High Hopes

Ever had high hopes of what you'll find when you go to new places?    I think we all do.  Whenever I go on a road trip here in Texas I always do a bit of research in advance to spot the places and things I might have an interest in.  My hopes were somewhat dashed on my recent three-day trip into Central Texas when I visited what I had expected to be a photo-rich area in Brenham.  It's one of those touristy places that everyone visits and talks about all the time.  I for one couldn't figure out what all the hype was about.  I could only find perhaps two places on the Internet that I thought would be worthwhile visiting, seeing that I'm interested in historic places, courthouses, churches, and the like, but I figured surely once I got there I'd change my mind.  I even had reservations to stay for the evening, although I knew I'd probably arrive around noon.  After driving through the downtown area and finding absolutely nothing I thought my camera would find rewarding, I decided not to take the time to tour the Blue Bell Ice Cream factory (after all, I didn't want the possibility of overeating some of the best ice cream outside of homemade that exists on this earth).  My efforts were at least soothed by finding this wonderful administration building on the primary campus of Blinn University.  Would you believe it's the ONLY picture I took in the whole town?  Yes, my friends, truth be told, I blew out of Brenham about as fast as I blew in, making another almost 60 miles before I finally settled down for the evening in historic Bastrop where that evening and the next morning, I took enough pictures to make up for the dearth of photo ops in Brenham.

However, I must say that this building at Blinn is absolutely gorgeous!  Blinn is Texas' premier "transfer" college - meaning it's a two-year school and its students go on to further education at some of the state's other top universities.  Blinn was started in 1883 and has an enrollment of over 18,000 students on four campuses (or is that campi?), the original and largest being located at Brenham.  A whopping 65 percent go on to fulfill baccalaureate degrees at Texas A&M, one of Texas' tier-1 universities and the state's first public institution of higher learning.