Bryan & College Station, Texas

Are you wanting to go out to eat or call in a to go order, but you can’t find the restaurant’s website, and you don’t know what to order? Well, College Station and Bryan restaurant menus can be viewed at a website called “Aggieland Menus”.

Aggieland menus is a cool website that lists many (if not all) of the restaurants in town, and links to a pdf of the restaurant’s menu. So even if the restaurant doesn’t have a website, chances are, the menu is posted at AggielandMenus.info.

It’s a free service, so if you are a restaurant owner, contact them. And if you are a restaurant owner and need a website, contact me…it’s what I do.

Here’s what they have to say about their service:

Aggieland Menus is a guide serving the restaurants and consumers of Bryan-College Station, Texas. We are a free service that provides the most information about your restaurant to the most important person… your customers!

They have a rating system on the site, a place to write a review on the restaurant’s own page. It’s very well organized, and a great resource.

We just recently downloaded Spice Bowl’s menu for my wife’s parents. They wanted to try something different, and have another look at the prices.

I also downloaded the Pho John’s menu to see if they served Bubble Smoothies…they do.

It’s just a great idea to serve the restaurants in town.

You can even subscribe to the site with a syndication reader and get Aggieland Menus news as soon as it’s posted on the site. Nice. (click on the little orange RSS button in the corner).

And by the way, don’t you think the best menus are the ones with beautiful pictures of food items on them? I love those.

You should call in an order and eat in! Or order from Freebirds and go eat at Central Park.

jorge

Tanglewood park is a great park in town. It’s one of three “Splash Pads” in Bryan and College Station (one at Tiffany Park, and another at Lincoln Center).

These Splash Pads consist of fountains and even a water bucket that fills up and splashes down. It’s great fun in the summer and spring. It’s about the size of a basketball court…maybe smaller, and there’s a controller to turn it on when it turns itself off. The cycle is about 10 minutes, and the controller is just a post with a round top that is touch activated.

I read this about the Splash Pads from the Eagle website:

Based on the popularity splash pads in Bryan/College Station, city officials are considering including more of these features in future projects, so be sure to keep the look out for new splash pads this Summer.

I called the City of Bryan Parks and Recreation, and they told me that the water is City Water, just like you’d get out of your faucet.

Tanglewood park has several covered pavillions, three playgrounds, a sand volleyball court and loads of picnic tables.

We really like this park. Not as much variety as Austin’s Colony (well, except for the Splash Pad) but great playgrounds, and although it’s a well know park, we’ve never had trouble finding empty picnic tables.

You can get there from Villa Maria, 29th or Texas Ave.

And just so you know, here’s a website that sells these Water Play Features. I don’t know if Bryan and College Station get them any cheaper, but we can assume that these are approximately the price our city paid as well. I guess that’s what our taxes are paying for. I’m OK with that. Parks are fun.

Go play.

Jorge

Mine was due and I found a great place to use. Quicker Sticker on Harvey Mitchell (behind the NAPA Auto Parts Store close to Longmire) was professional, clean, quick and was done in about 10 minutes.

In fact, I had a reverse light that was out, and he had one right there, so I let him install it and was on my way.

State inspections as all this company does.The shop is behind the Auto parts store, so it’s a little hard to find, but it’s there.

There’s bathrooms and a waiting area, but I didn’t have to wait.

They are open Monday - Friday 8am to 6pm and Saturday 9am to 5pm.

They charge the state required amount like everyone else (should).

If you don’t go here, there are a bunch of other places that do this sort of thing, but wherever you choose, I suggest going to a place that can do small repairs and installations and has parts like wiper blades and light bulbs, so you don’t have to leave, go ge the part, install it, then come back and get the sticker.

Unless you like doing that sort of thing.

Here’s what they check for in case you want to make sure and have everything working before you go:

• Check for broken or burned out turn signals, brake lights, tail Lights, license plate light and reflectors
• Check for missing or broken gas cap & seal
• Check operation and condition of seat belts
• Check parking brake function (does it holds the car)
• Window Tint (1988 or newer only, check too dark/below AS1 line on front windshield)
• Rear view mirror
• Interior high beam indicator, high beam switch, turn signal indicators
• Check wiper blade condition and operation
• EGR, TAC, PCV components (present/working)
• Check operation and condition of power steering and power brakes
• Check EVAP cannister and air pump
• Check operation and condition of headlights
• Exhaust System (including manifold, check for leaks, proper hangers)
• Check catalytic converter function (1984 or newer)
• Check tires (rim condition, tire condition, minimum tire tread, all lug nuts, splits/cracks)
• You must present proof of insurance at the time of inspection
• during the driving portion of the State Inspection Test, the vehicle will be checked for steering slack or binding, horn operation, brake stopping distance and parking brake function

Check your sticker. Here’s what the City of College Station Fine Schedule says:

MVI Sticker - Expired or No MVI $ 170.00
(Note: A citation for Expired/No MVI will be dismissed upon presentation of a receipt for a valid inspection sticker, provided it is presented to the Court and a $10.00 administration fee is paid in full within 14 days from the date the citation was issued. Additional Note: We cannot dismiss the citation if the MVI has been expired longer than 60 days from the date of citation.

jorge

First of all, a little info:

Lake Bryan is owned by the local utilities company (BTU). They use the lake to cool their power plant (which you can see from the lake). The use of the water by the power plant does not affect the consumption of the fish in the lake. Here’s what WikiPedia has to say about it:

Lake Bryan is a power plant cooling reservoir in Brazos County, 5 miles (8 km) west of Bryan, Texas, USA. The dam and lake are managed by Bryan Texas Utilities which uses the reservoir as a cooling pond for the electrical generators in the Dansby Power Plant. The reservoir was officially impounded in 1974.

My family visited for the first time on a very windy day. Our food practically flew off the picnic table. There were wind surfers, jet skiers, water skiers, volleyball players, a few dogs and other people having picnics. We’ll go back to swim and hang out in the Spring or Summer.

• Day use fee $3/car weekdays, $5/car weekends and holidays
• Open 6 am to 7:30 pm November 1-February, 6 a.m. to 9 p.m. March-October

There’s a restaurant (which is closed during the Winter Months), a boat landing and picnic tables just as you enter the park. The main area is across a bridge and into the center of the lake, where there’s a covered pavilion, volleyball courts, picnic tables, a beach, a stage and lots of room to run a play.

Here’s a list of things you can do at Bryan Lake:

1. Picnic: This is what we did. There’s a covered pavilion, and lots of picnic tables all around the area. There are BBQ pits at a few of the tables and a few large Oak trees for shade.

2. Swimming: It was too cold in December, but we will be back in the Spring to swim. In the middle section, at the tip, there’s a beach, and a large area cordoned off for swimming. Not sure how deep it was, but I’ll let you know.

3. Fishing: Looks like there’s Sunfish, Catfish, Crappie and Large Mouth Bass. Here’s what the Texas Parks and Wildlife Website has to say about it:

• Prey species: Sunfish make up the majority of prey fish in Lake Bryan. Gizzard and threadfin shad are present but in low numbers. Bluegill are the most abundant of the sunfish species, and most are < 4 inches in length. Threadfin shad were stocked in 1992 but do not contribute significantly to the prey base in Lake Bryan.
• Catfishes: Channel catfish abundance has declined over the past few years. Only one individual was captured in the 2006 gill net survey. However, the creel survey indicates anglers do target and catch channel catfish. Growth of channel catfish at Lake Bryan is slow.
• Largemouth bass: Largemouth bass are abundant in Lake Bryan with fish up to 21 inches collected in our electrofishing survey in 2005. The 18-inch minimum length limit has allowed the population to produce larger sized bass for anglers. The current lake record is over 7 pounds.
• Crappie: Catches of crappie in our monitoring surveys are typically poor. Though directed angler effort for crappie was low in the 2004 creel survey, anglers did report catching and releasing crappie, with some harvest of black crappie. Hybrid crappie were stocked in 1997 in an attempt to increase the numbers of crappie available for harvest; however, none were collected in the present survey.

4. Water Skiing: We saw some water skiing over by the dam. Looks fun.

5. Wind Surfing: There were two wind surfers on the windy day we went.

6. Mountain Biking: At the time of this writing, the trails are closed because of rain and mud, but I am definitely looking forward to hitting those trails. There’s an organization in town that even goes out periodically and services the trails to keep them nice and safe. Here’s a map of the Lake Bryan trails, and a place to find out the status of the trails at any given moment. (although the trails are not actually “closed” when they say “closed”, it’s just a reminder that the less they are taken care of, the more possibility there will be that they won’t be rideable in the future).

7. Hiking: Although the trails are perfect for mountain bikes, they are great for walking and birdwatching. Being a water area, there will always be interesting birds to look for.

8. Boating: There’s a boat ramp

9. Jet Skiing: Saw a couple of these while we were there.

10. Volleyball: There was at least one sand volleyball court that we saw. Looked in good shape.

11. Watch a show: There’s a stage out there. Not sure what ever happens on it, but it’s out there. Looks like a perfect place for an open mic night.

12. Eat at the Restaurant: Called The Hook Lakeside Bar & Grill“. They offer Catfish Tacos, Burgers, Po Boys and seafood platters at fairly decent prices.

13. Camping: I believe there’s an RV hookup per day charge as well as a tent charge. I can’t remember what it is, but I remember that there’s a thing called the “Honor Pole” where you pay what you owe. That’s fun.

Have fun.

jorge

We love the library. Each week we go and check out on average about 40 books. The limit per is 50 at one time, which we’ve never hit, probably because our library bag can’t hold that many books.

The Bryan and College Station (Larry J. Ringer) libraries are connected, so you can return your books to either library. They told me they make a round trip every morning for various reasons.

Both libraries have a 7 movie limit (DVD and VHS), and the movies are due back in a week. The late charges are pretty steep, so get them back on time.

We like the Bryan library most, although for convenience, we end up at the College Station one.

The Bryan library has the most children’s books of the two, in fact, there’s a whole second floor dedicated to children’s books. They also have a “new books” section for children’s books that is where we go first. We love the new stories and new illustrators featured in the new books.

The College Station library used to have a new children’s book section, but they got rid of it. I asked them about it and they asked me to fill out a request form, but nothing has happened since.

Both libraries have internet, and everything else you’d expect at a library.

Their movies are pretty good. They don’t have a huge selection, but it’s OK. We actually found “Meerkat Manor” the other day (which is great, if you haven’t seen it, check it out). They’ve got a bunch of “Reading Rainbow”, (remember LeVar Burton?), and although you won’t find too many new releases, if you are patient, some of them make it to their shelves. We’ve checked out the TV series “24″, the BBC series “Planet Earth”, March of the Penguins, various National Geographic episodes and Veggie Tales to name a few.

Something really cool about these libraries is that with your library card number, you can go online and manage your account. You can search for and request books, you can reserve copies of books (if there’s a wait, you can set up how they tell you it’s available…either by phone call or email). You can even renew checked out books and see when your checked out books are due back.

The one thing I have to go to their website for is their hours of operation. It’s all over the place.

Here they are:

Do you see the confusion? I don’t know how many times I’ve forgotten the hours and gone to one or the other and found it closed, only to have to drive across town to get to the other one.

And what’s up with Fridays and Saturdays closing at 5? I guess Librarians need some “personal” time too…I guess.

Besides the silly hours, the librarians are all very nice and very helpful. At the College Station Library, there’s a librarian there named “Autumn” who knows her way around the children’s section like nobody’s business. Ask her about anything and she’ll have a book for you, in fact, she’ll most likely have 5 or 6 books for you to have a look at.

We love the library.

It seems that children’s books can be late without incurring a fee. I haven’t asked them what the deal is with that (and have actually been pretty late and not been charged), but the movies are expensive if you go over. I think it’s like $1.50 per day over the due date. Ouch. Regular books incur a late fee too.

We just recently accidentally ruined a book (someone spilled water on it) and had to pay for a new book. That was a bummer.

I guess I’ve been talking all about the children’s books, but it’s where we spend most of our time. Both libraries also have a toys section with puzzles and legos and puppets. Pretty nice of them. But the rest of the library is great too. Again, everything you’d expect from a library.

The Bryan Library is in Downtown Bryan, and looks more like what a library should look like, whatever that means, and the College Station library is more modern, higher ceilings, more light, etc.

We’ll be there this week I’m sure.

jorge