I just couldn’t resist! The Blue Bell factory was right on the way to where I was going. I just showed up and as luck would have it, because I was by myself, they squeezed me into a tour that had just started 30 seconds before I got there. It was with a group of home-schooled kids, but I was grateful to have caught the tour because I would have had to wait 2 hours to see the next one, which meant I wouldn’t have got to see it.
It was really a great tour. It was short, but the tour guide was very knowledgeable and we got to look down over two different production floors as she explained the production process. I learned that Blue Bell Creameries started as the Brenham Creameries and they only made butter, but when a new family took it over, they started making ice cream. And the son really liked the blue bell flowers that grow in Brenham, so he renamed the company to Blue Bell. Blue Bell ice cream is only distributed into 16 states and they only make 50 flavors, 17 of which are regular year-round flavors. The rest are either seasonal or regional.
After the tour we were treated to some hand dipped ice cream in the gift shop where we got to choose from 24 flavors. I wanted to choose a flavor that I probably would never buy, so I chose Peaches and Homemade Vanilla. It was actually pretty good! I surprised myself!
The tour was a welcome break and by the time it was done, I was ready to get back on the road.
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