It was a cold and windy morning. Temperature started at 50 and very cloudy. It did warm up to 72 mid -day once the sun came out.
The Bluebonnet Festival is held annually in Burnet Texas. Burnet is the county seat of Burnet County with a population of a little over 4000. . The city was first named Hamilton established in 1852 next to Fort Croghan (established in 1849). In 1857, the 35 residents of Hamilton petitioned to have the city renamed Burnet. David Gouverneur Burnet was Texas’ first President. The city itself has been doing some nice changes. The Square has antique stores, restaurants, salons, even a candy shop with old fashioned candies and ice cream. Saturdays there is the Farmer’s Market.The southeast corner is scheduled for restoration of two buildings. It is quite possible a winery will move into one of the buildings once completed.
By the way, you can visit Fort Crogdan Museum. It is located on Highway 29 just west of Highway 281.
We took my parents to the Bluebonnet Festival Saturday morning. We made it in time to see most of the parade. The parade was much larger than the previous year we attended. According to the placards on the vehicles, there were 93 in the parade. The parade was filled with floats from local businesses, organizations, schools, vintage cars. You name it, most likely they were there.
The Austin Steam Train brought in a full load of people from Cedar Park. When we moved to Texas, they had a Steam Locomotive. It was a sight to see when they fired it up. In 1999 they took the locomotive in for repairs. They found a large repaired crack caused by a runaway car from many years ago. They have been working on restoring this since. Hopefully they receive enough donations to finish the restoration soon. They have other locomotives for their many trips each week. It is worth taking a trip in the old vintage dining, sleeper, and other cars.
Now this is something I would ride. I was a teenager when the Big Wheel came out. It looked like the Shriners were having a blast sliding around.
We sat at the beginning of the parade. When the last vehicle went by, I grabbed my father in his wheelchair and followed behind like we were part of the parade. I was amazed on the many floats from outside the area. Some traveled for hours to get here.
The Festival was mainly in the town square. I have no clue how many vendor booths there were. They covered the square and down the street t the railroad tracks. They had about 20 booths with food of all kinds and smells.
And there was plenty of rides. I tried to get Tracy to ride this with me. No luck on my end.
I estimate there were about 20,000 people attending Saturday. On one corner of the square was a stage. We topped and listened to a Bluegrass band. They were good. Both my parents were tapping their feet.
For lunch we decided to head to Marble Falls. We had a great meal at Holy Smokes. It is off the beaten path, but worth the trip. This is one of the few places I eat BBQ. The reason? As Tracy says, most are not as good as what I make. Well, it’s true. Mine is very good. All of us had brisket and I had a side of jalapeno sausage. About half way through our meal, the owner(Randy) sat down to chat. It was a nice chat. He has plans on opening two new smoke houses soon. They are also committing to moving on Highway 281. He said within 90 days the move should be happening.
Saturday was a good day. It was full of sites and people to see, let alone being with my parents. I highly suggest you look into taking the Austin Steam train to the next Bluebonnet Festival. If you stay towards the evening, there are plenty of bands to enjoy. And in the evening, you can take the hort trip and watch the demolition derby.
