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Roughly 30 minutes north of Kerrville Texas lies the city of Fredericksburg which is a great place to spend a day or longer visiting the antique shops, restaurants and fine Texas wineries.

My wife and I really enjoy spending time at different wineries around the country and tasting the wide variety of different kinds of wines made in Texas. Fredericksburg sure has their share and everywhere we visited, the owners were very happy to allow us a tasting of their fine wines. We had actually stumbled across Fredericksburg several years ago when we flew into San Antonio with another couple to spend a couple of weeks and we just sort of stopped by on a whim. Now if we are close to the area, we make a point to reserve a day to see what is new around the city that we did not know about before.

Each year that we return to the Texas Hill Country, we have to go back to Fredericksburg and the area hasn't disappointed us yet, it just keeps getting better. One thing that is very striking around the city is the number of bed and breakfast houses in the downtown area. They seem to be everywhere! The same way with RV parks and campgrounds, there certainly is no shortage of places to park your RV around Fredericksburg.

Our main reason for this visit was a little event they hold several times a year called Trade Days. For my wife, the lure of a bargain is impossible to resist, so we found our way outside of the city toward an area that hosts the Trade Days event. When we arrived at the banner showing the entrance to Trade Days, I am guessing this at one time was a farm or ranching operation. The pasture has been turned into parking and many of the vendors who display their items for sale were setup in one of the 6 long barns on the property. I can not begin to describe the different types of items or the sheer number of vendors at this event, but we spent half a day wondering from booth to booth as my wife jumped around looking at everything like a kid in a candy store. Of course, many of these treasures must have needed a new home as they headed into the parking lot with us for the trip by to Ohio eventually. I am waiting for the day we have to try to pack the motorhome and head back north to see where she plans to stow all these items.

Heading back toward Fredericksburg with our new found items, we stopped by a place called Wildseed Farms to see what sort of items we further needed to add to our collection of odds and ends rattling around in the truck of our rental car. This place is huge and obviously a big attraction to the gardeners of the world. Flowers, pots, plants, planters of all types, seeds and much more. It was overwhelming to me, as my idea of gardening is to let my wife handle it. I don't know a flower from a weed and when in Ohio, I have very strict boundaries as to where the lawn mower is permitted to be used.

Fredericksburg is home to the National Museum of the Pacific War which unfortunately we did not have time to visit as much as I would like to have, due to the day was ending and we wanted to return to Kerrville before dark. As I have mentioned before in other blogs about the Hill Country, the deer take over once darkness falls and they have little fear of walking out onto the highway at night. If you are in the central Texas area, be sure to stop at Fredericksburg, you won't regret it.