Another day, we drove to town of Gruene, which is right next to New Braunfels. This is a great town with lots of quaint shops - a General Store,

inside general store

inside general store

antique shops, Cotton Eyed Joe's gift shop and Gruene Hall

which is the oldest operating dance hall Texas (since 1878). Majority of country singers have played here and still do. For those who remember the movie "Michael" in which John Travolta played an angel, the dance sequence from that movie was filmed at this dance hall. This is a real honky-tonk bar!!!

me on the stage!!!

You can probably go on You Tube to see the place.
  Next door  is the Gristmill River Restaurant & Bar. Great food. Since is it the holiday season, the restaurant has their Christmas tree hanging upside down as you enter.

entrance to Gristmill Restaurant

Skip had the fried shrimp. I had beef tenderloin sandwich. Huge!! Nothing is as big as their onion rings!!!

As our waiter reminded us, we are in Texas and there is nothing small in Texas!!!
  Afterwards, we walked off lunch browsing through the many shops. Would definitely come back here. Great place to shop and browse around.