Road Trip Part 2: New Braunfels

After shopping and going to one last winery on Saturday afternoon, we left Fredericksburg and headed down to New Braunfels. We got "checked in" to the condo we rented on the Guadalupe River and got ready to go to Gruene. Neither of us had ever been before, even though we'd both been to New Braunfels many times, and I've always heard such great things about Gruene Hall and the Gristmill. So, we decided we had to check it out. We went to the Gristmill and had to wait about an hour for a table. The atmosphere was cool with all the picnic tables and a band playing country music outside while hundreds and hundreds of people waited for a table. We finally got seated and ordered, but were quite disappointed by the food. We got some sausage as an appetizer to start and it was actually really good, but my filet and veggies weren't very good and Koy didn't like his strip steak or veggies either. Maybe we just ordered the wrong things, though. We did get pecan pie and ice cream for dessert, which was pretty good. The pie had chocolate chips in it, though, which was a little weird. I think pecan pie is so incredibly good on it's own that you just shouldn't mess with a good thing.

After dinner, we headed next door to Gruene Hall. We sat outside and watched everyone two-stepping inside. It was so funny watching all the much older men dancing with all the young ladies there. Koy really doesn't like country music, so I didn't want to make him stay too long. So, we left after about an hour and a half. I think both the Gristmill and Gruene Hall would be more fun if you were with a big group of friends and had been drinking on the river all day. : )

Sunday, we went to lunch and then headed to the river. We did the 5 hour float, and it was a lot of fun. We had a few beers and just relaxed. I forgot how pretty it is down there with all the trees. ....Funny little story which my girlfriends that went to Tech will appreciate. So, we were floating and I was telling Koy that I wished that we could have pictures of us on the river and that they should have a company like party time photos in Lubbock and have someone walk around the banks of the river and take pictures of everyone and then you could buy the pics online. Well, seriously about an hour later, there was a man in a little hut on the river taking pictures of everyone floating by. He would take your picture and then throw you some beads that had the website riverfotos.com on there to know where you could go buy your picture. He was just like party-time Mike! So, of course, I went and found our picture online and bought it for freaking $12.00, and now I can't even open it because of the type of file it is. I need to get Koy to look at it to see what I need to do. I'll post it on here once we/he figures it out.

We got Rudy's barbecue afterwards and just hung out at our condo. We were exhausted and Koy was fried! I was a little burned on parts of my chest and stomach, but Koy's stomach and legs were completely fried. Poor thing!

Monday we went shopping at the outlet malls in San Marcos for a little while and then ate lunch at Black's Barbecue in Lockhart. We had heard such great things about it, and it was pretty good for bbq. I'm not the biggest bbq fan in the world in the first place, though, so I'm not the best judge of it.

We finally got back to the metroplex around 6:00 that night and picked up my dog in Arlington. It was good to be back, and I had the rest of the week off work to get some wedding planning and other stuff done. More on that later.