After leaving Galveston, we headed for Fredericksburg, Tx to meet up with Kim's mom and uncle. They are a neat sister and brother combination. Each year they get together a couple of times and go on trips together in mom's trailer. This year they decided to head towards Texas, it helped we were going to be in the area and Kim's mom would get to see her. We made plans to meet them in Fredericksburg and spend almost a week with them. The drive from Galveston turned out to be windy and long (because of the wind). We got into Fredericksburg by mid-afternoon and met up with mom and uncle at Lady Bird Johnson Municipal Park Campground. The park is right on the outskirts of Fredericksburg. It was strange that many of the sites are set up so that you park in front or behind someone else. It worked okay for us, since we were camping together but I wouldn't like to have someone I didn't know right in front or behind me. The park was dog-friendly and no issues setting up the pens for the babies. We found a couple of paths in the park that we could take the babies on but we had to be careful in the grass as there were lots of burrs that the babies got stuck in their paws ☹️
We found Fredericksburg to be a fun area to visit. The downtown area is nicely kept up with lots of shops and restaurants, as well as a few wine tasting rooms and breweries. One day we visited the Lyndon B Johnson State Park. While there we took in the visitor center where there is a short movie about LBJ and then went to visit the Lyndon B. Johnson National Historical Park which is right across the river from the state park and is the site of LBJ's ranch. At the National Park, you can take a tour of the ranch house where LBJ and Lady Bird lived and learn a bit of history about both. On the site is also one of the planes used as LBJ's Air Force One when visiting the ranch. We had fun on the tour and talked with the guide, who is a volunteer, a bit afterwards about volunteering there and what they get in exchange (a nice RV spot right on site) and what he thought of volunteering at this park and others he's done it at. Gave us a nice perspective on volunteering which we are planning on doing in the future. We visited a couple of vineyards and wineries while in the area and found some nice wines.
After mom and uncle left, we headed over to Austin for a few days. We had heard good things about McKinney Falls State Park so decided to stay there. We did have to spend one night at a KOA just north of Austin as we couldn't get into the state park on the day we wanted to. We found the state park as nice as others have reviewed. Of course being a state park, it was dog-friendly and we were able to set up a nice area with the pens for the babies to play in and us to sit out in with them. The site have 50 amp service and water but no sewer hook-up. We were only planning to stay a few days, so that wasn't a problem and since we were near the showers (and they were nice and clean), we used their showers a couple of times.
The park has several nice hiking trails and we got some good hikes in and got the babies out for some good long walks. We visited Austin a couple of times but found downtown to be much more congested than the last time visiting Austin (many years ago) and not as much fun. We had a better time in the park and spending time in that area than visiting the downtown area. There is lots to do in Austin but it's obvious the area is growing fast and they aren't keeping up with the growth.
We left Austin and headed north for Lawton, OK and graduation. More on that in the next post.
