Mr. Math loves me. He knew that with the start of school, our son and daughter in law going overseas for a year, and even the addition of our rowdy rescue dog, Lumi, I was exhausted and ready for a break. He surprised me with a trip to a Bed and Breakfast in Fredricksburg. Texas. We even took a day off work to extend the weekend which is something I almost never do during the school year.
Fredricksburg is a town with a strong German heritage in the Texas Hill Country about four hours from Houston. It is a picture postcard, small town that has worked hard to preserve historic buildings. (In Texas, historic means late 1800’s up to early 1900’s.)
Link to the Fredricksburg website is HERE
This was our first ever trip to a bed and breakfast after hearing about them for years from our buddy, The Social Planner. The room wasn’t cheap. It would have been comparable to the cost of a room in a downtown Doubletree in Austin, Dallas, or San Antonio during the fall. Once Mr. Math let me know we were going, I got to pick the room. We looked at room photos when choosing where we would stay. I was smitten with the room I chose. It was a mix of vintage and eclectic furnishing. Totally funky and bohemian.
We got our reservation through this site: HERE
Here is the 360 degree view of the room at theroadrunnerinn.com . HERE The photos don’t lie. It was a cool space and looked exactly like the photos. The inside was exactly the type space I would create for myself.
We arrived just after 3:00 pm at Main Street Bed and Breakfast to get our room key. The young lady at registration handed us the key, a map to the location of our building, two $6.00 breakfast vouchers for a local restaurant and told us good luck finding parking because our room did not have parking and that there was no sign for the Roadrunner which was our room. We found parking a block behind the location and walked up to the room. Here is a photo of all the information we got from the young lady.
I will be honest and say that this is not the B and B experience I thought we would have. I guess this is tip number one if you are going to a B and B. Ask about parking, ask about breakfast, ask if someone will be on site 24 hours. (By the way, breakfast was really good but we had to pay the balance on our meal Saturday. It cost over the amount of our vouchers. Sunday we each got a breakfast taco and coffee and it was within the allotted amount.)
The Little Roadrunner on the glass up to our room was the only sign. We walked by it twice.
I really like the mix of modern with mid century chairs at the top of the stairs.
I feel a little like a whiner when I say this but here goes. I had expectations that a Bed and Breakfast would be more intimate. I thought we would have human contact while we were there at a more personal level than at a hotel. Except for the young lady who gave us the key and paper we did not see another soul related to the B &B the time we stayed there except the shop owner in the shop below our room who helped us with the door when our hands were full and a man who told us to leave the key in the mailbox Sunday morning when the office wasn’t open. We were just another set of patrons at the restaurant and frankly we could have found a place to eat on our own had we stayed in a hotel. There were no notes, suggestions, or “Where to find…” information provided except this large picture over the kitchen area.
Coffee was provided in the room along with basic dishes, which was nice.
We have rented beach houses several times and this felt much more like a beach house rental than what I thought we would find at a B&B.
Tip number 2: Ask more questions and check rating sites like Yelp.
The final ask more questions occurred Saturday night when we discovered that a band was playing in the beer garden next door after the posted hours for the Beer Garden and during the bar open hours. (It rained Friday night or we would have discovered this sooner.) Nothing on the website mentioned that a beer garden was right outside our window or the physical address of the Roadrunner Inn. If we were partying folk, this would have been great. It would be a draw to know we could stay up until 2:00 am drinking then stagger back to the room once the music finished without having to drive anywhere. We are not those folk. After a day of shopping, exploring, and walking in cooler than expected and wet weather we were ready for bed about 11:00 pm. By 12:30 am we were tired and frustrated. By 12:35 there were words exchanged between Mr. Math and the manager of the Beer Garden. It was a long night with little sleep after the words were exchanged.
Tip number 3: Ask for the physical address of the B and B if it is not provided on the website, then go to Google Maps and Look at the Street View. I think it would have saved us some of the aggravation Saturday night.
FYI- This nice looking pair playing music on the porch of said Beer Garden WAS NOT the band playing late at night and the seats were full at 12:30 am.
Will we go back to Fredricksburg? Probably not. We enjoyed our visit but the town was very crowded, the shopping was nice, but things were a little overpriced, and frankly our B and B experience tainted our enjoyment. We ended up paying for a really nice weekend away and got the equivalent of Motel 6 experience in a really nice room (really it was less than Motel 6 in service- there is usually parking, 24 hour on site personnel, and ice at a Motel 6). Will we try a Bed and Breakfast again? I hope so. I have already heard from two different folks about great B and B locations to try that offer what we were hoping to find.
Have you had a great B and B experience? I would love to hear about it. Have you been to Fredricksburg? If so, what did we miss that would have made our trip more enjoyable? I would love to hear from you.
Thanks for taking the time to read my blog and share in our mid-life adventures.
Blessings,
Karen