Texas Hill Country

Before any long trip:

• Schedule a trip to your doctor. Make sure your immunizations are up to date, particularly if you are traveling to another country. This includes your tetanus booster. If you anticipate that you will need vaccinations, make sure to allow enough time before your departure date, should you have a reaction to the shot. While you are at the doctor, ask him to write a current prescription, listing all of the medications that you're taking with their dosage. Put this with your travel documents.
• Put together a folder that includes a written description as to how you manage your diabetes on a daily basis: the meal plan that you follow; your regime for insulin injections or for taking your diabetes pills and other medications; the name of your doctor with address, phone number, and fax number; and a name of a person back home as an emergency contact person with phone number and cell phone number.
• Wear or carry some kind of identification that says that you have diabetes. If you're traveling abroad, this should also be translated into that country's language. Keep the original in your wallet and a copy in your travel bag. If you need translation for "Help, I have diabetes," you can find translation services here on the web.
• Plan to take twice as much insulin and syringes or pills as well as blood-testing supplies as you think you'll need for the trip. Pack half in a bag that you can keep with you when flying, driving, hiking, or just sightseeing so that your medication is with you at all times. Include some glucose tablets and carb snacks to ward off low blood sugars should there be an unscheduled delay in meals.
• Whenever we're away from home, we drink bottled water and avoid tap water-including ice cubes-entirely, when we are outside of the United States.

This is the time of year to head for the Texas Hill Country, an easy drive south on I-35 from either Dallas or Fort Worth. During most of the year it's a scenic drive through ranch country with sweeping vistas of green pastures and blue sky. But in April and continuing into the summer, the drive is spectacular when the area of hills, plateaus, arroyos, canyons, meadows, and valleys explode with the brilliant colors of 100 varieties of native wildflowers. From further away, fly into Austin and begin your trip there. Austin is the state capital and the home of Lady Bird Johnson's Wildflower Center. You can check out their hours and special events at http://www.wildflower.org/. The widow of former President Lyndon B. Johnson, Mrs. Johnson resides on the LBJ ranch near Johnson City (west of Austin), and was instrumental in getting our Texas highways and byways seeded with native wildflowers.

Still heading south, just before reaching New Braunfels we turned west on FM306 for 1 1/2 miles to a traffic signal, then left (south) onto Hunter Road for a half mile into the unique historic town of Gruene, a settlement of German farmers who grew cotton along the Guadalupe River. In the hot summer months, the river is the center for whitewater raft, tube, and canoe trips from early morning to late in the evening. Nearby New Braunfels has branches of several national motel chains from which to choose, while accommodations are available in the town of Gruene but are limited to two choices: Gruene Homestead Inn, the 1920's renovated home of O.A. Gruene (for reservations, call (830) 606-0216), and Gruene Mansion Inn, a Victorian lodging in H.D. Gruene's original home with cottages overlooking the river (for reservations, call (830) 629-2641).

The town of Gruene offers several antique and specialty shops, with the charming names of Cactus Jack's (primitive and country antiques), Dancing Bear (gourmet food to antique roses and herbs), By Popular Demand (stained glass, pottery, birdhouses, clocks, and such by Texas artisans), Cotton Eyed Joe's (collection of Texas and Gruene-theme gifts and souvenirs), and Gruene General Store (selected as one of the 40 best places to visit in Texas) with its soda fountain, Texas foods, unusual gifts, signs, and tins. Buck Pottery is located here in Gruene, located in a turn of the century barn featuring hand thrown, wood-fired stoneware pottery.

By the time we left the restaurant, the small town was packed with cars with a crowd already inside Gruene Hall, the oldest, continually operating dance hall in the state of Texas. Known through the world as a music venue, Gruene Hall has been instrumental in launching the careers of Lyle Lovett, George Strait, Hal Ketchum, and many others. It was also used as the set for the John Travolta dance scene in "Michael." That night's music group was still an unknown, but that didn't keep the hundreds of dancers off the dance floor. If you've never seen a couple of hundred cowboys (with the regulation boots and hats) twirling their gal counter-clock wise around a huge dance floor, you've missed a spectacular sight. Don't worry if you don't have a dance partner-in the space of five minutes; I was asked by six different cowboys (ages ranging from early 20's to late 80's) if I'd like to dance. What fun! And, this goes on every night, Thursday through Sunday, plus Saturday and Sunday afternoons in the summertime.

The next day we headed for Fredericksburg in the center of Texas Hill Country. Beyond its German bakeries and biergartens, this German settlement offers a large selection of historic storefronts where you can browse for everything from antiques to fine Texas wines. On the way into town, you pass by immense Wildseed Farms, the world's largest working wildflower seed farm. At this time of year, the fields are rampant with wildflowers of every color imaginable from a painter's palette. The parking lot is overflowing with cars and tour buses for the thousands of people who flock to the area to gasp at the wildflower bonanza. You can stroll along walking trails through 217 acres planted with bluebonnets, poppies, and hundreds of other wildflowers. The Market Center sells unique home and garden gifts as well as a large variety of wildflower seeds and bedding plants.

A favorite stop in Fredericksburg itself is the newly opened downtown location of Fredericksburg Herb Farm, which pampers both women and men with therapeutic herbal treatments.

For romantic accommodations, you can't beat Fredericksburg's lodgings, but first you have to make some decisions: in town or out in the country; privacy or in the midst of the social scene. Places to chose from vary from 1800's log cabins to new cottages, rock barns, and traditional "Sunday houses," built for pioneer farmers to stay in when they came in to town for the weekend. For a list of lodging accommodations, visit http://www.fredericksburgtexas.net/stay.htm.

On our way home the next day, we drove through Blanco, a wide spot in the road with an operating general store that looks like an Old West movie set. Prominently standing outside the front door was a 10-foot wooden Indian. My husband was particularly thrilled to see more than a hundred Corvettes coming through on a road rally.

Entering Austin from the west, we soon found our next destination, Austin's fabulous Central Market. For a couple of hours we filled our shopping carts with beautiful vegetables and fruits from around the world; and for our freezer at home, with a fabulous baby rack of lamb, very lean lamb shanks with which to make a favorite Persian lamb and chick pea stew, hand-made low fat chicken and cilantro tamales, and other specialty food items that would help to make memorable meals in the months to come. Once the food was packed in the coolers we'd brought especially for this purpose, we treated ourselves to a meal at the Central Café where I had Insalata Mista, a rustic vegetable salad of fresh asparagus, tomatoes, and chick peas, mixed in a lemon garlic vinaigrette and served on fresh baked semolina points. My husband had the Bistro special for the day: spicy chicken strips served on a bed of romaine with cheese, tomatoes, and cucumber, and a refreshing glass of Mango Ceylon iced tea.

As we drove nearer to the Metroplex and started to hit heavy traffic, I sighed and suggested that I'd like to head out for "new territory." Now that we're empty nesters, spur-of-the-moment weekend journeys are more possible. I've never been to Paris-Paris, Texas, that is. It's only 110 miles northeast of us and they claim to be "the second largest Paris in the world." Wonder if they really have a cowboy hat perched on their Eiffel Tower? I think we'd better get the car serviced this week...just in case we get the "urge."

FTG