Because Blue Bell is certainly the kindest ice cream

Brandon and I needed to get out of town for a weekend. We are both tired, we are both constantly stressed out about work, we are both in need of rest. So, this weekend, we left town. We agreed on the way back to Dallas on Sunday that we probably tried to pack too much into one weekend, but we still had a wonderful time. And, of course, we experienced a couple of challenges which annoyed us to pieces and caused us to declare that we are done owning cars. Finished I tell you! Harumph.

On Friday, we drove to Brenham. Our goal was to visit the Blue Bell factory and see the Washington County Bluebonnets. Unfortunately for us (and as is typical of us) we did not get quite the early start we imagined. As we rolled into Washinton County, we realized we had 25 minutes to get someplace that would normally be 35 minutes away. We were going to miss the last tour of the Blue Bell factory. This was quite disappointing, but we figured we would try anyway.

We arrived at the Blue Bell creamery exactly six minutes after the last tour departed for the day. My eyes welled up, as I was so disappointed. Luckily for us, a nice man named Ricky Dickson happened to be standing there at the creamery entrance. He turned out to be a Blue Bell big shot, and he promised he would take us on a tour if no one else would. He found a tour guide for us, and we got to take a tour after all! The peasants rejoiced. And ate ice cream.


The first time I visited Matt and Nicole Tatum in their Portland, Ore. apartment, I bought two half-gallons of Blue Bell ice cream before I left town. I packed them in a styrofoam cooler on dry ice, and when I landed in Portland, eight hours after I bought the ice cream at an H-E-B in Austin, they were still frozen solid thanks to the wonder of dry ice. I am a dedicated Blue Bell fan. And now, not only do I love Blue Bell because it is tasty but also because it is the kindest ice cream.

And now for the rest of the trip:

We ate Italian food in Brenham.

We ate barbecue in Sealy, Texas, with Brandon's dad who drove up from Houston to meet us for lunch.


And then we drove to San Antonio. We made it to San Antonio in time to visit the Alamo before it closed for the day.


We ate Mexican food. We thought about going salsa dancing. And then we went to sleep instead.

On Sunday, we found a screw in the wall of Brandon's back driver side tire. We bought a tire at National Tire and Battery because Discount Tire Company was closed. We're still peeved about it.

We drove home through Waco and stopped for Health Camp burgers and chocolate shakes.


We visited the Suspension Bridge.


And we drove past the Waco Tribune-Herald for posterity's sake. Sniffle. How I love that place.


All in all, this was a relaxing trip. Clearly, the highlight (for me) was the ice cream. Please kindly ignore how chunky I look in this picture. Ice cream=delish.