Greetings From Austin!

Saturday morning we made the drive from Houston to Austin (and got a little lost along the way on back country roads with height limitations..yikes!). Since we'd decided that we'd be staying in Austin for a month we weren't ready to commit on any one RV park and were hoping to get a look at all of them before we made our decision. We were really hoping to not repeat the bad RV park experience we'd had in Houston. So, we reached out to our fellow RV blogging friend Yair, who by the way is now calling Austin his permanent residence. Yair had a nice long driveway and invited us to come stay with him over the weekend. Life was looking up and everything was kosher!

Greetings from Austin!

Our awesome accommodations at Yair's house!

But then (why is there always a BUT?...I guess good stories don't come without BUTS...but still...), then we started to call around to the local RV parks to see about pricing and availability. Yes, we've learned this lesson before, waiting until the last moment to find an RV park with a month long availability, but we've had so much up in the air lately that we weren't ready to commit to anything with any kind of lead time until we were already there.

So, we started with a list of five good parks. The list quickly dwindled down to two when our first three top choices didn't have availability for a full month. We drove by the remaining two and both had major downfalls- one was next to a major highway and would have been a repeat of Houston, and the other had a decent location but horrible showers. By horrible showers I mean a large room with concrete walls and prison like lighting where the shower head is just attached to one of the walls and the toilet is on the other wall, with two locks on the door. We were so discouraged about our choices that we almost decided to just pick up and move on at the end of the weekend.

I was really torn on that decision. I had been so excited to spend time in Austin again. Leaving before we even had a chance to see some of the city just didn't really feel right. We spent the day driving around the city and remembering what it was that we liked so much about Austin. It really is amazing how much Austin reminds me of Portland (overall atmosphere, attitude, neighborhoods, exercise culture). That night we printed a free pass to the local YMCA and attended a yoga class and went for a swim. The center was exactly what we'd been looking for- salt water lap pool, fun atmosphere with lots of people, sauna/steam room, and a long schedule of group classes. The monthly Couple membership rate was very reasonable as well. So, we decided that we'd go with the RV park with bad showers and just take all of our showers at the Y- this would even encourage us to go to the gym more often!

BUT then...then we called the RV park and it turned out that they had only had one space available with that availability, and they had already booked it out to someone else. WHAT? Again, this was a major downer. Yair was incredibly nice to let us stay a few more days at his house until we figured out what we were going to do. For some reason, two days later I had a feeling (yes, one of those mother knows best feelings) and we decided to give the RV park another call. Well, it was just our luck, someone had put in their notice that day and we could have their spot that afternoon! So now we are booked, for a month at the RV park and for a month at the YMCA. And that, guys, is how living in a trailer with no definite city to call home can sometimes be a big bummer! Thankfully everything worked out in the end!

Lunch with Yair

Now we are busy planning how we're going to spend our time here in Austin wisely. I'm making a long list of museums, parks, running trails, thrift stores, grocery stores and restaurants that we'll want to visit. Let's hope there will be no more mis-adventures in our near future!

Happy Austinites,

M.