BBQ joint in Texas: Coopers BBQ Pit.   It was a true Texas BBQ joint, complete with all the pit smokers outside.  You pick your meat of choice from a guy outside, he puts it on a tray and then you go in and get your sides.  What shocked us, was for being an unassuming, rough around the edges place, how expensive it was.   I got four pork ribs, D picked beef ribs and a little piece of brisket, two small sides of mac and cheese and blackberry cobbler - $75.00.  My four ribs alone were $21.  YIKES!   Talk about a shocker!  We did bring back leftovers that became supper, which helped, but still, NOT an inexpensive place.  We also learned that while the meat looks small in the cooker, once it's on your place, it's grown exponentially and now it's HUGE, which is how we ended up with leftovers.

More wandering around Hill Country, stopped at Driftwood Estate Winery and we eventually made our way back to Canyon Lake.

Driftwoods Vineyards

Wednesday - I had Austin on the agenda, but we never made it.  We ran out of energy and scaled back our plans.  Bottom line, neither of us wanted to drive into Austin which isn't that far from where we ate lunch in Driftwood - but it still would have been 35 minutes and then several hours at the Library, and an hour drive home and we just didn't have the umph.  LBJ Library can be another trip.

So we crawled around Wemberly, we ate lunch at another fabulous BBQ joint in Driftwood called  The Salt Lick,  went to Duchman Family Winery where we enjoyed a glass of wine while playing a toss the bean bag game, stopped at a yarn store in Wemberly on the way back so I could get a skein of yarn wound (which I forgot to do before I left Duluth ARGH!) back to Canyon Lake and a soak in the hot tub.  Gotta love 75* in November!  

Boots! at Wemberly

Thursday - Lockhart and Black's BBQ was Thursday's destination!  Blacks was #1 ranked BBQ joint in Texas according to that on-line article we were working off of.  This was good, really good.  From Lockhart we went to McKinney Falls State Park just outside of Austin and crawled around the rock formations.  Feeling a bit parched in the 80* temps, we stopped at Middleton Brewing on the way back.   While their names are witty and they've one a few medals, neither one of us cared for their beer.  A bit to hoppy and bitter for our tastes. 

Lower Falls - McKinney State Park, Austin

Bouldering Rocks and evidence of El Camino Real de los Tejas

Friday - pack-up and clean-up day!  We hung around the resort until about 430p in the afternoon, then loaded up the car and headed to Gruene (pronounced "Green") and the Gristmill.  After some initial apprehension about getting into the restaurant due to the shear number of cars and people, we had no problems.  Oh my GOSH!  What a great way to wrap up a week!  Sitting outside while the sun set, enjoying a fantastic meal, was just splendid.   Unfortunately, it was too dark to get any good pictures. 
 
Afterwards, we slowly made our way to San Antonio in backed up traffic (accident and construction), a brief moment of tempers flaring as we attempted to navigate the whole airport interchange and poorly marked exits, we made it to the hotel.   

Saturday was a 3am start, to give us time to return the rental car, catch the shuttle, deal with the check luggage counter, airport security and EVERYTHING went absolutely smoothly.  Plan was early into Minneapolis saving us a mad mad dash across the terminals.  Flight into Duluth was smooth, our ride was waiting and we were home by Noon. 

When we left at 3a, it was 69*.  When we landed at 11a, it was 8*.  

I miss Texas already...

Wemberly, TX