Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center

Posted on March 16, 2015 by Kori and Eileen

We arrived at the Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center about an hour ago. We came here hoping to see some of the wildflowers since apparently the season has just started. Eileen has been especially anxious to see some bluebonnets.

We have a booklet that we got when we came in, and it has names and pictures of the wildflowers we’re likely to see. We’ve been walking around the main path looking for different ones. We’re about halfway around the path now. We found some bluebonnets near here and took some pictures. There’s also an owl! We saw her on the way into the park. There’s a guy over by the entrance that works here and he told us to look up behind a plant at the top corner of the brick wall. It took a second to see her, but she’s definitely there.

– Kori

Good Morning Austin!

Posted on March 16, 2015 by Kori and Eileen

Or should I say afternoon?

We just left our hotel after an extended checkout time made us just that much more reluctant to leave. We had breakfast this morning, but we were told that we could leave later than the 11 am check out time, due to our membership in a program there. We had already rushed to have some of the complimentary breakfast around 8:30 am. But since we had more time, we stayed and slept in another couple of hours. We took the time to rest some more, and review all the places we can go, and how long they are going to take.

We packed our stuff up and hit the road about an hour ago. At which point, we ended up heading to a proper lunch location. We are currently finishing up our lunch at this great place called the Catfish Parlour. Eileen had the tilapia. I got the all you can eat catfish meal. It was probably some of the best catfish I’ve had since my grandfather made it way back when.

-Kori

Arriving in Austin

Posted on March 15, 2015 by Kori and Eileen

After an entire day of driving, we made it to Austin. We took quite a while to get here, with all the photo-op stops, and the great wineries we have already stopped at. We got to town and immediately started taking photos of local street art.

We were debating the various restaurants with the best reviews we could find. We settled on a Japanese restaurant called Daito. We had a little of everything they had, from sushi to tempura to udon, and it was all delicious.

After grabbing a bite to eat, and taking a few more pictures, we’ve finally gotten in for the night. We’re staying fairly close to downtown. We plan on visiting a few of the popular street art locations tomorrow. For now, we’re going to pop open a bottle of wine and spend the night chatting about how great our adventure has been so far.

-Kori & Eileen

Texas Hill Country Vineyards

Posted on March 15, 2015 by Kori and Eileen

We’re nearly to Austin, we’ve had a lot of fun visiting some of the many vineyards/wineries throughout the Texas Hill country.

The first winery we stopped at was the Wedding Oak winery in San Saba. The staff there were very nice to us. We told them that we had just gotten married and they gave us each a complimentary glass of wine of our choice (we had the Bridal Blush). We tried their selection of wines and selected the Bridal Blush as it was our favorite from the ones we had. We spent a few minutes sitting outside on their patio with our complimentary glasses of wine.

Afterwards we got a tour of their winery. We got to see the fermenting barrels, tanks, and presses they had on site and I took lots of pictures. The room was actually very cold (which I loved). The staff let us hang out there by ourselves for a little while, so we looked around and got lots of pictures of everything. It was quite fun.

After spending time at the Wedding Oak winery, we decided to take a look at the winery’s namesake, the local ‘Wedding Oak.’ About 2 miles away from the winery, stands a massive oak tree with a heart shape knot in the trunk. As the placard read:

A LEGENDARY INDIAN SITE,
POPULAR IN THE 1900s,
WEDDING OAK
SHELTERED MANY MARRIAGE
SERVICES. THREE OCCURRED
IN ONE DAY, DEC. 24, 1911.

Later on we went to Pillar Bluff Vineyards just outside of Lampasas. We drove through Lampasas and walked along the bank of Sulphur Creek before continuing on to the vineyard. We pulled up and at first were wondering if they were still open. Realizing we were just in time, we went in and were greeted by the owner Gill Bledsoe and by the winery dog, Rudy, and the winery cat, Pistil (as in the part of a flower). They had a very nice atmosphere. We sat down and asked to try their tasting selection. We tried the many wines they had including in their tasting, and we had their delicious super secret blue cheese dip. We ended up buying a few bottles of their great wine, as well as the recipe from them for an undisclosed amount. ^_^

We also dropped by the Texas Legato Vineyard across the way, owned by Gill’s brother. We had a look around and took in the atmosphere. It was only just down the street, but when we got there no one was inside, so we took a walk around the grounds and looked at their vineyard before getting back on the road.

-Kori