A Few of the Many Faces of Austin

A week ago we moved just 10 miles to Oak Forest RV Park in East Austin, TX. We're spending a month here, it's somewhat quieter than our previous location but still an easy drive (depending on time of day) into town if we want to visit the city.

Texas is still challenging us with wintery weather, though it's changed from days that can't get out of the 30's to days of wet, wet, wet; be it a slight drizzle all day long or 2" of rain in 48 hours. We're looking forward to several rain-free days this week!

Right across the street from our RV park is Green Gate Farms. It's primarily a CSA, but also has a three-days-a-week (supposedly) farm stand. We walked over one day to check out the farm stand but it wasn't happening and we couldn't get any answers...but we did get some photos. We'll try the farm stand again on a sunny day, perhaps we'll get lucky then!

Barn cat.

Green Gate Farms has a bunch of happy looking Berkshire hogs.
They were very curious about us.

One misty day we needed to get out of the RV no matter how wet we got. We headed over to the Roy G. Guerrero Disc Golf Course near downtown Austin and proceeded to play this terrific course in the damp. We had it all to ourselves on this wet weekday, it's a beautiful course with some very long holes but not too much undergrowth to hide your discs.

I liked the contrast of brilliant green grass, brown trees, gray sky.
Soon all the trees will be leafed out, providing welcome shade from the Texas sun (that we haven't seen much of yet!).

We finally got a sunny day and did some walking downtown and came across the Hope Outdoor Gallery. This public space is open to all muralists, graffiti artists and community groups who want to paint positive messages in a public space.

Visit this space on a regular basis for an ever changing feast for the eyes.

Hans' longtime friends Ashley and Lila have lived in Austin for years. We've gotten together for dinners at our homes a few times already and one cold, sunny day recently Lila was able to join us on a hike at McKinney Falls State Park. We hiked the 2.8 mile Onion Creek Loop, saw lots of birds and checked out the falls, what a great day!

Hans and Lila at the upper falls.

Someone painted this detailed drawing in a hole in the falls!

Obligatory turtle pic!

Deep holes abound in the limestone bed of Onion Creek.

The lower falls.

Austin is a music city, you can find tons of live music any night of the week and with SXSW coming the number of musical events is astounding. Thousands of musicians will perform over the next few weeks at both official and unofficial SXSW venues, day and night. Not being night owls, early shows make us happy so you can be sure we'll catch a few shows over the next couple of weeks. We happened to catch an early evening show at a funky dive bar, the Carousel Lounge, recently.

Circus themed decor makes this dive bar an interesting venue.

With two sunny days in a row we figured some trail hiking was in order; we hoped the trails wouldn't be too muddy at McKinney Roughs Nature Park. We hiked seven of their 18 miles of trails with very little mud, good rolling terrain, lots of pretty forest and a few birds along the Colorado River portion.

Some of the pecan trees have been dated to around 200 years old!

Fossilized oyster shells were abundant along the Yaupan trail.

Good birding along the river.

Walking along the river we could see the high water line had once been head high!
Trees were just beginning to bud, this view will be very different in a few weeks - all green!

We've got a decent site at Oak Forest RV Park, the oak tree next to our rig is just beginning to leaf out and will look completely different by the time we leave. The annual rodeo begins in just a few days and this park is just down the road from the rodeo grounds so it is fully booked for the next couple of weeks.

Pull through site #16.

Stay tuned for more adventures in Austin!

A Week of Exploring Central Austin On Foot

We've spent the past week in the middle of Austin, TX at Pecan Grove RV Park; just a block from the Colorado River and enormous Zilker Metropolitan Park, and a short walk to downtown and several interesting neighborhoods.

Pecan Grove RV Park is old and funky. Just a few sites (maybe a dozen) are for short term stays, the rest (maybe 50 sites) are permanent residents. Tall RV's need assistance getting into their site due to low power lines. You maneuver in slowly as the park manager raises the power lines over anything sticking up on your roof with a long pole!

This RV park has been here for decades and the city has evolved around it. On one side is a new restaurant (coming soon, under noisy construction during our stay) and on the other side is a fancy new apartment building. The real draw for this park is its location, walking distance to the throbbing center of Austin, plus several bars, restaurants and food trucks in the surrounding neighborhood.

The weather this week has been unsettled, we had several days that never made it above 35 degrees, mixed up a couple of days that included some sun and temps in the low 60's. On the cold days we just bundled up in many layers and walked a lot. In fact, walking was really preferable to driving because traffic is awful in Austin!

Back in San Antonio when we met up with Eric and Brittany of RV Wanderlust fame, we learned they were also the founders of The Austinot, a hyperlocal blog about things to do in Austin...the perfect starting point for our explorations. Be sure to check it out if you're looking for things to do in this city.

Austin has many faces: music city, hipster haunt, food focused, edgy artists, active outdoorsy. I'll let the photos of our week of exploring the center of this bustling metropolis tell the story.

Texas State Capitol...on a bitterly cold, gray day.

Capitol dome.

A one-time Austin resident, blues guitarist Stevie Ray Vaughan is immortalized along the Colorado River.

From our RV park we could make a nice loop walk that included the pretty Zilker neighborhood and Zilker Park. Giant oaks are everywhere and many of the buildings on our walks use Texas limestone on their facade.

I loved the variety of limestone on this cute older home.

Another classic Texas limestone facade.

We walked several happening neighborhoods including Rainey Historical, 6th Street, South Congress (SoCo), South First. Dozens of interesting eating and drinking establishments enticed us; Austinites must really like to eat out!

Container building!

Bright murals can be found all over the place.

Enormous Zilker Park is just two blocks from the RV park. We practically had the place to ourselves on the coldest days, but once the sun showed its face mobs of people were out walking and running, paddling and swimming (at Barton Springs). I happen to be fascinated by turtles, and there were dozens!

Turtles with reflection, I.

Turtles with reflection, II.

Oh my that sun feels good!

Let's take a closer look...

Zilker Park backed by downtown skyline.

Continue upstream from Zilker Park along Barton Creek and it soon feels like wilderness right smack dab in the middle of the city.

Pretty, clear Barton Creek flows through a limestone canyon.

The crystal clear water flows over and around giant limestone boulders.
These must be wonderful swimming holes in the middle of summer.

If you like to eat out you will LOVE Austin! We don't eat out very often, but the sheer volume of inviting looking eateries tempted us several times this past week. Here are the places we tried:

Casa de Luz: We met a longtime friend of Hans, Darien, at this organic, vegan, macrobiotic dining and community center. Lunch is $12 and includes all you can eat soup, salad and beverage, plus a plate of whatever is being served that day. The food was healthy and tasty, though we thought it was a little pricey.

Bouldin Creek Cafe: Our RVing buddies, Amy and Rod of Go Pet Friendly fame, stay at Pecan Grove RV park for a couple of months every winter and recommended Bouldin Creek Cafe, saying they'd never had a bad meal there...we'll second that recommendation! Delicious vegetarian creations, breakfast served all day, decent prices, inviting, eclectic decor.

Lucy's Fried Chicken: Fried chicken seems to be a "thing" in Austin (and who am I to turn down a good plate of fried chicken?), and an article on the Austinot blog helped me narrow down my choices. I really liked the chicken, Hans thought it was just okay, he would have preferred a big fat meaty breast but the basket only had small pieces in it. Good cole slaw and flavorful mashed potatoes, though the potatoes were a bit too salty.

Whole Foods Store on Lamar: I've boycotted Whole Foods for ages, I cringed at their prices and pretty much refused to step in their stores for years. But when Amy told us what a unique store this particular Whole Foods was we just had to check it out. It's a flagship store, taking up a whopping 80,000 square feet. There are numerous places to relax and buy a bite to eat within the store: sushi, cookies, bistro, baked goods, a bar...and on and on. It really is an experience and I found some reasonably priced groceries to boot! This store changed my mind about Whole Foods.

Uncle Billy's Brew & Que: Uncle Billy's couldn't be located any better - it's right next door to the RV park. We met Rod and Amy there for a drink one evening and Hans and I stayed for dinner. Tasty brews and smoked chicken, yum!

Hans, Lisa, Amy and Rod at Uncle Billy's.

Moving on...
Today we have a short drive to another RV park on the Eastern edge of Austin where we'll settle in to a calmer environment for a month, continue our explorations of this city and wish fervently for a little sun to warm our bones!

Wrapping Up a Week in San Antonio

While most of our time in San Antonio, TX has been spent exploring various sections of the San Antonio River Walk, we did manage to check out a few of the local natural areas. San Antonio lies at the Southern edge of the Texas Hill Country and the Northern edge of the plains region so there are a couple of different ecosystems to explore.

One day we drove to the North end of the city hoping to hike in Government Canyon State Natural Area...unfortunately I missed the fact that they are closed Tuesday through Thursday so that didn't work out for us. But, just a few miles East are Crownridge Canyon Natural Area and Friedrich Wilderness Park.

Both of these parks are in Hill Country, and the landscape consists of rolling brush covered hills atop a bed of limestone, Texas Live Oaks provide welcome shade. Both parks have a few miles of paved trails and a few miles of natural trails. Friedrich Wilderness Park had one especially challenging trail, the Vista Loop, which traversed rough, exposed limestone shelves that provided a great workout.

The brush was so thick on these trails that photos were pretty much impossible!
Here,the trail is the limestone shelf upon the hillside.

Another day we headed South of town to the Medina River Natural Area. Again, there were several miles of paved trail and a few miles of natural trail. The vegetation was very thick (though still winter brown) and river view points were very few.

Typical view along the Medina River Trail, this would be a great place to ride your bike.

In my last post I described several days worth of exploring we did on the San Antonio River Walk, but we weren't done yet! Only a couple of miles from our RV park (Travelers World) is the lovely King William Historic District. Several blocks of elaborate homes built in the late 1800's are a treat for the eyes and interesting shops and restaurants are nearby on South Alamo Street and just across the river in the Blue Star Arts District.

Historic buildings along River Walk.

These beautiful old homes back up to the river.

Many of the old homes were built using local limestone like the one on the left.

A few fun eateries and art shops are in this complex.

The King William District was so convenient to our RV park and so inviting to stroll we returned there late one day to walk in the cool of the evening and enjoy the waning light of the day.

In search of a public restroom we continued our walk into downtown...the busy part of River Walk.
Saturday evening crowds were out in full force, every restaurant was packed and we were thankful we'd already eaten!

We enjoyed several meals with Travel Bug Susan and Bob, and had a great time getting to know them and their adopted city. On our dark and dreary last full day in town we went to Random Beer Garden, a unique venue in Boerne, TX with 80 craft beers on tap, several food trucks on any day you visit, indoor and outdoor seating, an in-ground jumpy thing for the kiddos, games (like corn hole) for the adults, live music on Friday and Saturday nights...a really neat place to hang out.

Getting goofy with Susan and Bob.

We've had a terrific time in San Antonio and found the weather to be very interesting! The city sits on the Southern edge of the Northern (cold) jet stream and the Northern edge of the tropical (warm) jet stream...so daytime temperatures went from quite cold to very warm more than once during our stay. So while Saturday was 80 degrees and humid, our travel day Monday is forecast to be in the 40's and rainy.

We're off to Austin tomorrow where we'll meet up once again with some RVing friends and some longtime friends of Hans.