Fredericksburg: Window Shopping

This summer represents the culmination of a many-years' wish of mine: Vacations!

When we first got married, Nathan and I decided that instead of giving each other anniversary gifts, we'd travel instead. One reason for this is because our anniversary is only two weeks before Christmas, and there are plenty of gifts flying around that time of year. And another reason is because we really like to travel (especially me). For our first anniversary, we went to New Hampshire, and for our second anniversary, we went to Montreal. And that's when the traveling stopped. I think Nathan had a conference or something on our third anniversary, and by our fourth, I was heavily pregnant with Noah. After that, it was just too hard to get away from our kids--either they were too small and still nursing or we didn't have grandparents nearby who could keep them for several days.

Not only did we not travel for our anniversaries anymore, but we simply didn't travel at all. Well, we did go on two weekend jaunts, but nothing significant, and nothing without the kids. Looking back, I think we should have made it more of a priority to take a little vacation here and there, but it's understandable that we didn't, since we were on a grad student budget and especially after Nathan got busy finishing his dissertation.

However, from time to time, I felt a nagging near-desperation to get out of town, see something I've never seen before, and bond as a family or with my husband alone over shared experiences, good (or bad) food, and inside jokes. In fact, I talked about it so much that there was a while when Nathan was heartily sick of the word "vacation." I think I have more wanderlust than he does, for one thing, but I was/am also a stay-at-home mom, so I was not able to get out and do things and see people as much as he did on a daily basis. Also, as a mom, you are just on the clock nearly all the time. And since my kids were born, I've only been away from them overnight two times and for no longer than 18 hours. I love being with my kids, but everybody needs a little balance.

So this summer is significant for us, because we are taking not one but TWO vacations, and they are both WITHOUT THE CHILDREN. Whoa, y'all. This is a big deal. These our first trips away as a couple in nearly six years. So before I say anything else, I have to say THANK YOU to our parents, who are taking turns keeping the kids for us over our two trips.

For our first trip, we just wanted to go somewhere fairly local and for only about three days. Our next vacation will be longer and further away, so in addition to having some fun, this first trip was meant to test the waters for all of us and acclimate the kids to the idea that Mom and Dad can go away for a few days, and they will still be okay.

So we decided to go to Fredericksburg, in the Texas Hill Country. Nathan loves the scrubby brush of the Hill Country. It's just invigorating to him. He is a Texas boy to the core. And we'd heard good things about Fredericksburg--that there are some good antique shops in town, that there are lots of good wineries in the area, and that it's just a generally nice, somewhat charming place to visit.

On our first evening there, we drove into town to have some German food. (By the way, Der Lindenbaum is the place to go for German food--the owner of our B&B told us that it lacked atmosphere but had the best food, and after trying a couple of different places, we found out that he was dead on.) After dinner, we decided to walk around town a bit and peer into the windows so that we'd know which shops we wanted to visit the following day.

. . . And we promptly found this . . .

. . . and this.

I mean, seriously, who does that?! Who paints gold on the teeth of an alligator and a saber-toothed cat? And--perhaps the more disturbing question--who would want to buy it and put it in their home?!

I have to be honest. After our evening of window shopping, I was not too enthused about the shopping the next day. Gold-toothed skulls aside, there were a lot of shops with what I call "Texas fashions": bright, ruffled, crazy bedangled and bedazzled clothes, or else clothes with a western theme. Not clothes Lauren would wear. There were a couple of shops we were interested in, but there didn't seem to be a lot with potential.

However, thankfully, I was wrong. We did bypass the Texas fashion shops and the furniture store that was 100% leather & iron and the home decor store with the aforementioned gold-saber-toothed skull, but amongst these oddities, we did find some fun places to browse. Especially in this antique shop, which had lots of interesting things, the first of which was this amazing wardrobe. When I pointed it out to Nathan, he said, "Whoa. If we walked in there, we might find ourselves in Narnia." Ha!

I also thought this church bench was cool.

And that perhaps this picture would go nicely in someone's bathroom.

The entire basement was full of books. Lovely! This was a shelf devoted only to Kipling.

We didn't buy anything there in the end, even though I found something that caught my fancy: an antique French shelf that was carved to look like a music stand. Nathan didn't love it, though, and I ended up deciding that he was right about it being too fragile to stand up for long. One thing we learned, though, after visiting a couple of antique shops, is that Fredericksburg is a good place to shop if you want antiques from England, France, or Belgium. Who'd have thunk it?

We enjoyed shopping in a Christmas shop, too. This little nativity scene caught my eye and my imagination. My Grandma Marge had one, and it charmed me as a child. You put tapers in it, and the heat from the flames makes the fan turn, which then turns the entire scene. Quite enchanting. Quite expensive, too, which is why we didn't buy one.

I've always loved the bravado of this flag from the Battle of Gonzales. The Texans had a Mexican cannon and flew this flag to dare them to fight.

This is a picture of one room of a large store that sold only Texas foods. It was really fun to walk around and taste all of the jellies, salsas, etc.

But they did have their oddities, too.

And, really, who doesn't need a rattlesnake cane, I ask you?

More pictures to come!