One night getaway without the kids. The plan is to make short road trip to Fredericksburg to eat and drink.

Excited to have a short trip away from the kids. Why am I on my phone while driving?


Reason why I’m on my phone, stopped in traffic. Two years behind Mopac construction. Ugh, I just wanna get out of town, NOW!

Yes, finally got past the traffic.

Now we are talking.

It took us almost 40min just to get barely out of town. Austin traffic sucks.

Finally in the hill country for some driving roads.

Passed by the Salt Lick BBQ.

First stop at Duchman Winery. It was a hidden sign and kind of hard to find.

Time for some wine.

Found their second well hidden sign. Duchman winery and Trattoria Lisina restaurant are located next to each other and used to be part of the same complex. But, the two owners had a falling out and now they are run as two separate entities next to each other. There was an incident a few years back when the owner of Trattoria Lisina broke into the Duchman winery, stole some wine and was arrested. Then he went back a couple days later to slashed some tires on a winery employee car and was arrested yet again. It’s like being divorced, hating each other’s guts, but yet still living in the same house.

No kids means no car seats, no car seats means the weekend car gets to stretch its legs.

We think this is the place. The signage here needs some major help.

Tasting room.

No need for that, we’ve brought our own snacks before embarking on this road trip.

RL calls this the “Baby Monkey” face.

I call this the normal RL face.

Wine tasting starts now.

Cheese and what not we got beforehand in preparation for the wine tasting.

Clearly excited about the food.

Back inside for one last pour. The weather has been amazing these past few weeks in Austin. It’s unseasonably cool for September, perfect for sitting outside.

All done, time to hit the road again.

Also got a bottle of wine to bring back home.

Off deeper into the hill country we go.

Cool, a Targa. They waved when they passed us. 911 owners, unite!

Passed tons of vineyards on the way out to Fredericksburg. I’d like to call this Napa for rednecks.

It used to be just peaches out here, but now it’s wines and peaches.

Guessing that this will be a winery at some point in the near future.

Finally reached Fredericksburg. If not for the 40min stuck in traffic getting out of Austin, the drive was quite enjoyable.

Found our hotel, or Inn, if you will.

This is what $120 a night gets you on Friday night in Fredericksburg. Frankly, we were a little disappointed, but we couldn’t stomach paying $180 a night to stay at a nicer place in Fredericksburg. I mean come on, when did it get so expensive here?

Probably the shabbiest place I’ve stayed at in the US in the past 5 years, if not more. But for one night, it’ll do the job just fine.

Walking to dinner.

Get some selfies in while there’s still good light out.

Look, another 991 Targa! This is the $180 a night hotel that we walked past on our way to dinner. It does look much nicer indeed. But $180 for Fredericksburg, seriously? Since when did it cost as much to stay in Fredericksburg as it does in San Francisco?

Admiral Nimitz Museum. He grew up here in Fredericksburg.

Love the canopies of giant oak trees.

Arrived at our dinner spot. We had called earlier, and they said that they still had several tables open.

Except by the time we arrived, all tables were taken. It is Firday night after all.

We didn’t want to wait for a table to open up so instead grabbed the two open seats at the bar.

RL typically orders her Old Fashioned a little sweet. This one ended up super sweet. Of course, I had to finish the super sweet drink for her.

Probably the best thing I’ll see all week. A figurine of a tiger fighting a lion.

Smoked trout tartare.

As expected, now that we are inside with some alcohol in us, all selfies are blurry.

So good. Sausage plate.

I liked RL’s dish even better than mine. She ordered the duck schnitzel, and it was amazing.

Round 2.

One of the biggest issues that I have with traveling is asking others to take photos of us. 9 times out of 10, the photos are out of focus or blurry. This time is no exception.

Super strong drinks, so already drunk. In my drunken state, I somehow managed to still pronounce and order Schokoriegel properly despite never having seen the word before. Or perhaps it’s the alcohol that gave me the ability to pronounce German perfectly.

Sealed the deal for me.

Came out of the restaurant and I saw these two beauties sitting outside. 991 GTS Club Coupe, a pretty rare car. So much want. At this point I realized it’s not a coincidence that I keep on seeing all these Porsches here, there’s gotta be some sort of meetup. Sure enough, Google told me that Boxtoberfest is happening right now, hence all the Porsches.

The War of The Pacific Museum is right across from our dinner spot. Tomorrow, we’ll make a visit here.

It’s 9pm, and we are exhausted. We heard some live music and came here to check out the scene. Being super lame, we couldn’t even muster the energy to go into the bar….we’ve decided to call it at night at…9pm…Yup, that’s what we do when we don’t have our kids with us, we pack it in even earlier than we do back at home.

Can someone say, upskirt?

Cool, a 964. Wish I had known about the gathering beforehand, maybe I would have made arrangements to meet up with the other Porsche owners.

So tired, so sleepy, so lame. But nothing sounds better than just laying down and sleeping in our overpriced mediocre hotel room right now. ZZZZzzzzzz…

To be continued at Fredericksburg Day 2.