We spent Wed and Thurs nights at Gruene recently and had a wonderful time. This trip was planned a few weeks before with the Thompsons inviting us to join them in their annual pilgrimage to the quaint little town. They had not stayed at the Gruene Mansion bed and breakfast before, but always wanted to. It is in the center of everything and within walking distance of shops, restaurants, the river and the famous Gruene Hall.
This is the oldest continuously operating dance hall in Texas and has been the place where young singers hoping to “break-into” the business- perform. Pat Green was one of the many to begin here.
We traveled in sseparate cars to Gruene because we had a side trip planned for after we left Gruene on Friday morning. Lily did well on the drive, playing and talking and too excited to nap much. In fact she was a very well behaved young lady during the entire trip, except for waking up at night and not knowing where she was, getting a little (?) upset. She did not sleep well for that reason, and as a result, neither did her parents. She has just discovered blueberries and has declared them her favorite food. She is easy to placate with a handful of blueberries.
The Gruene Mansion B & B is made up of various old buildings which center on an old two story plantation style home. Each of the outbuildings contains several guest rooms—some housing 2 people and some able to sleep 4-6. Our room had a living room and two bedrooms and 2 baths. The second bedroom was up an interesting set of spiral stairs (16- and yes, I counted). In total The Gruene Mansion B & B has 30 rooms and from what I hear, they are full most weekends. Since we were there mid-week, there was not a huge number of folks around.
This is where I slept and I’ve never before been in a room with a ceiling so low that I couldn’t stand up—I could in the center, but not on the sides.
A very comfortable room- until nature called at 3 am and the stairs had to be navigated. No problems, no accidents.
Lily liked the spiral stairs and would have liked to try them out, but for a girl of less than one year, not the most logical plan for her. She sat on the bottom one, but was not allowed to try to go any higher.
We had a lovely porch overlooking the Guadalupe river, where tube riders were floating along. We also saw an inquisitive coral snake who slithered by our walkway to the porch.
I said it was a B & B and the breakfast was a real treat. We had a buffet with fruit, eggs, sausage, various kinds of muffins, sweet rolls, quiche and of course, coffee and juice. We enjoyed this both mornings—my only complaint with the breakfast was that it didn’t begin until 8:30 am, and those of you who know my morning habits, will realize that I prefer to have breakfast around 6:30-7. Oh well, if we do this again, I’ll take breakfast snacks to tide me over til 8:30
We shopped for t-shirts, books, toys and gifts. There were “antique” shops (more like old junk—but I suppose that is another definition of antique), an unusual toys and gimmicks shop where N bought a birthday gift for a favorite cousin, and a shop that consisted of one shelf of pickles—original recipe, but just one shelf of pickles.
Several shops boasted large antique furniture—I need no more furniture. Nor do I need any gypsy clothing.
We ate at the Gruene River Grill, a large restaurant with a varied menu. Good food, but they didn’t have teaspoons. Or at least when we asked for one for Lily, all they brought was a serving size spoon.
The river was a drawing card for Billy who wanted to introduce his daughter to the cool running water--she loves baths. They waded a little, but didn't spend much time there.
We met one of N’s college friends who lives nearby for supper at the Gristmill—the most famous eatery in Gruene. The food was very good, the company congenial and 10 year old Helen (Lisa’s daughter) became Lily’s best buddy.
One thing we did every day was visit the ice cream shop. We got huge dips of Blue Bell and enjoyed every spoonful.
After our Gruene experience, the Thompsons drove back home a different way, stopping for lunch at the Jersey Lilly, guess why.
We drove to Kerrville for our next adventure. Our niece, Kinsey, is in CATS, the musical and we needed to see her performance. She had to be at the theatre at 4, to practice her “flying” and to get into costume and makeup. We had supper at Mamacitas, a renovated and very interesting looking Mexican restaurant. Of particular interest was the condiment brought with our chips and salsa. It looked like pale guacamole and tasted like sour cream and was in fact a combination of the two, heavy on the sour cream.
We went back to D’s house to chill for awhile, got dressed for the play and arrived there about 15 min before curtain at 8:30. The play is taken from a group of poems about cats, with a very loose story. Kinsey’s character, Magnificent Mr. Mistofeles, is a magician cat who, in this production at least, is a dancer. And Kinsey was wonderful.
Added to the director’s conception of the musical were 10 “kittens”. ---Children from 6-10 yrs old flitted around the stage, were the “pekes” in one scene and generally filled in areas of the stage. According to Kinz, they sometimes get in the way, and a time or two I knew one or two were too close to the “manhole/orchestra pit” and might fall in. No one fell in, but I held my breath more than once. See picture below--manhole far right at bottom of stage. Looks dangerous to me.
This is an outdoor theatre and several practices had been rained out. It was soooo muggy when we attended that N and his brother were miserably hot and uncomfortable. I, needless to say, was fine.
After the production, Kinz came over and we talked theatre for awhile. We were up and dressed to leave Saturday morning, bought some Fredericksburg peaches, and Pecos cantaloupe in Kerrville and headed back to Arlington.
A really fun few days, Let’s do it again. And oh, yeah, we came home to a really unhappy cat.
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