Anniversary Trip to Fredericksburg

 I have been to Fredericksburg numerous times since I have family in the area, but I've never done the full Fredericksburg experience of visiting the wineries and staying in a bed & breakfast. This year for our anniversary, we decided to be tourists in Fredericksburg!

We celebrated our 13th anniversary with our friends James and Andrea who celebrated 14 years the following day. Andrea and I have been friends for 5 years since we worked together and Marcus and James had met casually at parties for the kids. We now declare them good friends and hope to travel with them again. Two of the funniest people I've ever met!

Here is our B&B, named Maria's. It was built in the mid 1800's and showed it's age! Marcus and I arrived about an hour before they did and had a funny text conversation going with Andrea. The place smelled like my grandmother's house and the doorways were no where near James' height of 6'3". 

But, we loved it! It was quaint, the 18" thick walls kept the place really cool, the bed was comfy and the creaking floors were fun to navigate in the middle of the night. I could have read in the cool morning on the front porch for hours. The place was just what you'd want and expect from an old cottage!

We had loose plans for our trip- shop, tour the wineries, and eat good food. All was accomplished! We didn't do much shopping- a few hours on Wednesday morning. It was enough to make the loop and I found a few treasures I couldn't live without, like my new turquoise dough bowl.

On Tuesday night, we ate at Silver Creek. We wanted a lively atmosphere with Olympic coverage. The food was better that expected- I loved the pepper gravy on my chicken fried steak. Delish!

Wednesday at lunch we discovered Sugar and Smoke and talked about this brisket for the remainder of the trip. I can not recommend this place enough.... we all loved it. We asked for the manager and told her how great it was and even asked them about opening up an Austin location. I love the mix of bar-be-que and sweets. It was modern and had feminine touches. Lunch was served on these small cookie sheets and dessert came on a plate with a pig on it :) There was no traditional potato salad or cole slaw. It was sweet potato fries and homemade jalapeno tortilla chips. I had read the owner was on a TV cooking show and lost the contest because of her cole slaw! ha!

Since lunch was to die for, we came back for breakfast the next day! Brisket jalapeno hollandaise.... brisket and bacon breakfast tacos.... peach scones.... we loved it all!

Most of our time on vacation was spent visiting five different wineries. Both Andrea and Marcus like wine, and since their spouses don't, it made sense to do the tours together. Nobody wants to drink alone! I'll share wineries on Your Little Birdie next week. They were beautiful and we had lots of fun pretending to understand wine-talk.

 We had a lovely time getting away and look forward to going back to Fredericksburg again!