Jefferson, TX Getaway

This past weekend, my husband and I decided (at the last minute) to make a short trip to Jefferson, TX to spend the night in a Bed & Breakfast, enjoy the quaint little town, and do some dancing.  I checked several hotels and inns and all of them were booked.  I guess Jefferson is quite a popular destination for the Fourth of July weekend.   We were lucky enough to find the last available room at The Old Mulberry Inn Bed & Breakfast, a beautiful inn built to reflect a historic style, with small separate cottages added to the grounds.  They even have a plaque on the front wall of the porch that states, "On this site in 1879, nothing happened."

The little town square and park in Jefferson were all decked out in red, white & blue banners.  We enjoyed lunch at the Austin Street Bistro (on Austin Street, of course).  It's a small cafe, but the food was excellent and the staff was so friendly.  There are lots of antique stores, little gift shops and specialty stores to browse through while walking around town.  We spent a lot of time in The Old General Store.  We tried out Auntie Skinner's Riverboat Club on Saturday night for dinner and dancing.  They had a live band which was mediocre, and the dance floor (a little concrete floor space where they didn't put any tables) was small and very crowded!  So, we were disappointed that we didn't get to do as much dancing as we hoped.

We did enjoy sitting in the garden of the Mulberry Inn and having our coffee before breakfast.  There was a huge old tree that covered most of the grounds in the back yard.  The trunk must've been 5 or 6 feet in diameter.  We discussed the tree and how beautiful it was, guessing it must've been at least 200 years old.  It had the shape and size of a live oak, but the leaves were very odd-shaped.  We both decided that we'd never seen a tree like that, and we would look it up when we got home.  So we brought a leaf home with us to compare to pictures on the internet. (How else do you "look things up?")  So, after a little searching, I found a picture of the leaf and a description of the tree  --  It was a Mulberry Tree.....DUH!!