Nomad's Adventures in Austin, TX

Even though Texas is pretty hot in the summertime, we're in no rush to leave. At the moment were situated in Austin, where we are house sitting for some good friends and enjoying this extraordinary city. We've discovered so many free or low-cost things to do here.

Highlights so far:

Deep Eddy pool, a glorious, crystal-clear swimming hole filled with spring-fed water:

 

Barton Springs pool, not as clear as Deep Eddy but also spring-fed - and you can look at fossils and chase little fish as you swim:

 

Cost for both pools: $3 per adult, $1 per child (for city residents... Which we aren't, but since we are house sitting, we counted ourselves as temporary residents)

The trail around Lake Austin, where I've been able to get in several enjoyable runs, including a four-miler with two of the women in my online Beachbody challenge group:

 

 

Cost: Totally free! Even parking near the trail is free. 

The Thinkery, a children's museum with an enviable outdoor climbing structure and loads of exploratory activities inside:

 

 

Cost: Free with the ASTC Travel Passport Program! (Totally worth it!)

And of course, many delicious and vegan-friendly places to eat:

Chi'Lantro, which is like a Thai version of Chipotle:

 

It was at Chi'Lantro that Trent ordered the famous kimchi fries... Picture an enormous pile of french fries covered in meat, kimchi, and squeezable cheese (he's an at-home vegan so he's always thrilled to go out and gobble up meat).

Sweet Ritual, a vegan and gluten free ice cream shop: 

 

Tacodeli, because can you go to Austin without getting tacos? I think not:

 

Summer Moon Coffee Bar, for coffee made with fire-roasted beans:

We're house sitting until the weekend and then we'll be moving back into the RV and settling in at a local campground. I'm thrilled that we have more time to explore this city! On the agenda for today: finally try some kolaches!

Scenes from Texas

We're in Texas now! AND we're Texans! With Texas plates and Texas driver's licenses! (However, a Texan friend tells me - and I believe her, because she seemed very serious about it - that we are  not actually residents until we make our chili without beans and have our photos taken amongst blue bonnets, some sort of flower that Texans apparently really love.) 

Yesterday we established our residency all in one day. It involved a lot of filling out of forms and writing of checks, but it got done and now we're Texans. Or fake Texans. Fexans. That sounds more honest. Trent is going to write a blog post very soon detailing how one obtains Texas residency. You know. Just in case you want to follow in our RV tracks.

As he'll describe, the first step to establishing a Texas residency is obtaining a legit Texas address. You could go whole hog and buy or rent a place, OR you could be cheap like us and get an address through the Escapees RV Club. 

 

That's right: you can get a mailing address that the DMV and tax offices will recognize and honor even though everyone involved knows that you're not a real live Texan. They will even welcome you to the state and do an Oscar-worthy job of acting like they want you here (I don't think that has ever happened to me at the DMV before now).

Escapees also has a campground, and that's where we're currently parked. Despite the heat (shockingly, it's hot), Clark is perfectly comfortable beneath a nice little stand of trees.

 

It's not a swanky RV park, but it's got everything we need and the management is super professional. They've clearly been doing this a while and know what RVers want, like laundry machines and shade.

 

To celebrate our Fexan status, Sam and I drove down to Houston today to visit the children's museum. Can I just say that Houston + heat + lots of children = a really loud museum experience? But that was fine. Sam enjoyed it, clearly:

 

 

 

A coup for us: the museum honored the ASTC reciprocal membership we have through the Kentucky Science Center, so the visit was free! (Parking was not.)