Much of the state has always been grasslands. This makes for large stands of sun-loving wildflowers, helped along by the 30,000 pounds of wildflower seed sown by the Texas Department of Transportation each year.
Fighting In The Front Seat
Texas has been preserving and encouraging wildflowers and native grasses along all rights-of-way since 1934. By so doing, they’ve controlled erosion, reduced the need for mowing, and provided habitat for wildlife. It certainly makes for beautiful drives along Texas roadways. And also created a few slightly heated interchanges in the front seat of our truck that went something like this:
“Wow, did you see that? Pull over so that I can take a picture.”
“I can’t pull over! There’s no place to pull over!”
“But I want to take pictures of the flowers. We just passed by an amazing field of flowers with (choose one: horses/old tractor/cows/old barn/rolling hills)!”
“This is a two-lane road! I’m pulling the trailer! There’s no place to pull over!”
“Well how am I going to take pictures? I can’t take good pictures while we’re driving at 55 miles per hour.”
“There’s no place to pull over! You’re going to have to wait until there’s a safe place to pull over!”
“But that’s not where the flowers are!”
In The Heart Of The Hill Country
Even though Texas has suffered from a three-year drought, we still found an abundance of wildflowers as we traveled from Breaux Bridge, Louisiana to Fredericksburg, Texas. This is the heart of the Hill Country, known for some of the finest wildflower displays in the state. En route, we spent an unmemorable overnight at Village Creek State Park in Lumberton (151-mile drive) and two pleasant nights at Lake Somerville (180-mile drive) in a gorgeous Corps of Engineers campground. That’s where we discovered our first stand of bluebonnets that we could photograph at our leisure.
Another 170-mile drive brought us to Lady Bird Johnson Municipal Park, just a few miles outside of the lovely town of Fredericksburg. We settled in for a week of exploring the area, which included a visit to a wildflower farm, a wine and music festival, a trip to the wine country, a gorgeous hike to a unique geological formation, and a small local nature festival of winged creatures. We also strolled the historic downtown area, and enjoyed an excellent dinner at Vaudeville Bistro, a unique supper club.
Here, the highlights of our wine and wildflowers adventures in the Texas Hill Country:
Exploring Fredericksburg
Fredericksburg is a pretty, small town (population 10,500) founded by Germans in 1846. Many descendants of the original settlers still live here, are proud of their heritage, and maintain a number of historic buildings, including the Vereins Kirche, which served as the town hall and church for all denominations.
Historic Fredericksburg
The Pioneer Museum Complex down the street is worth an hour or two; it’s a three-acre museum with a dozen relocated original early German structures, including a schoolhouse and Sunday house, which the settlers used only on the weekends when they came into town to attend church and stock up on supplies.
We enjoyed a fabulous dinner at Vaudeville Bistro. The first course was seared tuna with guacamole.
Wildseed Farms
Seven miles east of Fredericksburg is Wildseed Farms, the largest working wildflower farm in the country, with 200 acres of wildflower fields. It’s a beautiful place to visit in springtime. We were there during the Hill Country Wine and Music Festival, which made it even more fun.
Wildseed Farms
Poppy fields in full bloom
In a beautiful location among fields of blooming wildflowers, we enjoyed locally produced wines from eight vintners and great music. Everyone in Texas waltzes and two-steps, and we dusted off our waltzing skills to join in. Seeing as how we’ll likely continue to spend a good bit of time in Texas in our travels, I’ve convinced Eric that we need to learn to two-step.
Texas Wine Country
At least two-dozen boutique wineries are in the hills east of Fredericksburg; some folks are calling it the next Napa Valley. The terrain and the wineries are beautiful, and we sampled a wide variety of tasty wines. We spent a leisurely hot afternoon at Becker Vineyards with a chilled Riesling.
An afternoon at Becker Winery
Wings Over The Hills Festival
We were delighted to discover a birding and dragonfly festival was taking place right next door to our campground in the park. The highlight for us was a hike with James L. Lasswell, a renowned dragonfly expert and author. I think dragonflies may be even more difficult to identify than birds.
Green dragonfly
Enchanted Rock Natural Area
Rising 425 feet above the terrain to 1,825 feet above sea level, this massive pink granite dome gave us our first opportunity for a “real” hike in many months (we’ve been at sea level since last November). The name comes from the Tonkawa Indians, who believed the creaking and groaning sounds coming from the rock at night are the rock “talking.” (The sounds are actually caused by the rock cooling at night after it heats up during the day.)
Luckenbach
Made famous by Waylon Jennings’ 1977 hit “Luckenbach, Texas” we couldn’t pass up a visit to this iconic Texas wide-spot-in-the-road, which consists of a general store, saloon, and country dance hall. The Sunday afternoon “Picker’s Circle” was full of characters and free-roaming chickens. It wasn’t quite as lively as our recent music experiences in Breaux Bridge and New Orleans, but we agreed we would return in the future for an event at the dance hall. Time to get practicing on our Texas Two-Step!
Here I am still in the dark with low voltage going to my brand new LED lights and shortening their life while my solar install gets more and more obnoxious and you are where I would have been had I just skipped this all together. Flowers in Fredericksburg was SO on my plan. But I thought I had to be there a lot earlier than this so I would have missed them anyway. You know how I love your pictures. These are as magnificent as ever. Can’t believe you got a scissor tail sitting still when the ones we saw were miles up in the sky. Love the pictures of you two in the school house in the appropriate chairs! This comment is too long. This blog is wonderful. Thanks for cheering me up. I really needed it.
I’m glad this cheered you up, Sherry — you’re going to love traveling this route next year. And I bet you’ll be very happy to have your solar by the time you get to the southwest, even though the install has been so challenging. Hang in there…
Oh, those gorgeous flowers. The sweet Canyon
Wren. I think you guys better buy some boots
for next year.
Funny you should mention that — cowboy boots are on my wish-list! I think Eric needs some, too.
Looks like you two are having an adventure Texas style! Love the wildflowers.
Texas is FUN! We always have a great time traveling here. There’s so much to do, and it’s so diverse.
Haha! I love that we are not the only ones who have this type conversation. I feel if there isn’t a car behind us we should stop in the road for a great photo. Luckily, you did get some awesome pictures of the wildflowers. They sure are beautiful.
I love the Barbed Wire Chart…who knew!
Someday we will travel TX and see all these neat places. But til then I’ll travel around with those of you touring for me.
I can’t tell you how many amazing photo opportunities we missed on that two-lane Texas road between Lumberton and Lake Somerville. I’m still bummed! Oh well, I guess it gives us a reason to return. And next time, I’ll be driving so that I can pull over whenever I want! :-)
I love this post! Your photos are beautiful. All of these places are on our bucket list! I love the conversation between you and your husband when you wanted to pull over to take pictures. My husband and I have had the same conversation when going down the road. Last year in Alaska he stopped in the middle of the road (no cars coming in either direction) and backed up so I could get pictures of a black bear in yellow flowers.
Haha, I read your comment to my husband and said, “SEE! Other people pull over for photos!” I’m going to search your blog for your photo of the bear in the flowers.
Sorry I got your husband in trouble! Here’s a link to the bear in the flowers. We were in British Columbia north of Haines, Alaska. http://wanderingdawgs.com/2013/06/27/day-38-back-in-the-yukon/
That is fantastic! Well worth pulling over to the side of the road for that photo. Thanks for the link.
Beautiful post. Lady Bird is smiling in heaven.
Yes, Alice, I’ll bet Lady Bird is smiling! She had such a wonderful influence on community pride and the environment with her “beautification” campaign. I think you’ll enjoy the next post. :-)
Alas, I think we’ve all had those same conversations going down the road. LOL Beautiful pictures by the way. Especially loved the one of you sitting in the pretty blue wildflowers. We also stayed at the Lady Bird Johnson Municipal near Fredericksburg many years ago. Nice park. Love that whole area.
It’s such a great area, and SO much to do — we didn’t even get to all that’s offered in the area. Gives us a reason to return — plus I’m determined to get more wildflower photos!
Oh yeah… we’ve had that conversation too. It’s almost enough to make me want to be the driver…
Yeah, I’ve had the same thought — but then I wouldn’t get to look around as much and find photo ops! :)
Whoa! All the pictures absolutely amazing, and the flowers were just popping out in full colors. One day next year, we will be there!
And yes, you are not alone in those type of exchanges. Wait till you get to Alaska/Canada and you will really be bummed. I know, Steve won’t even think about it. I just have to cry in silence for the many missed photo-ops along the way. I can relate to how you feel.
I’m so happy for both of you for seeing the scissor-tailed flycatcher. The day they stopped by Dauphin Island I was somewhere else :(
You are the loveliest flower among the bluebonnets.
I have an idea!! We should caravan, and the guys can travel ahead without stopping and set up camp and fix dinner, and we can meander along and take photos and arrive in time for happy hour!! (You’ll see lots of scissor-tailed flycatchers if you go to Lake Somerville next year. Great COE campground, too.)
Fantastic idea…let’s do caravan. At the rate we take pictures our dinner will be cold when we arrive at the camp.
But we’ll have GREAT photos! :-)
I really love the color of the wildflowers and the photos of you two together. Tell Eric that it’s okay to smile. We are enjoying your adventure.
Thanks, Brenda — Eric says he’s smiling inside. :)
Lovely….looks like you knew just the right time to visit the area. Those fields of flowers are beautiful. Now I can’t wait for the Colorado meadows to bloom. I’ll be checking for those festivals next spring so we can time our visit to Fredericksburg.
We love festivals (obviously!) — I’m sure both festivals will again be during peak wildflower bloom. Can’t wait to see your photos of the Colorado wildflowers!
Oooooh, we’re talking about visiting that area next spring, thanks for the great preview! I think we’re going to like it!
Plan to stay at least a week — there’s so much to do! Or perhaps a week isn’t even enough — we still have a long list of things we want to do the next time we’re there. Spring is such a gorgeous time in the hill country.
Your photography (or lack of) conversation sounds JUST LIKE US. In fact it could be us – word for word! How can our drivers not appreciate the scenery enough to just stop while we take a photo?! Never mind other road users. They can stop too. The best wildflower meadow ever was a missed photo opportunity in California.
However, you have posted some lovely photos.
Once we start driving, Eric WILL NOT stop for a photo, nor will he turn around. Left to my own devices, it would take me hours longer to get anywhere because I would be stopping so often for photos. There must be some kind of compromise in there somewhere….
It seems so many of us can relate to the conversation between you and Eric. Terry and I have the same one so often and like MonaLiza, I must cry in silence because there is no convincing Terry to pull over when he is behind the wheel, even when I believe there is a chance to do so safely. ;) We took a whirlwind tour through the hill country but missed so much. I have bookmarked your page so we can do it up right next time.
Love that photo of you in the field of bluebonnets Laurel. Spring seems to be THE time to be there.
Oh good, I hope this will be helpful, LuAnn — there’s so much to do, a week is essential (plus you get a better rate at the RV park). We also visited Johnson City (LBJ’s childhood home), LBJ Ranch, and Sauer-Beckman Historical Site (all in my next post). We didn’t get to the National Museum of the Pacific War because it’s vast and we were out of time (and were kind of museumed-out). But we’ll also return!
I love your school is in session shot & the Big Bird with all the answers! The flower fields are gorgeous and lucky you’s to be in the presence of the beautiful cactus flowers. When will you be 2 stepping into Ashland? Can’t wait to see ya’ll.
Big Bird, love it!! We’re inching our way toward Ashland — should be there sometime the week of the 16th. Can’t wait to see you! Time for more adventures together! xoxo