We arrived at Joe’s apartment in Round Rock (just outside Austin) pretty early in the afternoon on Friday. Kyle greeted us, but Joe was not yet home from work, so we all threw on swimsuits and went out to the pool to wait for him. Not a bad way to begin our visit!
That night, we all got cleaned up and headed out to one of Joe and Kyle’s favorite restaurants. Oasis is a four-story, mostly outdoor restaurant that faces Lake Travis. It was formerly a private home that was converted to the restaurant, and the view is absolutely stunning as the sun sets over the lake.
The night was cool (and by cool, I mean still in the 80s! But considering it was near 100 degrees during the day, that was cool), so we sat outside and enjoyed dinner and took in the view. Oasis also makes some great margaritas.
After dinner, we walked by a bunch of cool (random, but cool) sculptures on the way to the car. Paul particularly liked the one shaped like UFO.
On Saturday, we woke up and went to the gym in Kyle and Joe’s complex, and then put our bathing suits back on and headed to Schlitterbahn! Schlitterbahn is a huge water park in Texas. We spent the whole day there floating in the lazy river and the action river (same concept as the lazy river, but with big waves), hanging out in the giant hot tub (with swim-up bar!) and riding the slides. The best ride was definitely Dragon’s Revenge, their new water coaster. Sadly, we do not have any pictures from this day. Water and the camera do not mix. It was a perfect day, though - lots of sun! And we spent the WHOLE day in the park soaking up every bit of it!
By the time we got home it was getting later in the evening, but we got cleaned up and headed out on the town anyway. First stop was the Hula Hut for a late dinner. By that point, we were starving. Unfortunately, our waiter was not the best - the service was almost comically bad. We finally got fed, and the experience actually provided comic relief for the rest of the night.
After the Hula Hut, we went over to 5th Street - a stretch of really cool bars in downtown Austin. We ended up on the HUGE rooftop deck at a place called Maggie Mae’s. There, we enjoyed a few drinks and had a great time people-watching.
On Sunday morning, we all slept in a bit (except Joe - he had to go into work for a while. Yuck!). When he got back, Kyle and I left to do a little shopping at the outlet malls and a fantastic outdoor mall called The Domain. While we shopped ‘til we dropped, the boys were busy at home playing vintage video games. Who needs state of the art graphics when you’ve got Wolfenstein?
We’d planned on heading out of Austin on Monday morning, but our plans between Austin and Salt Lake were still a little vague at that point. Instead, we decided to stay one more day with Kyle and Joe in Texas.
Monday was a relaxing day, but also productive. In the morning, we went to Lifetime Fitness with Kyle. They have amazing facilities and it was really nice to get a long workout in there. After that, Paul took Obie downtown to find a dog park. He never found it, but they did get a nice long walk in, so the end result was the same: a tired pup. Kyle and I hit the pool again, this time with books in tow. I’m going to be tan by the time this trip is over! Meanwhile, we were doing laundry back at the apartment. That night, we re-packed our suitcases (they can get messy with all this traveling!) and packed almost everything back into the car so we were ready to hit the road the next morning. We were treated to a home cooked meal of bison burgers, corn, and tater tots, and then we all turned in early.
The next morning, Paul and I were up by 6:30 and at the gym shortly afterwards. After some quick showers, we finished up packing the car, and we were back on the road for our longest drive yet!
1 comments:
I LOVE what you are going, I'm jealous. I told Will we should move across the country and travel our way home....what a fun thing to do! Hope ya'll are doing well. Sorry Florida was so hot :\
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