Walk 10 Miles in Our Shoes - Sun., Oct.20

We slept in until 9 a.m.!! That rarely happens.

Weather forecasts predicted sun and 73 degrees with a breeze, perfect for walking.

Since I am way behind on my Centurion Challenge (100 Volksmarches in a year), I wanted to do two 10K walks today in Fredericksburg, Texas, a historic German community. Fredericksburg is 1-1/4 hours from San Antonio so we thought getting there around 11:30 would work well to fit in two walks.

Our drive to Fredericksburg is on I-10 with speeds up to 75 mph, then on US 87 with a speed of 65-70 mph. It was smooth sailing most of the way.

Both walks started at the Quality Inn on Adams St. in Fredericksburg. We had planned on two 10K walks, but the walk box didn't have any 10K walk directions for the Town & Country Walk. The Town & Country 6K (3.72 mi) walk had many, many copies of directions so we opted to do the 6K. On the 6K walk I kept telling Bob how boring it was. I'm actually glad there weren't directions for the 10K walk. We did see pretty homes on a hilltop and a couple of deer.

At one time, we didn't follow the directions correctly and went out of the way. But we got back on track and kept going.

Hilltop neighborhood.

Pampas grass blooms in sunlight.

The Wunderlich Houses are pictured below. The small cabin was built in 1883 of log and stone construction, but the family soon outgrew the house. The larger house was built of limestone blocks in 1892. On this farm, cotton, corn, sugarcane for molasses and grapes for wine were grown. The five Wunderlich children attended school 2.5 miles away and were taught in German.

Small cabin made of logs and stone (1883).

Large cabin made of limestone (1892)

Walk one of the day complete.

Our second walk, a 10k, started out by retracing the last four blocks of our previous walk, but then we veered off in the other direction toward downtown. An interesting garden and labyrinth caught our eye, but the business was closed on Sunday, so we looked at it through the fence.

Next door was The Herb Farm which had a spa, cabins, and a Sunday brunch. We were hungry, but looking at the patrons entering the restaurant, we weren't dressed up enough to go in. I was in jeans and a T-shirt, Bob was in shorts and a ratty looking T-shirt. Maybe another time.

Across a street and around another corner, we saw the following cute bird cottage.

Downtown Fredericksburg has a lot of historical buildings and cute shops. It was our first time walking past most of them.

County jail of 1885.

St. Joseph's Halle, 1900

Marienkirche (old St. Mary's Church) with the steeple of the "new" St. Mary's Catholic Church, built in 1906, behind it.

Marienkirche

Marienkirche.

1906 St. Mary's Catholic Church

Historical Society Building (originally First Methodist Church)

Stained glass inside Historical Society Building

Mexican feather grass.

The next two houses are "Sunday Houses." These were small homes built to serve farmers and ranchers on weekends when they came into town to do their marketing on Saturday. The families would spend the night, attend church on Sunday and return to their homes in the country that evening.

Sunday House.

Another Sunday House.

Zion Lutheran Church, 1853.

We have now made our way onto Main St. in Fredericksburg where we found the church above.

The most interesting historical maker was about a gun cap factory which used to stand on Main St. Click to enlarge the marker below. We learned a lot from it. Hope you enjoy reading it.

A street (art) performer.

After walking six miles, we were ready for lunch. As we walked Main Street, we perused the menus along the way. Wheelers won our business. They had a full color poster in their window showing the items on their menu.

Bob at our table in Wheelers.

I ordered the German plate with grilled Dusseldorf (smoked beef) sausage with red cabbage, sauerkraut and hot potato salad. Everything was delicious except the German potato salad which was overcooked. Bob had a chicken salad salad. For dessert, after our ten miles of walking, we headed to a bakery for one cookie each.

German plate.

St. Barnabas Episcopal Church

Interior of St. Barnabas church.

Below is the Heinrich Bierschwale house. It was built in 1872-1873. This is a two-story stone vernacular house with a one-story full-facade porch with bracketed columns. The home remained in the Bierschwale family for over a century!

Heinrich Bierschwale house

In the following photo you can seen an example of fachwerk on the Kuenemann house. Fachwerk is a "half-timbered" dwelling and in this case it is the ground floor of the home. The frame of heavy timbers and diagonal bracing and filled with fieldstone is a classic example of European Medieval building method.

Kuenemann house

From this street we made our way back to the car. After one quick stop at the bakery, we headed the car toward home.

On the way home, we had the most beautiful sky and cloud formations. By the time we got back to San Antonio, there were no clouds in the sky at all!

Thanks for coming along with us and "seeing" our walk. We enjoyed sharing it with you.

Travel Bug out.