July 4th 2008, Weekend

We had a fun July 4^th Weekend, Wooley and I (well Wooley) drove to Austin on Friday July 4^th, morning. We stopped off at the West Czech Stop, a very unique Texan small town experience. It’s so odd how immigration works, and how many eastern European and European communities moved and settled in Texas. We spent a few hours at the Book people book store, had an iced mocha (well I did) and Wooley had a hot mocha. Again we love the whole keep Austin “weird” the independent stores and “different” vibe in Austin. We had a lovely evening, we went a great place called South Congress Café, I had really spicy crab enchiladas. We then walked down to Town Lake, where the Austin Symphony orchestra played and the July 4^th fireworks were fantastic. The following day we drove to Fredericksburg, we stopped off at the LBJ national historic park. It is very interesting and illuminating as to how that period in history was so full of huge events that have really changed the shape and nature of American government, “ as President he was responsible for designing the "Great Society" legislation that included civil rights laws, Medicare (health care for the elderly), Medicaid (health care for the poor), aid to education, and the "War on Poverty." Simultaneously, he escalated the American involvement in the Vietnam War, from 16,000 American soldiers in 1963 to 550,000 in early 1968.”

We then drove into Fredericksburg, which is a very cute town in the famed “hill country” of Texas, which was pretty. Wooley and I decided when you live in Texas which is both generally so vast and flat the hills in "hill country" take on that extra special “prettiness!” Fredericksburg, is a tourist destination and as such has cute touristy shops, shopping, wineries (there are a few wineries in Texas in the hill country and whilst we had some nice wine in a nice wine bar I was advised by the bar lady not to brave the local wine!) Fredericksburg and surrounding country was populated by German immigrants so beers and sausages are still very popular.

We were fortunate enough to have been invited to attend a beautiful wedding at the Enchanted Château, the weather was so pretty, the evening turned out be a lovely sunny breezy evening, and the ceremony was both gorgeous and intimate. The reception which followed also took place under the stars, and again was pretty and fun!

After some Texan coffee and a German lunch, we headed back to Dallas via Austin. We stopped off in Austin, but resisted the Cupcakes, made another caffeine stop, wandered around the “SoCo” shops, and jumped back into the car for the 3 hour drive back to Dallas which turned into nearly a 5 hour drive due to a big wreck on the freeway, which meant we were stopped for nearly an hour at a standstill, an 18 wheeler had turned over. Good thing we had the GPS aka “tom tom” as when we finally managed to get off the motorway we were able to avoid the heavily congested detour everyone else was being made to go on and speed home by 11pm! I get so freaked out by car accidents, the amount of driving we both do, some of the crazy drivers and the size of our cars compared with some hummers/trucks on the road makes me nervous!