souvenirs

One last page from our trip to Fredericksburg: although neither of us are true shoppers, we did manage to buy a few things while walking through the historic downtown.

The first item purchased, with my love of history, was a $1 guidebook to the area's history. This was found at the National Museum of the Pacific War, where I also found the Rosie the Riveter mint tin. I once worked in a history museum and one of my coworkers did a re-enactment presentation of "Rosie". Teresa's aunt had been a riveter during World War II, so she drew heavily from those memories. The tin reminded me of her . . . and, yes, it _might_ become a mini paint palette some day!

In search of a light lunch, we stumbled upon Rustlin' Rob's. We thought it was a chili eatery; it turned out to be a shop full of cooking condiments! Everywhere we turned, there were samples of salsas, peppers, sauces (some over cream cheese, some mixed in sour cream), jellies, etc. Also set out were tiny crackers and pretzels to taste the samples with. We ended up eating samples for lunch -- who knew prickly pear jam could taste so good? The shop also offered several types of fudge; we bought a small sample to share later.

I will soon be decorating our wee cabin for Christmas __ we don't really care if it's decorated or not, but the kids and grandkids insist __ and our skinny alpine tree had no star. This star is simply twine wrapped around a wire base that was dipped in glue, then silver glitter. And though we have real mistletoe growing outside in a neighbor's tree, I like the "Texas" version using hot peppers.