4/15/1996 - Burnett, TX - Bluebonnet Festival - S.French
43 miles 13.5 mph average

Anne and I drove down on Friday, 4/12, leaving Dallas about 1:00pm. There were thunderstorm warnings in the area and we drove through some heavy rains on the way. We drove I-35 south to Georgetown and directly west to Burnett. The Airy Mount B&B is about 1 miles east of Burnett on highway 29 (the highway between Georgetown and Burnett). We got to the Airy Mount and met "Charlie" who is the husband of the woman who actually runs the B&B. She was in Las Vegas for a Religious something-or-other. Charlie wasn't really sure what to do and he kinda wandered around the rooms and mumbled half to himself, half to us. There were three nice rooms in a restored barn. Two room upstairs, one large room downstairs. The rooms upstaired were more conventional with standard looking bathrooms. The room downstairs was much larger. It had a separate room with a twin bed and old fashioned tub in it; another separate room with a sink and toilet. The tub had a frame around the top that held the shower curtain up. The tub room was decorated as a small, western room that a cowboy might rent for the night. Our room was decorated with western paraphenalia too. Huge king-size bed, chairs, chests, other stuff. The place had a great covered porch that faced west. We sat out there and watched the sunset reflect off some huge thunderheads that were forming to the east. It was beautiful.

All three rooms were rented for both Friday and Saturday night. Two older couples had the two upstairs rooms. They were from Waxahachie and were there to "get away" for a couple days. They were all 4 smokers and made the great porch harder to enjoy. They also got up at 5:00am!! I wonder why? Never did figure it out, there was nothing to do but sit outside and smoke. Which they did. Our 1st floor room was very, very noisy. We heard _everything_ that the people on the second floor did, their TV, every footstep. We could exactly pinpoint where they were standing it was so loud and directional. We couldn't sleep until they had gone to bed and turned off the TV (at about 10:30pm), and we woke up when they got up (about 5:00am!) because of the noise. Although we originally planned on staying two nights, we didn't because of the noise.

The biking was _really_nice_ on Saturday. The temp got up to 90 degrees, the wind was modest early and got up to oh, maybe 20 mph in the afternoon. We couldn't register for the ride until Saturday morning, they weren't prepared for it. On Saturday morning, though, they were setup fine. We got great maps and some nice T-shirts (they had medium size too!). There appeared to be less people there than last time. Maybe 100, maybe even a little less. We met a fellow named Mark and rode with him the whole trip. He was from Arlington.

Here are the things I remember the most:

  • Cattle crossings. Lots of them. But they weren't so bad. More an interruption than anything else.
  • We missed a turn and took a little detour to get back onto the marked route. It was a _very nice_ detour and may actually have been nicer than the marked route because we got on a more major road. We saw very, very few cars on any of the routes.
  • The 1st rest stop was about 20 miles in. Then the second was at about 25 miles. It was a little odd. I'd liked to have had a rest stop every 10 miles or so. The rest stops _were_ nice and the people very friendly.
  • The water in Burnett tastes terrible (apparently, I didn't fill my water bottles up at the rest stops. But everyone who did complained about it!) o They had removed the "Finish Line" markers and everything else indicating that a bike rally was going on when we arrived back in the town square. And it was _packed_ with people, cars, parade floats, other stuff.
  • Thy had good food, accessories, booths of all kinds. The festivities were nicer than last year and more people were there.
  • The wildflowers weren't as good as last year. There was only about half as many. Too bad. They sure were beautiful last year!
  • My butt didn't get sore at all.
  • My allergies were terrible the whole way. I took a Benedryl before the ride and it helped a little, but I was blowing my nose all the time during the ride. I wonder if I had a cold? I didn't seem to have the problem quite as much on Sunday, and Monday was even better. hmmm...