So - I found an incredible deal in New Braunfels on the river. Hideout on the Horseshoe on the Guadalupe River on the North side of New Braunfels almost in Sattler. If you are a tubing enthusiast (yes think in past years - oh like college for me), you'll recognize this area as one of the little shoots you go through when tubing. It's beautiful! This is a relatively new place on the river having only been open for about 3 years. It's a beautiful rustic place and normally rents at high peak in the summer anywhere from $250 - 500/night depending on the size of the cabin. HOWEVER.... they ran a SPECIAL (and you know I love specials) recently for winter and get this .... ALL the cabins were $49/night!! No kidding!! That's less than a night at the Motel 6 (which John uses to compare! I don't). Really nice place... on the river.... kitchenette.....BBQ grills right outside.... porch with chairs/tables.... outdoor fire places..... riverwalks...... $49/night! Coolness. The entire cost for the 4 nights we stayed was just above $200!! Woo hoo!!! We were there!!
This is how happy we were!! Of course, more pictures in the picture gallery and it has all the neat pictures of the resort.
Besides just hanging out and enjoying the quiet peacefulness at the Hideout, we made a couple of trips around the area. One interesting tidbit to note is on the way in on Monday, we made a stop at the HEB in New Braunfels to get our provisions. Apparently, we were happily shopping away in the store while the instore IBC Bank was getting robbed!! We came out of the store, walked to the car and loaded up the groceries and then as we were making our way out of the parking lot, there were about 20 police cars where we had just come out of the store!! I said at the time - "the bank must have been robbed for there to be so many cops here." And lo and behold.... it was!! We could have been walking out with her for all we knew. That was quite a wild thought.
Besides just hanging out and enjoying the quiet peacefulness at the Hideout, we made a couple of trips around the area. One interesting tidbit to note is on the way in on Monday, we made a stop at the HEB in New Braunfels to get our provisions. Apparently, we were happily shopping away in the store while the instore IBC Bank was getting robbed!! We came out of the store, walked to the car and loaded up the groceries and then as we were making our way out of the parking lot, there were about 20 police cars where we had just come out of the store!! I said at the time - "the bank must have been robbed for there to be so many cops here." And lo and behold.... it was!! We could have been walking out with her for all we knew. That was quite a wild thought.
The first on Tuesday was to the Outlet Mall in San Marcos (only about 15 minutes down the road). I had two goals for the stores this year - one, hit Pottery Barn and two, go to Coach 
Outlet. I've been admiring a certain piece of furniture at Pottery Barn for a little while now and wanted to see if they happened to have it at the Outlet at a lower cost. Yes.. I do pay attention to this. See the picture on the left. I love my house, but I need a few more shelves to put all my neat pictures, etc. on it. It would have been handy at Christmas time as well as there were a few items I just couldn't put out because I ran out of space!! Imagine that!! Guess what!! They had one (1) of them and it was half of it's normal price!! YAY!! It was put together and John took it apart and we fit it in the jeep. Very cool!! The even neater part ---- with the use of some PB Gift Cards from our wedding and a Wells Fargo Gift Card I received for an award, I didn't have to put out a dime of mine!! Now...what could be better than that I ask??
Outlet. I've been admiring a certain piece of furniture at Pottery Barn for a little while now and wanted to see if they happened to have it at the Outlet at a lower cost. Yes.. I do pay attention to this. See the picture on the left. I love my house, but I need a few more shelves to put all my neat pictures, etc. on it. It would have been handy at Christmas time as well as there were a few items I just couldn't put out because I ran out of space!! Imagine that!! Guess what!! They had one (1) of them and it was half of it's normal price!! YAY!! It was put together and John took it apart and we fit it in the jeep. Very cool!! The even neater part ---- with the use of some PB Gift Cards from our wedding and a Wells Fargo Gift Card I received for an award, I didn't have to put out a dime of mine!! Now...what could be better than that I ask??The other stop was to the Coach Outlet store. I found out a neat thing about Coach purses. If yours breaks and you take it back to their store, they will send it off (for free) back to their manufacturing site and determine if it's fixable. If so, they fix it (for free). If not, they send you either a exact replacement purse (for free) or a monetary replacement certificate (for free). Apparently, my little wristlet I bought in July had some defect and they didn't have another, so they sent me a nice certificate for it's value. Given I'm learning to be frugal .... I wanted it to go as far as it could so it seemed the Coach Outlet store might be a wise stop. It was... I came out of there with 3 purses for my certificate plus a little bit of money from another Wells Fargo Gift Card award I received. Nifty huh!! Again... no dime of mine!! Well.. technically, the cost of the original Coach purse came out of my pocket, so I suppose... nah... it didn't come out of my pocket at this moment let's say!!
So.. enough torturing poor John with outlet mall shopping. We made our way over to Gruene for some wandering around there for awhile. We found The Grapevine wine bar in Gruene and made a stop 
there for a glass of wine for me and beer for John. They serve only Texas wines so it's a good way to get a taste of several of the wines from Texas. I've found one that I like a lot and it surprised me. Messina Hof has released a Cabernet Franc wine that is really, really good! You have to like Cab Franc though which some people don't. It's a little earthy and very bold. Not fruity much. Most of the time it's added to other grapes (like Cab Sav or Merlot) to give the wine added depth. Tough to find a good one that is just 100% Cab Franc. I don't usually like Messina Hof wines as they are a little too sweet on the average for me, but they did put out a good Cab Franc. I may actually order a few bottles (or make a drive up to Bryan).
there for a glass of wine for me and beer for John. They serve only Texas wines so it's a good way to get a taste of several of the wines from Texas. I've found one that I like a lot and it surprised me. Messina Hof has released a Cabernet Franc wine that is really, really good! You have to like Cab Franc though which some people don't. It's a little earthy and very bold. Not fruity much. Most of the time it's added to other grapes (like Cab Sav or Merlot) to give the wine added depth. Tough to find a good one that is just 100% Cab Franc. I don't usually like Messina Hof wines as they are a little too sweet on the average for me, but they did put out a good Cab Franc. I may actually order a few bottles (or make a drive up to Bryan).
After a stop at the wine bar, we wandered down the little main street in Gruene to John's favorite music store. Lone Star Music!! This is the place that is very likely to have all the music by the musicians he likes. They are usually tough to find in normal music stores and sometimes, even on Amazon! This is an eclectic little music place so it fits John to a tee!!
New Years Eve
On New Years Eve we slept late (well, I slept until 8:30 and John slept till sometime later). About midday, we made our way to the only really local winery near New Braunfels - Dry Comal Creek. We've been there before and I enjoy most of their wines. They make a wine from the native grape in Texas, the Black Spanish Grape, which is pretty good. Most all of their other wines come from grapes they import and then ferment into some pretty tasty wine. The other good thing about their wine is it's affordable which I like as well. Their winery is very pretty. NYE was a beautiful cool day so it was really nice to be out on their property.
Our second and final stop for the evening where we rang in 2009, was at Gruene Hall!! Robert Earl Keen was playing the NYE show with Toni Price opening starting at 8 pm. This was a Sold Out show and the tickets were quite pricey.... but worth it. We had a lot of fun!! Did a little bit of dancing... a lot of listening.... a lot of people watching. Enjoyed being together bringing in 2009!
Robert Earl Keen singin'..... Fun pictures of Gruene Hall .....I have some video but still can't get it to load so I'll keep trying with that one.
HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!
Our New Year's Day was extremely low key. We were still at the Hideout but I didn't feel real well that day. And .. no... it was not from a hangover. I didn't drink any alcohol after dinner on NYE actually. Someone has to be the designated driver. I was running a low fever and generally feeling yucky. My Superman of a husband went to the store and retrieved some cold meds, soup and club soda for me so perhaps I might kick it quick (I felt much better the next day). I don't think I left the couch for very long the entire day. There wasn't anything on TV except football (and with the Cowboy's losing so badly last weekend, John didn't want to watch ANY football - not a problem for me). I took the opportunity to hijack the tv and we watched probably 8 hours of Iron Chef on Food Network!! The only thing that kept John interested was they were running a series of shows on battles that involved MEATS!! LOL.... kobe beef, pork, venison, buffalo, etc. He couldn't even find a good western to watch (darn the luck). John cooked us a fabulous New Years meal though - pork chops, cabbage and black eyed peas. We had some tamales they were serving at Gruene hall on NYE. We got all our lucky foods on board to make this year really a lucky year!!
Hope everyone has a very Happy and Prosperous 2009!!!
1 comment:
looks like a fun trip, sorry you got sick but am glad you are feeling better
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