I-35 South
Texas
January 2008
It is 11:10 and Judie and I just returned from our over-night Garden Inspiration Business / Fun trip. Our plan was to leave on Friday morning and hit many small towns on the way to Fredricksburg, spend the night in Fredrcksburg ( I'll tell you about all the goodies we worked in while we were there) and return home sweet home by Sat. night.
Suit cases packed and oh yes, I must tell you about our extra cargo. Money is not always in abundance for our little trips, but I had a plan. I have fallen heir to three pallets of floral tins, this includes cute little galvanized - trimmed with copper, beige and burgundy buckets, watering cans, tubs, window boxes and a variety of sizes of cylinder shaped floral buckets. All I have to do is sale them and whatever I sale them for I have to split 50/50 with the man that supplied them to me. I typed up an invoice listing all the sizes and style of "too cute" tins and spent an evening cleaning and organizing them. Judie came over and we packed her trunk down with tinware, threw our suitcases in the back seat.(We always pack very light, never know what treasure we might find and we must allow room for the returning merchandise!!!) Sooo our little plan, stop at small towns along the way and seek out the local florist and sale, sale sale!
We loaded up our car and headed to Beverly Hills no, no we headed to the Hill Country of Texas.
We left our driveway singing a little warm-up tune, "Oh a peddling we will go, a peddling we will go, we'll sale some tin to pay for the Inn and have some fun, in Fredricksburg...." And we laughed. Which we do as much of as we can on our little side trips. We laugh at ourselves and each other and the bloopers we make and we just laugh.
The weather, well it wasn't exactly the best peddling weather drizzling rain, cold and I must say a little dreary. But hey, the girls were out and the destination was fun city and a little dismal weather was not going to diminish this trip.
Our first of many stops was Hillsborough, our first attempt to reach downtown was spoiled by a complete road block, no detour simply turn the car around, go back to the interstate and start over. The second attempt promptly lead us to the downtown and county seat, Judie's first of many times to say, " I love old courthouses. Just past the courthouse we spotted a flower shop, the first one I went in was call City Florist, cute, very cute shop with clothes and gifts and flowers. And just like meeting up with an old friend ( I was a florist for years) I was met with the wonderful aroma of fresh flowers. Carnations I think was the sweet smell. Well, the owner was out of town, oh the containers are cute, but we can't buy today....please come back...yes thanks I'll try to you have a lovely store. I saw the back of a shelf painted like a picket fence with flowers tumbling over the fences, colorful, bright color oh cute...too cute. I must store that in my memory bank.
Well just down the street, only a few doors away was a little shop called, " It Can Be Arranged" yep, yep, yep I headed that direction. The owner was in and loved our containers. Rang up a nice little ticket with him. Yes, things were looking up on this dreary wet day. He even made the comment, you must be diligent to be out selling on a day like this. Trust me I knew that people are much more apt to buy on sunny day. But a girls gotta do what a girls gotta do!!! Do you know how hard it is to get away and have a girl's get away. There's the job, the grandchildren, church, family and the husband... it was time and we were determined and we did have business to attend to on this trip. So, yes the jaw was set and I was determined and there could be no complaints if I paid my way peddling along the way.
With a boost of confidence we hit 35 South again, passed up a few towns and then we saw West. West, Texas is a charming little Czech Community and I must confess in the past I had never venture further into their community than the big bakery, serving up yummy breads, kolanchos, and pastries right off the interstate. And much to my surprise it had many stores in it's downtown. Oh, I might not have told you that our get aways always include a little amature photagrapghy. We like to find rather unusal shots. When we headed to the downtown main, Judie made an executive decision to not waste time waiting on the rather long train that was just about to detain us. She verred to the right and we saw a lot full of old implements tractors, locamotive. I passed on the kodak moment, sighting the rain and an ugly sign that I would have to avoid. But just down the street was a beautiful old Presbitarian church with stained glass windows. Oh, yes this was worth the cold and wet and drear. Then on the the downtown. Well, I'll be darned they have three flower shops. We were so excited. But we were shot down three times in a row. All very nice and said that I was welcome to come back but not today.
Back on 35 again, Southward ho. Next stop would be Belton, it was time to lick our wounds and fill our tummies. Heitzmiller Steak House, the parking lot was full, that is always a good sign. We were greeted at the door with a legal sized paper menu and pencil ( There was a huge box of well used pencils to choose from, they were rather stubby from being sharpened so many times). I said , "Looks like you are going to put us to work." She said , "Oh, you haven't dined with us before, well I will explain the
process." She took us to our table and welcomed us. She told us that the steaks were large and we may want to order from the children's menu. We were to write our name on the menu, circle what we wanted, a waitress would pick up our orders, it would be returned to us and that would be our receipt. The process worked very well, the food was yummy, we thankfully took her advise and ordered from the kids menu and it was more than enough! The food was served promptly and very soon we were on the road again.
We were on and off the road a few times once we made obviosly the wrong turn and ended up several miles from the area we had intended to go. We were trying to go to Lacylake where several flowershops were supposed to be, but it was an obvious bust. The best part of that side trip was crossing the beautiful Brazos River. I love lakes, rivers and creeks. But back to 35 we went. I felt like the larger towns were going to take too much of our time. Lacylake and Waco kind of run together.
Next stop was a delightful surprise. No flower shops in Lorena, but a cute little downtown. Outside a rather expansive purple building was a man bundled up, working on a display or something for the store, we rolled down the window and asked if there were flowershops in this town and he said no, but he would gladly sell me a lamp. The name of his company was The LampLighters (I'm going to have to check the name of his company). He realized by looking into our car, that we were salesman, he noticed the watering can, he said leave me a watercan and I'll make it into a lamp. Come on in he said, I'll look up florist in the phone book. He comitted on the blustery day being a rough day to make door to door sales( Judie and I both reminded ourselves there's a girls day out ahead) and said did you noticed my cap. It'll looked rather like a Russian furry hat, certainly was not the Texan ten gallon straw hat. We commented it should keep you warm. But that time Judie and I were in awe, Chandilear Wonderland, oh oh I spotted oh yes the cutest pink and white tiffany style lamp the top and the bottom was pink stained glass roses, just $300, but it was WOW. The store was a maze of wonderment, must go back when we have more time. Plus there were other shops. No time on this trip. But such nice people and they went out of their way to help us. We left with much gratitude.
Stopped at yet another little town, with two flowershops. No buyers available. Please come again. The clock was ticking and we had a lot of rubber to burn. It was time to really head South to Hill Country. On the road again....
Oh, oh we thought we were on the road again. Before we saw our next kodak moment! It is sort of an inside joke. You may or may not understand, I guess it depends on where you go to church. But we passed a church with a huge banner that boldly claimed, 30 MINUTE WORSHIP SERVICE. Should we go back and take a picture, we had friends that would get a real kickout of this. Sort of reminded us of the comic strip one of our running buddies Dad sent to her from California. It was priceless. There was a Swat Team leaving a church, screaming to the rest of their team. Put your guns down it is not a hostage situation, just a long winded preacher. I told you we go on these trips the main objective is to laugh and have fun. Yes, we were laughing. Laughing at the sign and laughing atourselves for going back ( yes we did whirl around go down a side road that didn't work out and ended up on a gravel road, kind of through a field to get to a church that we have no affiliation with to take a picture of a sign to show our friends, YOU CAN PLAINLY SEE THAT THERE ARE NO MEN ON OUR TRIP BECAUSE THIS WOULD HAVE DROVE MY HUSBAND CRAZY!!!)a church that proclaims not THE NAME OF JESUS (whom both of us love and adore) No their proclamation is a 30 minute worship service. ( YOU PROBABLY HAVE GUESSED BY NOW THAT OUR CHURCH SERVICE HAVE BECOME RATHER LENGHTY). We got our pictures took several to be sure one turned out just right, but the joke turned out to be on us. We could not find our way back to 35. Judie became rather distraught with the Texas Highway Department. Where's the signage? Well this deserves a call to someone...we got very turned around, drove several miles the wrong way to go the way we thought to be the right way, just to find out that it was the wrong way, saw a side road that we thought would take us back to the place we turned the wrong way, but oh my this is a dead end. Saw a worker outside a building obviously taking a smoking break. Rolled down our window sir please can you tell us how to get back on 35 south. He politley told us the directions and quickly we were on the road again.
Until we almost hit Austin when I said Judie we aren't going to hit rush hour...I barely got the words out of my mouth until all we saw was red. It was a parking lot. We passed to news stations, rolled down our window and asked the lady next to us for directions once, didn't trust her and stopped at a filling station to be sure we were on the right track. Good thing we double checked the lady we asked was WRONG!!!
My, my over an hour later we were almost out of Austin, and didn't we just talk about lunch well by the by we are hungry and what is for supper. After that traffic nightmarewe were not looking for any adventures, just a place to eat and use the bathroom. Up a head not a Texaco, but a mall, surely in this shopping mall we could find a place to eat, I believe the name of the mall was Oak Hills, right at the junction of 290, our junction to Fredricksburg. We spotted a little resturant with a rather strange name Sattlelight. I ran in to check the menu and I thought this would do. We were wowwed. Pleasantly surprised. The food was divine. I ordered a chicken and guacamole wrap with a fruit salad and Judie ordered a Greek dish. I split my wrap and she shared her pita and cheese and yes we deserved dessert. All diets to the side. To heck with New Year's Resolution. We resaluted to desert. AND DESERT IT WAS. Hot Brownine with some yummy sauce topped with icecream and a little side of whipped cream. Yum, Yum.
