Keepin' it weird in Austin

Aug 10-13 Texas

Funny thing - you’d expect that we would have had a dreamy nights sleep in our hotel last night after 5 straight weeks of being in a trailer. In truth, we were kept up by restless kids and a fairly uncomfortable bed. I must admit we were relieved to be back into the trailer for the next night - how scary is THAT?!?!? I am starting to think we are getting just a little too used to our life in the trailer - that is probably not a good thing (haha). Imagine the traveling we could do if we sold the house...hmmm.
Nah.

We had a great time exploring Austin - what a cool city. There is a really neat area (South Congress St) that is just like Queen St. in Toronto.
Tons of shops and restaurants - the weirder the better. In fact, there is a slogan you often see on stickers and t-shirts: “Keep Austin Weird”.Love it!
Anything goes in Austin - creativity is everywhere. I’ve never seen so many tattoos.
We went out one evening for ice cream along South Congress - just a trailer called “Amy’s”. Amazing ice cream, served to us through the window by a guy wearing a tin foil helmet. Yup - keepin’ it weird.
We could hear some live music nearby so went to find the source. It was a trio of guys playing outside on the patio of a bar, with basically no audience. They sounded great so we hung out on the sidewalk eating our ice cream and listening, and the girls danced up a storm! It was hilarious - they were loving it!



The band invited us to come on the patio to listen as we were obviously enjoying their tunes. So, unexpectedly AJ and I got to sit on a patio having a beer and listening to some live music. The band, named Jubal’s Lawyer, thought the girls vigorous dancing was awesome! We took some video and posted it to facebook, which the band saw and replied to - we are their #1 fans (earning us a demo CD from them).

With the incredible heat, the top priority was to find a spot for some swimming (the pool at our RV park was almost too hot (yes, hotter than Redden hot) so we needed some place cooler). Barton Springs was a natural spring that is open for swimming and WOW was it cooler - a consistent 68 degrees year round. Once your body recovered from the painful shock of going from 102 degree air temperature to 68 degree water, it felt fantastic!! There was a constant fog over the water from the hot air on the cold water - really eerie effect.

The following day, our next escape from the heat was to rent a ski boat for 2 hours out on Lake Travis. Ahhhhh - nothing like being on the water - absolutely love it. That’s our first chance on the trip to have a swim in a lake and it was great. Megan was strangely terrified with the way the boat bobbed (you’d never guess we have a sailboat??), but quickly got over it as we then zoomed around the lake.AJ and I had a great time gawking at all the mansions on the lake - whoa, this place has MONEY. The incredible lakefronts of these places can only be properly snooped from a boat, and we eagerly obliged.

In addition to hitting the children’s museum, we then spent some time enjoying the food of Texas - namely tacos and BBQ!! So many places are just trailers set up serving food - from coffee to ice cream to tacos - and they are amazing. “Torchy’s Taco” sounds a bit suspect but they made the most delicious tacos ever and came highly recommended. AJ had been there on a previous visit to Austin and also made sure we hit The Salt Lick for lunch one day. This place had a BBQ history going back to the original couple who settled there back in the mid 1800’s. This couple’s grandson was the first to try his hand at selling his BBQ cooking using the family’s longstanding recipe that was well-known in the area. He would set up and start cooking on a Thursday and stay there cooking and sleeping on a cot, selling the food all weekend long until it was gone. He would come home earlier and earlier as business took off, and things just grew from there. The restaurant is still at that location today and is a huge success - with a BBQ pit ten feet across. The ABSOLUTE best BBQ meat you could ever hope to enjoy - pure Texas.

On a separate note, we experienced our third reason for our travel medical insurance. Yup - Emily again! She got nailed in the mouth with a toy while playing (yeah, Megan sweetie, we know it was an accident) and had half of a tooth broke off. And here we were, wondering what all the tears were for once the blood had evidently stopped from the lip. Oh, there’s a tooth broken too? OK, off to the local dentist who took an x-ray and fixed up her tooth. They were great and Emily was a champ through the whole thing. And hey, she got a new princess toothbrush, so life is good. We are just about on a first name basis with the claims rep now. Maybe we’ll invite him to dinner along with our escaped convict pals - what a party it will be! Apparently, the fugitives are now suspected to be in the Arkansas area, which is where (gee, here’s a shock) we are heading on our route home. One more chance to become trailer park buddies!