A Trip to the Hill Country

Last week was my Spring Break. Law school Spring Break is kind of a joke because although you don't have to physically go to class, you end up with extra work to make up for it. Papers to write, extra reading assignments, etc. If you're a Law Review editor like me, there's even more extra work. I brought home 35 papers, 60-80 pages each, which I had to read and evaluate. Fun fun. Plus your professors all want you to do some extra reading and get ahead so they can "pick up the pace" after Spring Break, so there's that too. Plus Spring Break is the traditional time to start outlining and studying for finals. Basically, the word "break" is totally inaccurate.
But, I did manage to work really hard for the first half of the week so Jeff and I could take a little vacation. Jeff's been out of town a ton for work lately (I think I've been home alone for about 50% of 2013 - totally not normal, but there were a lot of crazy things going on with his work), so we both felt like we really just needed some quality time together.
We left on Thursday morning and drove out to the Hill Country (central Texas). We stopped at Pecan Street Brewery in Johnson City for lunch. 

The courthouse in Johnson City
After lunch, we had a day of wineries planned! The Texas Hill Country is actually a pretty successful wine-growing region, but after wine tasting in Napa/Sonoma and Virginia, we weren't expecting much from our home state. We were pleasantly surprised though - it turns out Texas wines are pretty good! 
Our first stop was Texas Hills Vineyard in Johnson City.


It's not the right time of year for pretty green grapevines, but the scenery was nice anyway! We each picked 5 of their wines to taste, including their "Kick Butt Cab," and in the end we bought two bottles - a sangiovese and a malbec. 

From there we drove up the Texas Hill Country Wine Trail to Pedernales Cellars in Stonewall, TX. Pedernales was our favorite of the three we visited - beautiful scenery and lovely wines! 




We did their tasting menu of nine wines and ended up buying a bottle of their "Vino Blanco" white blend. Their "Family Reserve" tempranillo was SO WONDERFUL, but a bit out of our price range. :) 
Pedernales Cellars
Our third and final winery stop was Grape Creek Vineyards in Fredricksburg, TX. We each got to pick six wines each to taste, and so many of them were good! We bought three bottles - a cab/syrah blend, a merlot, and a blend called "Rendezvous." 





From there we drove into downtown Fredricksburg, which is a historic area with lots of little shops and things. 



We saw lots of interesting things, including the Admiral Nimitz museum, a little store called "Katie's," and a store full of kitchen gadgets, including a giant wall of cookie cutters! 
Admiral Nimitz Museum


We didn't buy much, but we did go home with this little "Merry and Bright" sign from a Christmas store. I can't wait to use it next winter! 


From there, we drove to Llano, TX, where we had reservations at a bed and breakfast on the Llano River called Walden Plantation.



Our stay in Llano officially crosses #24 (Take a weekend trip to a Texas town I've never seen before) off my 30 Before 30 List! 
The bed and breakfast was actually a ways outside of Llano, so it was in the middle of lots of open land, which made for beautiful scenery and beautiful stars at night!




We drove back into Llano for dinner at Badu House, a restaurant in a historic house with a great outdoor patio. 



They let Jeff sample their brewed-in-house beers, and we loved our dinner of truffle & bacon pizza (for Jeff), and "grown-up" mac 'n cheese with broccoli and bacon (for me). We sat out on their patio and enjoyed the beautiful weather and watched the sun go down. Perfect! 




We loved Badu House so much that we considered going there for dinner again the next day! Haha.  After dinner, we took a stroll around downtown Llano. 

They have a beautiful courthouse! 


We went back to the bed and breakfast, where we marvelled at how beautiful the starts are out in the country, and then got some sleep. Up next, our day at Colorado Bend State Park!