Austin to Fredericksburg (86 miles ignoring diversions) 9th October 2025
The first stop this morning was at the Alamo car rental to pick up our transport for the trip, so armed with driving licence and credit car together with the pre- paid rental number I caught the shuttle from the hotel back to the airport. After a short walk through the car parks I arrived at the car rental and picked up the car, a light blue Ford suv and proceeded to the checkout. The attendant took my licence and credit card and then asked for my passport, which was back at the hotel. Despite showing them the email they insisted I returned together with my passport. So back through the car parks to the hotel shuttle bus I went and returned to the hotel, picked up my passport and returned back to the airport on the next shuttle. Then back through the car parks and picked up the same car that I had earlier driven.
Back at the hotel we loaded the car and started on our journey. We had gone no more than a couple of miles before it was necessary to make the first U turn of the trip. (On return from the holiday it would appear that this U-turn involved us entering a toll road as we were charged by the car hire company). The roads around Austin were very busy and there were plenty of road works going on but as we left the city the traffic thinned out and the drive became much more pleasant.
The first stop was the Lyndon B Johnson State Park which is where the ex- President spent much of his childhood.
In the visitors centre there is an assortment of memorabilia from President Johnson’s term as president of the USA but unfortunately the main residence, known as the Texan White House is currently closed for renovations.
In addition to the LBJ museum also on the site is the Sauer-Beckmann Living History Farm where park rangers, wearing authentic historical costumes can be seen working the farm just as it would have been in the 1900’s. As well as the original farm buildings are crops of vegetables and even cotton.
We were hoping to see a herd of buffalo which are held on the farm but they were hiding in the shade somewhere. I don’t blame them because it was hot.
We did however see a pair of longhorn cattle, which are affectionately called Biscuit and Gravy, as we had a very pleasant walk from the visitor centre to a farm set out as it was in pioneer days.
Next stop on today’s tour was the local Walmart to pick up some supplies for our journey and then onward to our hotel in Fredericksburg, not a Hilton tonight Rosemary but a Holiday Inn Express. Unfortunately as we unpacked the car we appeared to have lost one of the bags of shopping having inadvertently left them in the store.
The hotel is well located for the centre of the town so after unpacking we made our way to a local eatery for the first burger of the trip. Very tasty and filling it was too.
Tomorrow we will further explore the town.